Test Case: Education

Links to previous posts are now at the bottom. Chapter 4 continues in the series, "What Would Jesus Vote?" with the test case of education.

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Jesus Principles
1. So what core principles might Jesus bring to bear in relation to the education of a people. What is the purpose of education? I believe he would have prioritized faith education.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 tells the parents of Israel to teach the commandments of the Law to their children. Similarly, Deuteronomy 4:9-10 instructs parents to pass stories about God's mighty works on to their children. No doubt this teaching is part of the training of children that Proverbs 22:6 talks about.

Textbook: Proverbs 22:6

The New Testament assumes this training took place for Jewish children. 2 Timothy 3:15 indicates that Timothy had been trained in the Scriptures from childhood. Christian fathers (and mothers) are expected to raise up their children in the instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). It is no surprise that, in late 1700s England, the "Sunday School" movement began with the goal of systematically teaching the children of England about God and the Bible. The movement would jump the pond to America as well.

Surely, then, Jesus would have been in favor of children being taught the scriptures. Why was this important? It was important because God is the most important thing. All other importance is derivative from God's importance. More than anything else, Scripture teaches us about God. Scripture teaches us the stories of God and, thereby, the nature of God. Scripture reveals God as holy, God as love, and God as just.

Textbox: Jesus would have prioritized faith education.

2. From a psychological standpoint, a child is not yet mentally capable of abstract or critical thinking on a high level. Teaching at this age is an important kind of imprinting of values and beliefs. The values that are instilled at a young age will be hard to shake. They are intuitive and unthinking. We default to them without even knowing why. They are in our "guts."

C. S. Lewis went through a period of time when he was an atheist. What brought him back to God, kicking and screaming? It did involve an intellectual argument. But even more, it was the fact that good and evil were concepts in his bones. He just couldn't bring himself to believe that good wasn't real, and it was this sense of the reality of good and evil that eventually brought him back to God.

It is much more difficult to instill values with such depth once a person gets older. I would say it is almost impossible to do by way of reason. Dramatic experiences have the best chance, I would say -- experiences of God or personal experiences. The bottom line is that faith education is extremely important for children from a Christian perspective.

3. Is faith education something for the government to do or something for the church to do? For example, should the Ten Commandments and the Bible be taught in public schools?

On the one hand, I personally don't think that it would contradict the "non-establishment clause" of the Constitution to teach the Ten Commandments or the Bible in school. These can and often are taught in a non-partisan way -- for example, the Bible as literature, the Ten Commandments as a historical legal text, etc. Might God speak to children through the text itself even if the teacher was not using the Bible to promote Jewish or Christian faith?

We also have to consider the opposite possibility. When the State of Oklahoma requires the Bible to be taught in its public schools, how will it be taught? I imagine that many public school teachers in Oklahoma are Christians and would teach the Bible quite positively. But could there also be instances where the Bible would be taught in such a way that children would think of Bible stories like Greek and Roman myths? State standards probably cannot constitutionally treat the Bible as inspired Scripture. What would it look like?

Would some places then feel the need to introduce students to the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, etc so as not to "establish" a religion? Would Indiana kids be pushed toward Christianity and California kids away from it?

I personally think the responsibility for teaching the Bible should primarily lie with churches. Whether it be a children's church or Sunday School, churches should intentionally teach students both the content of the Bible as well as the proper theology, ethics, and values that come from its proper interpretation. That means an intentional curriculum and the best practices of teaching. 

4. The Gospels don't give us any teaching from Jesus on the general education of children or youth that was not faith-related. Jesus did of course value children -- more than his disciples did (Matt. 19:13-15). So it is clear that Jesus would want the best possible upbringing for children that is possible. That plays into the second part of our journey -- the greatest good for our children. 

For the Public Good
5. Where did American public education come from? Public education itself began in New England where the Puritans rightfully wanted to make sure that young people knew the Bible (more accurately, their understanding of the Bible). Then the American public school system arose in the 1800s. 

In keeping with the "neutral zone" concept, individuals like Horace Mann (1796-1859) started a "common school movement." The goal was to provide universal, free, non-sectarian public education with a professional guild of teachers. 

If we dig back into the background of utilitarianism and capitalism, both assumed that these systems would not work properly without an educated populace. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utilitarianism, was emphatic on the need for the people to be educated so that they would know what the greater good actually is. He viewed misinformation as a major potential problem that could prevent the greater good from happening. 

