In my last post I looked at my ancestry―in particular, to my dad's Northern Irish immigrant family and, on my mom's side, to my 7th great grandfather Thomas Angell's association with Roger Williams in 17th century Rhode Island―to portray them as pointers to the problems associated with what today is generally referred to as "Christian Nationalism." On the one hand, insisting on the maintenance of a "Christian" state identity of whatever sort is often a proxy for a nationalism of another, transparently less laudatory sort, namely, ethnic nationalism. On the other hand, the wedding of church and state fails to afford citizens the right of freedom of conscience and, as Williams presciently observed, inexorably harms the church, turning it from a "garden" into a "wilderness" like the very world it was designed to transform.
"Christian Nationalism" is, to be sure, a somewhat slippery term with a range of possible manifestations. At one end of the scale there is garden variety "civil religion," with vaguely defined assumptions about American "values" and ceremonial nods to "God," for example, in public prayers and in the 1954 addition of "under God" after "one nation" in the Pledge of Allegiance. At the other end of the spectrum is the now passé hard line ideology of the late Rousas John Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen known as "Theonomy" which, as the name implies, advocates the adoption of the Old Testament Law (minus the "ceremonial" laws supposedly fulfilled in Christ), including its penalties for disobedience, by nation-states today.
A taxonomy of the various manifestations of such Christian Nationalisms is obviously beyond the purview of a blog post or short article. What I mean by the expression, "Christian Nationalism," has been nicely articulated by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry in their 2020 sociological study, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. In their words:
Simply put, Christian nationalism is a cultural framework―a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems―that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civil life. But the "Christianity" of Christian nationalism is of a particular sort … It is as ethnic and political as it is religious. Understood in this light, Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively "Christian" (reflecting this fuller, more nuanced sense of the term) from top to bottom―in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values, and public policies―and it aims to keep it that way (p. 10).
America, on this understanding, is an explicitly "Christian" nation; consequently, government has the responsibility to privilege Christianity over other religions, or indeed irreligion, in the public sphere. Note that on such an understanding, the notion of America being a "Christian" nation has both historical ("indicative") and aspirational ("imperative") aspects. In this post, I will deal with the former of these.
The idea that America is, and has always been, a "Christian" nation is, to be sure, simply assumed naïvely in large swaths of popular Christianity. Indeed, in many an "evangelical" church, no one bats an idea at the presence of American and Christian flags displayed side by side. Nor are "patriotic" sermons or programs regularly frowned upon in services on the Sunday nearest to the Fourth of July.
I wish I had a dime for every time I ever heard a Christian―usually after lamenting the "decline" of American morality―quote a single verse from one of the latest and most obscure of all Old Testament books, 2 Chronicles:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land (2 Chron 7:14).
In more recent history, the same instincts that have led American Christians to apply this verse to America have, almost certainly as a result of their consciences feeling a twinge of guilt for supporting the irreligious, profane Donald Trump, led many of them preposterously to attribute a "Cyrus"-like role to Trump, referring to the Persian King Cyrus the Great who, in 538 BCE, decreed for Jewish exiles in Babylonia to return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem (Isaiah 44:28-45:13; Ezra 6:3-5; 2 Chronicles 36:23; Daniel 9:25). Most pertinently in this connection, Cyrus is referred to in Isaiah 40-55 both implicitly, as God's "servant" (41:2), and explicitly, as God's "shepherd" (Isa 44:28) and even as his "anointed" one (i.e., "Messiah!" [45:1]). Thus, Trump's apologists implied, God had analogically called this ungodly man to "deliver" America from its evil, liberal, secular "exile" and "bring America back" to the greatness―and indeed "Christian" character― that is both her birthright and her commission.
Such notions as these imply what may best be described as a covenantal view of America, a sort of religious aspect to the American "exceptionalism" so many like to claim for their country. Like Israel of old, God had in times past raised up America―by implication, white, Christian America, considering the continent was already populated―to be his special, anointed people to carry out his redemptive purposes for the world. Besides the breathtaking arrogance of such a point of view (akin to that of my British forebears in their imperialistic, halcyon days of old), one simple hermeneutical problem plagues it. And this problem is fatal. To put it simply: America's role cannot rightly be considered analogous to that of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. Let me be as clear as I can: from the perspective of the New Testament which these Christians ostensibly consider to be Holy Scripture, it is the church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles "justified" by faith in, and in union with, Christ, who now constitute the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16). The church, the beneficiaries of the promised blessings of the Abrahamic (Galatians 3; Romans 4) and New (Romans 2:25-29; 2 Corinthians 3) Covenants, are the covenant people of God in this, the "already" stage of the eschaton. Consequently, it is simply unacceptable and irresponsible to attribute such a lofty status to America, let alone to attribute the nation's vicissitudes to its perceived faithfulness or lack thereof to selective―and, I might add, self-servingly selective―moralistic standards. God's sovereign purposes simply cannot legitimately be divined in such a fashion.
