SHEL: As you may know at Mercy Church we teach on Jesus’ clear statements that His Kingdom is NOT of this world (that includes the United States!). Throughout the New Testament there are numerous assertions that ultimately all human governments are broken and blessed AT THE SAME TIME. SO to claim any nation is “Christian” without in the same breath saying the same nation is “Under the influence and dominion of evil” is to miss the clear teaching of the Bible.

John, Jesus and Paul are quick to point out that centralized human systems are easily and always corrupted by the powers of Evil. Therefore, we must never claim any human system is entirely “blessed by God” because once we do that we are unable to claim the prophetic role of the Church against the creeping evil of our own sinfulness in those systems. The church should have an uneasy and challenging role in any and every nation it is in - blessing it and calling it on the carpet.

In some ways Republicans and Democrats who are also Christian have missed the genius of the founders of America – THEY understood that the more centralized power becomes – the increase in corruption escalates. They created a system that recognized human sinfulness and therefore works to continually decentralize power.

Think about it.

States were to counter-balance nationalization and nationalism (they saw this extreme in the French and English systems – both pre and post revolutions). Hence the Federal and State Governments checked each other.

In the Federal system the courts, executive and congress were to check each other.

The military was to checked by civilian control AND by states having the right to have their own militaries to check the federal military.

BUT IT DIDN’T STOP THERE

The religious and secular institutions were to not allowed consolidate political power by making all of them equally free!! AND NONE to be captive or captivate the state.

SO our founders and the BIBLE clearly tells us that there is no such thing as a “Christian” nationalized system of governance. RATHER believers should, when in power, be just and fair and grace filled. BUT not seek to make a government, ruled and run by humans, a “christian” thing.

That is the idolatry that Jesus refused in His ministry on earth.

HE REFUSED to join the political parties of His day. He refused to fight Rome. He refused again and again. HE made the point “My kingdom is not of this world” and started the Church to be an agent of inner change that manifests in life change.

Christians do not create “civil religions” we rather engage with Jesus in all areas of life.

I am a conservative when it comes to Jesus – He’s the life source and savior. Big business and Big government are not the answer – the founding fathers (and mothers) understood this – would to God Americans would look at the big picture of their teaching. It’s very Jesus-centered – We can’t handle the power…so in that way, only in that way, can we call America “Christian” vs. secular or muslim or whatever…

Amen.

Christian nation?
KELO AM’s Greg Belfrage devoted part of his Wednesday morning air time to the question, “Is America a Christian nation?”

Most answers to that question seem to cherry pick quotes from the Founders – pious quotes to infer a “Yes” and Deist/unorthodox quotes to infer a “No.”

I think that the Constitution was framed by leaders whose world view, values and common language were shaped by the Christian Bible – but who left ultimate questions of human destiny to the intersection of individual conviction and religion/philosophy rather than government.

So, if “Christian nation” means a government set up to propagate the Gospel of Christ – my answer would be “No.”

But if you mean a nation built on Christian assumptions about reality – my answer would be “Yes.”

Ah, how Anglican. A “Yes and No” answer. But here are some of the assumptions from which America might be described as a Christian nation:

1. Recognition that humanity is not and cannot be perfect (depravity of man, original sin, fallen nature). Reading The Federalist Papers reveals the reasoning leading up to Constitutional “checks and balances” and other decentralizations of power. The Founders, without using the specifically Christian theological language, assumed a world in which people would inevitably seek to coerce and exploit one another. Majorities would bully minorities. Elitist factions would selfishly manipulate the majority. This is why statists and Utopians (and Utopian statists) tend to be non-, nominal or heterodox Christians. Once one rejects notions of inherent sin, one rejects a political system designed to frustrate the worst excesses of the fallen race.

2. Affirmation of individual value apart from the collective. True, the Founders (being sinful humans, after all!) missed the mark when it came to the treatment of all kinds of souls who were not white male landowners. But their own values became the source of national critique and reform. Just as Jesus spoke the radical affirmation that, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27), America was founded upon the idea that government exists to protect the rights of the individual, rejecting traditional views of the individual as a resource for the honor of the state, race or tribe or even a national god and religion.

3. Conviction that human value is God-given, not governmentally defined. The Bible frequently asserts the nobility of the “smallest” human being over/against the high and mighty of the world. Christ himself takes a wretched form while on trial before theocrats and bureaucrats. Some of our legal rights under Articles IV thru VIII of the Constitution rest on this foundation.

Certainly, these assumptions can be (and have been) divorced from Christian theological language – and the Constitution supports this by prohibiting “establishment of religion.” Yet denial and ignorance of the Christian antecedents to our freedoms is a sure way to erode the liberty we enjoy. Willful ignorance of Christian foundations – especially the Founders’ assumption that our rights derive from a transcendent source – assures the acceptance of secular myths designed to exploit individuals as fodder for “isms” and “ologies.”