The Christian Nation Road

I’m a Christian, That’s Why I'm Skeptical of the Path

A lot of Christians today say they want a Christian nation. One would think, as a pastor, I would too. The Bible and history make my position more complicated.

The reasons any given individual wants a Christian nation are countless. Our human tendency to wistfully yearn for a time in our childhood or youth when we perceived faithfulness more fully permeating society can play a part.

But nostalgia isn’t the only motivation. If we believe that God’s truth is the truth, a country that actively chooses His way over human alternatives sounds mighty alluring. In a society where both Catholic and Protestant organizations have the scars of prosecution for simply trying to function according to their Christian convictions, the pull grows stronger.

The Sirens’ songs had quite a pull, too. That didn’t mean sailors should steer toward them.

We may not have a gleaming example of a “Christian nation” here in the United States — or anywhere in the world — today, but that’s not for lack of effort or good intentions. The idea of making a nation “Christian,” whether by direct implementation of Biblical laws or something more subtle, is ever seductive to God’s people. Oh, to be like the other nations, albeit with heavenly imprimatur.

At least since the conversion of Emperor Constantine, we have seen attempt after attempt to create a Christian nation. The remnants of past attempts linger today: technically, most countries in Europe are “Christian nations.”

Ostensibly Christian as they may be, with state churches supported by taxes, those churches are largely ossified remains of past devotion. Church attendance in Europe has been abysmally low for decades. Instead of keepers of a living faith, established churches became museum curators, serving tourists come to reflect on fossils of belief.

How did it happen? Simple: the decline in church attendance there (and, frankly, here) gives a good sense of how many people went out of societal expectation rather than deep conviction. Once social necessity faded, people found things they felt more pressing to devote their time to.

Before someone says, “But at least they were in church,” let’s head that off. A bunch of people showing up in a building to do rituals they don’t believe in so they aren’t social pariahs is an abominable strategy for genuine Christian discipleship. Instead of helping people grow in faith, it sends them into each week with a belief they are “good enough” and toting a fire insurance policy should the whole God thing prove real.

Societies with the institutions of Christianity can be quite good at keeping people away from Jesus. Superficial piety at church flows comfortably into superficial morality at home. Post-Christian cultures flaunt their immorality, but we would be mistaken if we think hiding indiscretions to avoid shunning is a more God-pleasing arrangement.

Victorian England looked better, but was it really better? Pre-independence colonial America, under a “Christian” king, for that matter, looked better, but was it? Our ancestors may have sounded way more Christian than our present compatriots, but the spiritually explosive Great Awakenings tell a different story. They pulled down the cultural façade many had hidden their lack of faith behind.

Jesus talked about societies like that, because the Pharisees whom He regularly sparred with were great at forming them. “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves!”

Those first-century religious leaders were savvy at implementing a mixture of God’s Law and their various accretions to it, but not in helping those under them to know God. When Jesus called the religious leader Nicodemus to rebirth, it wasn’t because the latter was a Biblical ignoramus or libertine. The problem was Nicodemus needed to make the step forward of knowing the Savior and not just knowing and obeying stuff. He looked “righteous,” he acted “righteous,” but all of us are sinful and his — and our — only hope is described in Romans 5:6-9: the righteous Jesus dying and rising for us who are unrighteous.

The Pharisees’ additions to God’s law elevated their status but obscured any genuine pursuit of righteousness. They made it far harder by distracting people with superficial worldly concerns, affirming people for keeping up appearances instead of keeping with the Lord.

If a truly Christian land were within our grasp — one where God’s good laws were kept and justice and mercy reigned supreme — everyone, Christian or not, would benefit. But our sinful nature always gets in the way.

Part of the genius of the United States and its Founding Fathers was to focus on a government that restrains outright civil evil (like murder) and stays out of the way of the church, instead of one that confused the roles of country and church. Modeled as it was on a Presbyterian church’s structure (of checks and balances) rather than doctrine, the U.S. Constitution’s system rightly anticipated that even well-intentioned people become corrupt if given enough power.

Our frequent gridlock, bane to Democrats and Republicans alike, is our system doing a decidedly Christian work of hindering evil. While a legal system pliant to the will of those claiming to further Christian interests might feel like the Christian goal, the accountability of Congress, the President and the Judiciary checking each other hews closer to what the Bible exhorts.

Scripture is clear that human beings are sinful and unworthy of absolute control. Divided power acknowledges that reality to the benefit of both believer and unbeliever.

Both major American parties provide reminders of why we need this all the time. They love to claim Biblical mandate for their efforts and, at times, rightly so. But I need not go any further back than this very week to see both parties acting aggressively anti-Christian.

In Colorado, Democrats took legal aim at a Christian kids’ camp for holding to their Biblical convictions. Meanwhile the Republican-led Department of Homeland Security yesterday ended refugee status for Afghan Christians, which, as Fox News notes, is tantamount to handing them off for execution because of their faith.

If our attempts to draw a mere stick figure of faithful governance come up painfully short, why would we attempt a Michelangelo? The framers of the Constitution were right when they focused on restraining what leaders did, rather than empowering them.

Christians should care about and participate in our government, but with humility. Attempting to achieve more than restraining our worst impulses is a monument to pride, not piety.

The Founding Fathers, Christian believers and skeptics alike, knew this thanks to twin experiences. They’d witnessed with appreciation the beauty of Christian revival and the tyranny of “Christian” government.

The Great Awakening showed the former, as the false religiousness of society fell for so many early Americans, replaced by genuine faith in Jesus. This came from committed individuals preaching the Gospel of Grace, not a government’s or state church’s mandates. Even an avowed deist like Benjamin Franklin recognized the positive for society of the Awakening’s conversions.

No wonder they could so clearly see the lie when the English government claimed divine right to its prerogatives.

Seeing the benefit of an unhindered Church and hindered government, they sought to pass down just such an arrangement. The church wouldn’t get to pull the strings of temporal power, but the Founders had witnessed the mighty work of God happening in spite, not because, of such power. The church would get a better gift: a government reined in from tainting Gospel efforts.

As a pastor I don’t want a “Christian nation,” because it will fail every time, tarnishing the Gospel as it does. Sooner or later, every attempt will follow the same path of hindering Gospel purposes while, diabolically, giving people permission to think they’ve done their duty.

Jesus’s call to make disciples is simpler and better. He knew we couldn’t create a perfect kingdom, but we could tell of the only perfect King. A Church thus Heavenward focused is a road God uses to guide people there.

A church of earthly good intentions — well, we know where the road those pave goes.