So he was a major influence in the founding of University College London, and he donated his body to the university upon his death. The remnants of his body were prominently displayed there to help fight what he thought were superstitions about death.

Similarly, Adam Smith's concept of capitalism assumed that the consumer knew what product was in his or her best interest. I believe he would strongly approve of something like the Better Business Bureau to help us know when we are being scammed. The bottom line is that democracy just doesn't work if those who are voting are not informed or are susceptible to deception and manipulation. The current susceptibility of the American populace to conspiracies, misinformation, and media manipulation is a major danger to democracy.

6. Certainly, Horace Mann's "non-sectarian" education did not mean "moral free" or value free. Morality was a key feature of public school teaching in the 1800s, and Judeo-Christian values as understood by the culture of that day were the name of the game. 

From the "separation of church and state" perspective, the teaching of values in public school is a little tricky. But I believe it is still very possible and actually quite important. What are we talking about here? 

We are talking about things like respect for life and believing in the equal value of others. Looking down on the "other" is (fallen) human nature. We are herd animals and naturally (after the Fall) devalue other herds. Prejudice, racism, sexism -- these are all predictable human patterns and behaviors since Adam.

It will take some work to teach our children to value those who are not like them. Ideally, we drill the value of others into our children. Once they leave our schools, they will be free to hate whomever they want -- and they regularly do. But just maybe we can instill into their consciences something deep down that will work against these forces within ourselves and human society once they grow up.

Respect for the property of others is another common value both in Christianity and the American social contract. Honesty and integrity are important for human thriving. These values and others can be taught without privileging a particular religious perspective.

7. However, some argue to the contrary that the danger that public schools will "mis-form" our children is very real. Fearing that their children would be taught everything from evolution to the normalcy of LGBTQ lifestyles, many parents have turned to homeschooling or private Christian schools. The reality of such fears no doubt will vary from place to place. 

At the beginning of this school year, there was a rumor going around my own town that the public schools were putting kitty litter in middle school bathrooms for students who identified as "cats." This was quite a hilarious (and ludicrous) claim. But many Americans seem very susceptible to these sorts of rumors. Most American teachers take their jobs very seriously and are committed to a quite normal -- even at times boring -- education.

There are countries where homeschooling is against the law out of the opposite fear, namely, that families will promote ideas and values that are harmful to children and the country. The two times that my family lived in Germany for several months, our children were required to attend public school even though we were Americans only temporarily in the country. The Germans fear that something like the Nazism of the past might rise again if homeschooling were allowed.

America tries to balance the freedom of individuals and families to educate their children their own way with the public concern that its children don't grow up to be terrorists. An alleged attempt is made to educate our children neutrally in public schools while individual families are allowed to homeschool and private schools are also fully allowed. Very broad, non-sectarian state standards are meant to provide a baseline standard for all these venues. 

In theory, public education is meant to be non-sectarian. That would generally mean teaching widely accepted, evidence-based knowledge that reflects expert consensus. In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that teaching creationism in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because creationism was religious in nature. In the 2005 federal district court case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the judge ruled that intelligent design was also a form of religious teaching and could not be required in public schools alongside evolution.

Many Christians believe that such teaching is actually anti-Christian bias rather than "non-sectarian." Accordingly, many Christians have turned away from the public school system. Nevertheless, many public school teachers are Christians and do not teach with an anti-Christian bias. In other places, there probably are teachers who promote values in conflict with Christianity. It really depends on where you are and who the teacher is.

8. What would Jesus "vote" with regard to public education? I believe he would want every child to have an opportunity to thrive, and a good education plays a major role in that possibility. In theory, we could completely privatize education. This might lose the value of the public school system as (at least in theory) a neutral zone. In general, the public system seems like a good default that fits with the non-establishment clause of the Constitution. 

It is not without its problems and challenges. For example, public schools have a reputation for ever-changing standards and methods. It can seem that the state is trying something new all the time, jerking teachers and students around every year. Then there is the politics of education, where teachers and students get caught in the cross-hairs of politicians at the state house beating their chests over some alleged atrocity, trying to score points with various voters. Meanwhile, the teachers just want to do their jobs.

The bureaucratization of public teaching is also real. I heard recently of an eighth-grade math teacher who was required by the state to teach exponents when her students couldn't even multiply yet and, in one case, didn't even know all the numbers. So there is the idealism of the state house versus the on-the-ground reality of the students sitting in front of you (if they are sitting). Unfortunately, it is usually the lower socio-economic student who ends up in the worst schools with the least resources and the largest challenges. The difficulties come from the students' home environment and rarely have anything to do with the tireless teachers, whose burnout rates can be astounding.

