Here's Princeton historian Allen Guelzo:
If, in Jefferson’s words, the Constitution had erected a “wall of separation” between the church and the federal government, there was no corresponding wall between church and culture. Closed off from making policy, churches organized independent societies for Bible distribution, for alcoholism reform, for observance of the Sabbath, and for suppressing vice and immorality. And, they grew. By the time the French liberal Alexis de Tocqueville took his celebrated tour of the United States in the 1830s, he was amazed to find that while “in the United States religion” has no “influence on the laws or on the details of political opinions,” nevertheless, “it directs the mores” and through that “it works to regulate the state.”
The question Tocqueville did not ask was whether American religion would always be content simply with cultural dominance, and might not seize an opportunity, if it presented itself, to assert a political role.
In my last post, I argued that the notion that America is an explicitly "Christian" nation has no legitimate historical or constitutional basis. This, of course, has not stopped huge numbers of politically conservative Christians―everyone from old school, postmillennial Theonomists like Greg Bahnsen and more nuanced, contiguous/adjacent "Federal Vision" advocates like Peter Leithart and Doug Wilson on the Reformed side of the spectrum, to the far more numerous variations of "Religious Right" evangelicalism, including the growing number of neo-charismatic believers that Brad Christerson and Richard Flory have dubbed "Independent Network Charismatic" Christianity, on the other― from believing either that such is so or, even if not, that the church has the responsibility/mission to make it so, to advance so-called "Christendom." Common in such thinking, particularly on the fundamentalist and neo-charismatic end of the spectrum, is the naïve belief that America has been granted some sort of "covenantal" role in God's purposes, and that they, the real Christians, have the right to a privileged role in the nation's affairs. If such is so, on this way of thinking, America's fortunes, like that of Israel and Judah of old, are determined by its obedience or lack thereof to "biblical" standards of morality, selectively determined. As one might expect, these "standards" align nicely with the platform and priorities of the G.O.P.; hence their determined effort to wield influence via the political process, through electing the "right" people who will pass "right" legislation and appoint the "right" judges.
Hence also their hysterical reaction to Joe Biden's substantial electoral victory in November. Thus―as if his ignorant and self-righteous flouting of California's COVID rules were not enough―on the 21st of January the "respectable" fundamentalist California pastor John MacArthur snidely tweeted, "It’s official, one nation in rebellion to God with liberty and social justice for some." (One wonders when America ever was in obedience to God: when we made a home for ourselves by stealing land and killing off millions of the continent's aboriginal inhabitants? when we marginalized St. Paul's injunction to "submit … to the governing authorities" [Romans 13:1] and rebelled against the crown? when we enslaved Africans and later engaged in systematic discrimination against their descendants? when we separated migrant children from their parents at the border? Such historical myopia simply boggles the mind.)
Of course, not all Christians, even many who self-identify as evangelicals, think this way. One thinks of Anglican New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, or the historian Randall Balmer, referred to in my last post (not to mention those in the Anabaptist tradition). But such voices have a tendency to be drowned out in the public square by the louder, more strident ones of the Religious Right. And this inexorably raises the pertinent question: Is this desire for the church to exercise political power and make America a Christian nation legitimate? What does the Bible have to say, if anything, about this?
Years ago I pointed to a remarkable text in Paul's Letter to the Ephesians (yes, I remain part of the minority convinced that Paul, not some anonymous "Paulinist," wrote what the late New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce memorably called "the quintessence of Paulinism") that, I believe, points us in the direction of an answer to this question. Ephesians 1:9-10 occurs in the middle of a long encomium (Eph 1:3-14) loaded with majestic praise to the triune God for the full sweep of his saving purposes ranging from eternity past through history to its ultimate consummation. The language is so glorious that one can be excused for taking it all in with less than total comprehension of what exactly the apostle is saying. The key text is verses 7-10:
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth. (Ephesians 1:7-10, trans. NET Bible)
A close reading of these verses (here I provide a summary of what I argued there in more exegetical detail) indicates that Paul is making a two-stage argument in verses 9-10:
First, God has now revealed his previously hidden "secret" plan and intention for the "fullness of times" (1:9-10a). The term translated "secret" in verse 9 is the Greek term mysterion; hence the regular translation "mystery" in most older versions. A "mystery," considering the term's conceptual background in the use of the Aramaic term rāz in the Book of Daniel, is a revealed secret, an aspect of God's decree for the denouement of history that had previously been hidden, but now revealed for the first time. In verse 9 Paul explicitly states that God had already "disclosed" (gnōrisas) this secret to "us" (hēmin). Not only that, but God's disclosure of the mystery was in line with (kata) God's sovereign and eternal purpose (eudokia, his "good pleasure" or "decree"). In verse 10 the apostle continues by explaining that the sovereign purpose of which he is speaking has in view (eis) God's "administering" (oikonomia) the "fullness of times," i.e., the time of the consummation of his purposes. In such an apocalyptic worldview, God's sovereign, free purpose, as A. T. Lincoln (Ephesians [WBC; Dallas: Word, 1990] 31) rightly noted, thus "embraces history and its ordering." This raises the inevitable question as to what this revealed secret purpose of God entailed. The answer comes in the latter half of verse 10, and forms the second stage of Paul's argument in these verses.