It is, as I said, unacceptable and irresponsible to do so. It is also, as even a cursory reflection on our history attests, simply unhistorical. Indeed, as I have often opined, the misconception that America is, and has always been, a Christian nation can only be maintained via a naïve amalgamation or conflation of the 17th century New England Puritans and the Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787. To be sure, the Puritans who settled in Massachusetts viewed their settlement in Calvinist terms as an outpost of God's Kingdom in a hostile, perishing world, and thus fused, as it were, the civic aspects of the colony with those of the church (it was his dissent concerning this very fusion that forced Roger Williams to flee Salem for greener pastures south in Rhode Island). Indeed, John Winthrop, in his famous lecture, "Model of Christian Charity", delivered on 21 March 1630 in Southampton before he and his group of Massachusetts Bay Colonists embarked on the Arbella for Boston, evoked Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-16) in referring to their settlement as a "city upon a hill," an image used to great effect by more recent leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (who famously added the adjective "shining" to the phrase) to burnish the nation's already-robust civil religion.
No doubt many Christians in the latter half of the 18th century would have agreed that Christianity, understood in orthodox terms, should inform the social and civic order. But such was not the dominant viewpoint of most of the Founders of the nation (see especially Messiah University historian John Fea's Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?). To be sure, there are those who, based on what I consider the use of selective evidence (and a dollop of wishful thinking), argue otherwise (e.g., George Fox University's Mark David Hall, Westminster Seminary President Peter Lillback, and a host of lesser lights like David Barton and Eric Metaxas). And, to be sure, among the Founders there were some who could be fairly described as orthodox, and even "evangelical" Protestants (e.g., the Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon, Patrick Henry, John Jay). Others, however, were nothing of the sort. John Adams, though raised Congregational, evolved (devolved?) to Unitarianism. Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were rationalists who denied the deity of Christ and comfortably fit within the Enlightenment Deism of the period. Meanwhile, in his 1794 work, The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine wrote:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any other church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Others were reticent to express their beliefs in much detail. George Washington, for example, was an Anglican, who served for more than a decade in the vestry of his church in Virginia. Nevertheless, he was not a communicant; indeed, he was once rebuked by the Rector of St. Peter's Church in Philadelphia for getting up and leaving the service before Holy Communion was celebrated. Washington likewise rarely mentioned Christ in his writings, normally referring to God in the same terms (e.g., "Providence") popular among the Deists of the day. Similarly, James Madison was raised as an Anglican, but wrote little of his personal beliefs.
What is important, however, was Madison's clear view on religious freedom, based, as he saw it, on Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms. At the Virginia Convention of 1776, he authored the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights, which stated, in words that could have been written by Roger Williams himself, that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” In 1785, while still serving in the legislature, he authored a petition entitled "Memorial and Remonstrance", in which he provided 15 arguments against state support of churches. This standpoint, of course, reached its most famous expression in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, drafted by Madison and adopted by Congress on 15 December 1791, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Famously, Thomas Jefferson, in his 1802 Letter to the Danbury Baptists, utilized the expression, "wall of separation between Church & State," to express what he thought the amendment implied, religion being the sole province of one's conscience. Even before this amendment was ratified and religious liberty thereby codified, this ideal of religious liberty was expressed by none other than President George Washington in his 1790 Letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. Even more explicit was the Treaty of Tripoli, signed on 4 November 1796. Article 11 of the treaty reads thus:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Needless to say, there have been multiple efforts to blunt the impact of this evidence (by, e.g., the aforementioned David Barton and Rick Scarborough). None have been successful in swaying the vast body of scholarly opinion, however, and for good reason. Any attempt to dictate or privilege certain religious beliefs runs counter to the clear language of the various documents, not to mention the example provided by the Founders themselves. Religious belief and praxis must be subject to the dictates of one's conscience, not the strong arm of the State or the peer pressure of any majority or plurality of the citizenry. Such is crystal clear. And, as Roger Williams warned, and recent events in America have demonstrated quite clearly, the attempt to do so is disadvantageous, not only to the state, but―and especially so―to the church as well.
That still doesn't answer the question of how Christians should work to promote their faith and its ethical implications in the public realm. That will be my focus in the next post.
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