I see the public school system especially as an educational safety net for "the least of these" (Matt. 25:45). The wealthy and privileged will always get the education they want. If for no other reason, public education is there for those who otherwise wouldn't get much education. And education is still the best path out of an impoverished context. At this point, public education seems to overlap strongly with the values of Jesus.

In my view, the challenges of public education shouldn't lead us to throw the baby out with the bath water. Private schools and homeschooling have their own potential challenges. For example, the number of private schools rose dramatically during the time of desegregation ("segregation academies"). Although it was not the only factor, it seems incontestable that racism was a factor in the spike in private schools in the late 60s and 70s. For a long time, homeschooling was largely done by white, middle-class, Christian families. However, this is increasingly changing.

America also is not immune to the fears that have led Germany to prohibit homeschooling. When you think of some polygamist Mormon groups, they homeschooled their children to indoctrinate them in the particular beliefs of their sect. From a secular or Christian perspective, these were not healthy situations. Similarly, the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas did not let their children attend public school, but children received whatever little education they had there at the compound.

I personally believe that we can continue to support both public and private education while doing everything we can to overcome their challenges. On the one hand, public education seems like an appropriate use of our taxes -- especially for the "least of these." As we argued in relation to health care, a properly Christian perspective is not just concerned with what I get for my taxes but with what others get as well. At least in theory, public education is for the common good.

At first glance, voucher programs make sense because the parents of those students are paying taxes for their children's education. Shouldn't they be able to use their tax money for education however they want? At the same time, it seems important not to "starve" public education. It makes sense that public education would be the first priority of the state since it is meant to provide a baseline for an educated citizenry. 

As we get into the details, the voices of C. F. H. Henry and Richard Mouw are in my head, warning me about wading too deep into controversies on which I am not an expert and on which authentic Christians disagree. My primary goal was to identify what Jesus' values would be in relation to education. Here, I believe that 1) Jesus would want everyone to have access to a quality education. 2) I believe Jesus would strongly reject any system that devalued any "lost sheep" while privileging those with means. Finally, 3) Jesus would not want to empower forces that work against the good. Then begins the debate over what those forces are.

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Here is the series so far:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?

2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms

3.1 (He would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy
3.2 (He would vote) for the greater good
Test Case: Health Care (under revision)

4.1 (For the greater good) ... Without Hurting the Rest
4.2 The Separation of Church and State

4.2 Separation of Church and State

More of chapter 4 in the series, "What Would Jesus Vote?" The chapter began by showing how the US Bill of Rights tries to protect individuals against the whims of the majority. 

Here is the series so far:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?

2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms

3.1 (He would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy
3.2 (He would vote) for the greater good
Test Case: Health Care (under revision)

4.1 (For the greater good) ... Without Hurting the Rest

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... But would Jesus "vote" for it [the US Bill of Rights]? We've talked about how the US system balances out the greatest good for the greatest number with protections for individuals. How does this secular system compare with Jesus' kingdom way of looking at people in the world? 

Rights versus the Image of God
4. It seems to me that both Christian values and the US Constitution get to a similar destination, but they get there by a different path. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that God has endowed all humanity with "certain inalienable rights." He speaks especially of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He is saying that every human being has a right to his or her life. Every human deserves to be free to pursue whatever he or she wants.

Obviously, he didn't mean that these freedoms were absolute or without exception. For example, Jefferson believed in the death penalty. Similarly, Jefferson didn't believe I was free to kill whomever I wanted. 

How is Jefferson's vision for human rights the same and/or different from Jesus'? The very heart of the difference is that Jefferson's vision of rights is "me" and human-centered. Me-me-me. I have a right to my life. I have a right to do whatever makes me happy. It's a freedom for me.

By contrast, for the Christian, human value is always derived from God. We have value because we are created in the image of God. Every human life is valuable because it is a reflection of God. God loves every human life. Therefore, every human life has dignity.

There is a good deal of overlap here. In both approaches, every human life must be protected. However, the secular version detaches us from the reason why we are valuable. Jefferson was a deist who only saw God as the creator. He did not see God in a current relationship with the world. He had no real concept of God's love for us today.

But Jesus is still very much in contact with the world! God still loves the world. God still wants the world to be reconciled to him. Apart from God, we are nothing. Yet even the most hardened criminal is still tethered to God as created in his image and loved by him. God did not create us for the pursuit of happiness in separation from him.