Second, God's ultimate purpose is to reintegrate the universe under Christ (1:10b). Paul defines the content of this "mystery" in the infinitive anakephalaiōsasthai, which has been variously translated (""to head up" [NET]; "to bring together under one head" [NIV]; "to unite" [ESV]; "brought into a unity" [REB]). Historically, the term was used of the "summing up" or "recapitulation" of an argument in legal contexts (Quintilian, Aristotle, et al.). Paul himself used it in Romans 13:9 to refer to a comprehensive summing up or unifying of a larger entity (the Torah) under one focal point (the love command). It would thus appear that Paul's point is that "all things" (ta panta) will one day be subject to the lordship of Christ, who will reintegrate them and restore them to their divinely-designed place and function. This is all well and good. But matters get interesting once one asks when this "summing up" or reintegration is thought to take place. In the immediate context the answer might appear to be "in the fullness of times," the final stage of the divine oikonomia of history. In the wider context of the letter, however, the answer becomes more nuanced … and interesting.
First, in Ephesians 1:22-23, as a consequence of God's powerful raising and exaltation of Christ. Paul quotes Psalm 8:7 to the effect that God has (already!) subjected all things under Christ's feet (hypetaxen) and given him to the church as head over all things. Christ thus has already been installed as cosmic Lord as well as being head over the church.
Second, in Ephesians 3:3-10 the apostle elaborates on the "mystery" he so cryptically spoke of in chapter 1. Simply put, this mystery concerned the primary theological datum of the epistle, to wit, that Gentiles were fellow heirs, members of the same body, and fellow partakers of the benefits of the covenant promises whose fulfillment in Christ defined the content of the apostolic gospel.
What this suggests is that, in keeping with the eschatology common to all strands of the early Christian tradition, there is a two-stage fulfillment of this "recapitulation." For Paul, in other words, the unification of Jews and Gentiles in the church in Christ is the first stage of the reunification of all the diverse and renegade elements of the universe which will reach its consummation in the new heavens and new earth. The necessary corollary of this is that the church is the locus of God's present activity in which his kingdom purposes are being implemented. And if that is true, then all attempts by Christians (of the Left or the Right) to take the reins of political power and legislate Christian morality, even against the democratic will of the country as a whole, are fundamentally misguided.
What I am suggesting has certain precedent in a broadly Anabaptist vision of the church's relation to culture. It likewise overlaps in part with what conservative journalist Rod Dreher refers to as "The Benedict Option," though without the latter's monastic overtones. As Allen Guelzo noted above, a "wall of separation" between church and state need not imply an impenetrable wall between church and culture. As followers of Jesus, the church is intended to function as "salt" and "light" within the wider culture (Matthew 5:13-16). Likewise, the great Hebrew prophet Jeremiah wrote in a letter to the exiles in Babylon, "Seek the peace and prosperity (shalom) of the city in which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, for if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:7). This, obviously, does not imply quiescence. Nor does it suggest an Amish-like withdrawal from the political process. On the contrary, Christians must take their place in the public square as one voice among many, without expecting to be afforded privilege or preferential treatment for what they have to say. And how they act in this sphere matters. They must take rejection with grace and without grievance, be up front with the religious foundations of their positions, and realize that in a secular democracy such as America, many of the issues they hold dear are likely better treated as moral than as legal matters. Instead of entertaining the fantasy of building God's kingdom, they must rather work for that kingdom by championing its priorities, above all justice, finding common ground with those who may not hold their religious convictions. Moreover, it is imperative that they freely confess to the church's failures and , indeed, complicity in the injustices that have permeated the nation's history. Above all, Christians would do well not to resent and whine about the passing of a "Christian America" that was, truth be told, a fiction in the first place. After all, "Christian Nationalism" is, as are all nationalisms, fundamentally idolatrous.
Ultimately, what this means is that instead of directing their energies to legislating their values into law via the democratic (or otherwise) political process, they should rather put more energy into making their church communities be in practice what they are in theory, viz., colonies of the kingdom of God living in the midst of the world whose present shape, as Paul the Apostle says elsewhere (1 Cor 7:31), is "passing away" (paragei).
In closing, I can do no better than to repeat what I said earlier:
What it means most of all, however, is that we as Christians need to take more seriously than we thus far have that we need to embody the kingdom virtues of grace, mercy, truth, and justice in our own communities … We need to ask ourselves, what might be the result in the wider culture if we did so? That is true witness. And that is how we as Christian communities ought to go about our designed business to be a "kingdom of priests" in a fallen world.
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