Christian Nation-Not!

Gregory Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation gave eloquent voice to the vague feeling I had a couple years ago when I went to a chapel service on memorial day at the Christian University in which I teach. There seemed to be something terribly wrong about singing the Star-spangled banner, reading parts of the constitution, and watching decorated military personnel doing an armed salute, as we sat below the cross before we began singing about serving the suffering Savior.

Boyd begins by explaining the problem with calling ourselves a Christian Nation:

“Christian means ‘Christlike,’ and there never was a time when America as a nation has acted Christlike.” [107]

In the words of Fredrick Douglas:

“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad,corrupt, wicked…. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt,slaveholding, women-whipping, credle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of the land Christianity.”

He explains from a biblical and historical perspective the temptation we have with conflating the two kingdoms:

“The lesson of history, a lesson the Devil has known all along is this: The best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the kingdom of the world- for then it becomes the kingdom of the world! The best way to get people to lay down the cross is to hand them a sword” [95]

“The assumption that society’s problems can be solved by empowering the right ideology, whether this be a democratic, Marxist, Islamic, or Christian ideology, constitutes a fundamental denial of the Lordship of Christ”[96]

“The kingdom-of-the-world assumption- to conquer the world for the glory of God- is in essence the very thing the Devil tempted Jesus with.” [98]

“We are the light; they are the darkness. Our wars are therefore ‘holy’ wars. With all due respect, this is blatant idolatry” [109]

Boyd makes it clear that he is not advocating turning our nation into atheistic, communist Russia, but that we recognize the difference between cultural Christianity and the kingdom of God.

“Civil religion is good, if not necessary for a healthy culture.”

“Problems arise when we fail to see that the civil religion of Christianity has no more kingdom-of-God significance than the civil religion of Buddhism, Hinduism, or the ancient Roman Pantheon” [112]

To those that would criticize the approach he is advocating as impractical, he responds:

“If your response to this “power under” approach is impractical, if not morally irresponsible, perhaps this too reveals that you have been conformed to the pattern of this world (Rom 12:2) and have allowed yourself to trust “power over” rather than power under” Perhaps it reveals that you have placed more faith in worldly “common sense” than in the resurrection. Perhaps it reveals that worldly effectiveness has replaced kingdom faithfulness as your primary concern.” [101]

“However much we lose- even if it’s our own life-we are to believe in the resurrection. Ultimately God wins, and echo one of our acts of loving self-denial will eventually be shown to have played a role in history.” [105]

“There is a general principle behind this observation: the thing that creates the need for violence is the thing that ensures that it will be countered with more violence- namely, the idolatrous depravity of the human heart. So long as hearts are depraved, people will live and die by the sword, for the tit for tat kingdom is forever exchanging blows. There is therefore no need to worry about the theoretical possibility of too many people “turning the other cheek” and “loving their enemies.” Until the kingdom of God is established on the earth, we can unfortunately be assured there will always be governments and others creating situations that call for violence, and governments and others willing to address that situation through violent means.” [174]

“The radical countercultural and revolutionary movement that Jesus birthed has, in our country (as in every other “Christian” country), been largely reduced to little more than a preservation society for national civil religion” {181]

“But if we lose our rights, some people object, we lose our abilty to speak into people’s lives and into culture at large. In response I simply ask, where is your faith? Our power to speak into people’s lives and into the culture has never been given by Ceasar, and therefore can’t be taken away by Ceasar. Civil religion worries about such things, but not the kingdom of God. Our power has been our willingness to imitate Jesus, our willingness to bleed for others as Christ has bled for us.” [182]

His prescriptive plan for those of us who call ourselves Christian who live in this nation is as follows:

“In following the example of Jesus [which is after all our sole calling], we should publicly side with all who have been or continue to be harmed by our nation.”

“Doing the kingdom always requires that we bleed for others, and for just this reason, doing the kingdom accomplishes something kingdom-of-this world activity can never accomplish. It may not immediately adjust people’s behavior, but this is not what it seeks to accomplish. Rather, it transforms people’s hearts and therefore transforms society.” [116]

“It is a godly wisdom that is willing to suffer for others and that can discern the most effective way of doing this. It’s a wisdom that effectively manifests the life and love of the kingdom of God, while exposing the demonic dimension of the kingdom of the world.” [185]

I hope that this brief summary of talking points pushes your buttons enough to read more or think critically about your position on the relationship between your faith and this nation. While I do not fully embrace the pacifist perspectives that Boyd echoes, I did find that his explanation of the dangers of equating our kingdom of God agenda too closely to our government’s national agenda helpful. It doesn’t matter how “Christian” the founding fathers sounded or how sincere the Puritans were as they tried to portray their faith in the laws of their society. As soon as you build an empire, especially one as lavish as America, you can be assured that on a very basic level the kingdom of our nation in this world does not share the basic values of our kingdom that is not of this world.
But we are called to be salt and light in this world and so my questions remain about how much my moral views, which are formed by my faith, ought influence how I vote. Of course for basic things like murder and theft, I believe that these things are wrong and I want laws and politicians that support these values. On the other hand I do not want- as Islam’s Sharia law would have it- adultery to be illegal though I believe that it is immoral. Where issues like gay marriage and welfare reform fit in these categories is not altogether clear, and requires significant thought about the difference between the appropriate spheres of the two kingdoms. I have a long way to go, but feel hopeful that in spite of, and not because of who we have in our nation’s offices, the kingdom of God will advance and will overcome.