As a Christian, I prefer not to speak in terms of human rights. I'm not saying that Christians can't use this language. It is just easy to lose sight of why "rights" exist and where they come from. Any sense of human rights should ultimately point back to God. If we speak of rights apart from God, we can begin to get who we are out of perspective. We become the center of things. We become the goal of everything rather than God.

Further, on what basis could we speak of human rights apart from God? If we strictly think of America as a social contract, then my rights are simply something we have all agreed on. Apart from God, those rights aren't real. They're just something we've shaken hands over.

In this way, a Judeo-Christian grounding of human rights both gives them substance and makes clear that they ultimately point back to God's love for us. We are created in God's image, and that is what makes every human life valuable. We get to the same destination by a slightly different path.

But, in separation from its Christian grounding, our talk of rights will gravitate toward self-centeredness. For Jesus, human value is a result of God's love. It is a gift, not something we can demand or that we have coming to us. It's not strictly ours. It's God's value in us.

Secular versus Christian Freedom
5. That brings us to another question. Is American liberty the same or different from how Jesus might conceive of our freedom?

Let's start with how Christian faith looks at human freedom. There is actually some disagreement among Christians on human freedom. On the one hand, orthodox faith holds that all human beings are fallen. Historic Christian faith believes that none of us can come to God in our own power or by our own merit. Many Christians use the language of "total depravity" for the default state of fallen humanity. From the standpoint of historic Christianity, we do not have "free will" by default.

Beyond that, Christians are divided into two broad groups on whether God has acted to restore some degree of freedom in us. On the one hand, some believe that God determines everything, and everything that happens is scripted by God. "Everything happens for a reason." Everything is predestined or determined to happen. This group in effect does not believe we have any real freedom at all. We are simply God's puppets. [1]

The other group -- into which I fall -- believes that God empowers us to have some degree of freedom restored to us. The first group heavily consists of what we might call "Calvinists." This group, following the teaching of John Calvin (1509-64), does not believe that we have any real freedom at all. My own tradition, the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, would be an example of those who believe God empowers us to choose to receive his grace. God empowers our freedom.

Textbox: I believe that God empowers us to choose to receive his grace. God empowers at least some degree of true human freedom.

These underlying views of human freedom can play significantly into our views of how our Christian faith should engage the culture around us. We often have unexamined assumptions about how we should act in the world without even knowing it. Yet these assumptions are fundamental to how we behave politically.

The "Take Over" Mindset
6. When John Calvin set up shop in Geneva, Switzerland in the 1500s, his understanding of God and his laws became identical with the laws of Geneva. If you lived in the city, you not only had to be a Christian, you had to be a Calvinist Christian. This is a model that Richard Niebuhr called "Christ over culture." [2] It assumes that the goal of the Christian is effectively to take over the state. At the very least, Christians should try to make the laws of the land mirror the laws of the Bible (called a "theonomic" view). [3]

This is a pattern we have seen in various Calvinist groups over the last five hundred years. You frequently hear people say that the Puritans came to America in pursuit of religious freedom. But this is misleading. They did not advocate religious freedom. They believed everyone should worship God the way they did. They only wanted freedom for themselves -- who had all the right answers that everyone else needed to agree with.

In the mid-1600s, the Puritans took over England under Oliver Cromwell and immediately tried to make everyone in England follow their understanding of the Christian faith. For example, they tried to abolish the celebration of Christmas and other things like sporting on Sundays. 

Once they became established in New England, the Puritans similarly expected religious conformity to their understanding. In 1636, they kicked Roger Williams out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony because he didn't conform to Puritan values. Two years later, in 1638, they similarly kicked Anne Hutchinson out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony because she didn't conform to their views on women. The situation in New England would eventually force them to be more tolerant of others, but it was never their preference.

Here we get to a fundamentally different view of America's founding. Some today have what I might call a neo-Puritan view of America's founding. They see these Puritans with their ideologies as effectively the real founders of the United States. Making America great again is to get back to something like an idealized Puritan America. David Barton is probably the best-known history writer to argue that the founders of America intentionally founded America on biblical principles as a Christian nation. [4] This is a minority view. [5]

7. Another example of the "Christ over culture" approach is that of the "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) movement with its "Seven Mountains" mandate. Rather than coming from a hard Calvinist angle, this movement has grown out of the charismatic movement and the work of Peter Wagner in particular. [6] Taking a somewhat "postmillennial" view, this movement looks for Christians to infiltrate and effectively take over seven "mountains" of culture (based on Revelation 17:9). [7] These are religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business.

You can see an overlap between those sometimes called Christian nationalists and those who might consider themselves part of this movement. However, it would be possible to distinguish these from those some we mentioned in chapter 2 who might inadvertently worship America. This group wants Christ to take over America and make it Christian -- their understanding of what "Christian" is. While they may or may not think that America was ever the America of their vision, they want to make it now into their understanding of what a Christian America should be. They want to change America.

The "Let Them Go" Mindset
8. On the surface, the idea of taking over America for Christ may sound ideal. Then we could set up a "theocracy" where God rules the country in a new Israel, if you would.

The problem is that it never turns out this way.  With the exception of Moses and Joshua, God is never the real ruler in earthly theocracies. For example, there is always someone who is interpreting what God says. It's a great gig for a priest. The priest (or priests) come to the people and say, "Here's what God wants us to do." It's actually the kind of setup that they have in Iran, with an Ayatolla to interpret the will of Allah.

This is one of the subtle facts about the Bible that a lot of people don't fully reckon with -- it has to be interpreted. We give ourselves great authority when we say, "This is what the Bible says." If we're not careful, we might forget that what we're really saying, "This is what I or we think the Bible means." The same of course goes for this book.

Whenever the state and religion get too aligned, bad things seem to happen. For the Roman Empire, when Christianity became the official religion of the empire, all the non-Christian religions and forces within the empire simply went underground and pretended to be Christian. The result was "syncretism," when elements that are actually contrary to Christianity get fused with Christianity. We talked about syncretism in chapter 2.

In the days following the Protestant Reformation, the fusion of the church and state led to the oppression of Christians who had a different view from the particular Christian group in charge somewhere. Roman Catholics burned Protestants at the stake. Anglicans and Presbyterians burned Roman Catholics at the stake. Calvinists put non-Calvinists to death. Followers of Zwingli put Anabaptists to death. The Puritans also put to death those who didn't tow their line.

It may not be an authentic quote, but there is a story about Charles Spurgeon being asked why the Baptists never burned anyone at the stake. In the story, his answer was that the Baptists were never in charge. In other words, the story insinuates that they would have if they had ever been in charge.    

9. My own tradition has a different view of how God interacts with the world. In my view, the most serious problem with hyper-deterministic ideologies is that, for all intents and purposes, they make God directly responsible for every evil that has ever happened. Technically, you can speak of first and second order causes, but there is no resistance between the two. It is like me doing something with a broom and blaming the broom. 

Calvin himself at least believed that Satan and Adam had a free choice, and thus that the evil choices of all who have followed are the inevitable consequences of depravity. But originally, humanity had something to do with the choices we now inevitably make. But in hyper-deterministic versions of Calvinism like that of John Piper, God is always the hand in the puppet. 

If "everything happens for a reason," then God's hand makes the puppet be a serial killer or rape a child. Name the most horrific act you can imagine and a fully deterministic system makes God responsible. In fact, Satan himself is simply God's puppet, doing everything God commands him to do down to the very last detail. In this scenario, the problem of evil is insurmountable, and any concept of God's love is mutated beyond recognition. God doesn't really love the world. He just loves the elect. 

Jacob Arminius (1560-1609) recognized these potential problems with Calvinism in the early 1600s and proposed a modified understanding. In particular, he proposed that, while humanity was powerless to do good by default, God empowered us potentially to respond positively to his grace. Thus, we have the potential to have a God-empowered freedom to live righteously if we allow God's Spirit to fill us.

Both Calvin and Arminius were arguably filling in the blanks of the New Testament with regard to human freedom. Calvin supposed that those parts of the Bible that make it sound like we are free are not really how it works. We only think we are free. Arminius supposed that those parts of the Bible that make it sound like we are determined are not really how it works. God has predetermined the plan, not the destiny of each individual.

This latter approach helps rescue the so-called "free will theodicy." A "theodicy" is an explanation for how a good God can allow horrific evil to persist. In the free will or Augustinian theodicy, God allows evil to continue because he has given humanity a choice (especially Adam). But if God gives humanity a choice, some will make the wrong choice and there will be evil and suffering. It is not a perfect explanation, but it is far better than God dictating all the evil that happens directly.

In this Arminian approach, God allows the wicked to persist for a time -- often for centuries. In his sovereignty, he allows the world he created to disobey him. He does not force anyone to come to him. As in Romans 1:28, God lets the wicked spiral out of control to their own ultimate demise. He "let's them go."

10. This Arminian model fits very nicely with the way the US Constitution sets out the relationship between religion and the state. As with our discussion of American rights above, it gets to a similar destination by a different means. It is no coincidence that John Wesley (1703-91) -- a chief promulgator of this view of human freedom -- lived during the Enlightenment period out of which the US Constitution also came.

You could argue that, to a large extent, the US Constitution presents a model that "let's us go." The state is a kind of neutral zone. It's not supposed to take sides on specifically religious matters. It gives all individuals the freedom of religion and forbids itself from establishing a particular religion for the country.

... while protecting the rest. For example, your religion is not allowed to sacrifice other human beings. My freedom of religion cannot impinge on the "rights" of others. If my religion says that you cannot work on Sunday, I am free to practice my religion that way and not work on Sunday. But I can't force everyone else not to work on Sunday because that would be to force a specifically religious view on others.

If we follow this line of thought out, it can get tricky for Christians. For example, if we are to pass legislation that is opposed to gay marriage, we will have to do it without using Christian beliefs as the basis for it. If we are to pass legislation prohibiting abortion from the moment of conception, we will have to do it without using Christian beliefs as the basis for it. In this understanding of the Constitution, we are free to practice our specific religious beliefs as we choose. But the Constitution would not allow us to make them into law unless we can justify them by other than religious means. 

A popular way of expressing this concept is to say that you "cannot legislate morality." But this is not exactly right either. After all, the law prohibits things like murder and stealing, which from a Christian standpoint is legislating morality. However, from a secular standpoint, these laws are enforcing the social contract rather than enforcing morality. The basic social contract of the US involves an agreement that I will not kill you or take your stuff. We both have tacitly agreed to this set up. [8] From the standpoint of the Constitution, these laws are simply part of the arrangement we have agreed upon.

I would argue that this is how God governs the world most of the time. God allows the people of the world to disbelieve in him. This does not threaten his sovereignty because it is his choice. Don't tell him that he can't do it! God allows people to disobey him to a point. Eventually, he hits the reset button for humanity's own good. More on restraining evil in the next chapter.

This is a different sense of God and America than the Calvinist one. The Calvinist approach tends to force conformity to God's will and believes that is how God himself relates to the world. The Arminian approach believes that God draws all people to him (John 12:32). He gives them a choice. Similarly, this approach to governance gives people freedom as long as they do not violate the basic social contract. 

Separation of Church and State
11. You can see that we are building a case for the separation of church and state. Most historians would say that the founders of the US were keenly aware of the tendency of a state religion to oppress and persecute those who were of a different stripe. In the background of the thirteen original colonies, you had states with a Puritan background (Massachusetts), Catholic-leaning states (Maryland), Anglican states (Virginia), states with a Reformed background (New York), and even Quaker-founded states (Pennsylvania). The "non-establishment clause" in the First Amendment suggested that the US should be a neutral zone in which all of these could coexist.

And of course, there were non-Christians whom this non-establishment clause allowed to live peacefully here. For example, New York and Rhode Island had a significant Jewish population. As many as 70-90% of the American population may not even have practiced any religion at all prior to the Great Awakening in the 1730s. At the time of the Revolutionary War, as much as 50-60% of the American populace did not attend church.

The diversity of religion today in America is thus more different in degree rather than kind from the original situation. It is true that some in America have made the idea of the separation of church and state an almost anti-religious sentiment. That also goes against what the founders intended. Rather the goal would seem to be peaceful coexistence of different religions and Christian denominations. The goal is not to eliminate religion from the public sphere but not to enforce one religious perspective over another.

According to most historians, America was founded to be this way. True, many of the key founders of the United States were Christians (e.g., John Jay). But most of the key players were deists who believed God created the world but was not much involved with it at present (e.g., Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington). The majority view is that these founders were strong advocates for a separation between the church and the state, an expression that comes from Thomas Jefferson.

[1] Determinists can speak of freedom, but it is a perceived freedom not a real freedom. That is, we think we are free even though we're not. This is a distinction without a difference because I still have to do everything I do and cannot possibly choose otherwise.

[2] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (Harper & Brothers, 1951).

[3] The theonomic view 1) largely ignores the way the New Testament applies the Old Testament through the lens of Christ, 2) does not see that much of the Old Testament teaching is not applied to Gentile believers and 3) does not read Old Testament law against the backdrop of its ancient Near Eastern context. It thus fails 1) as a Christian reading of Scripture, 2) to listen to the New Testament, and 3) as a contextual reading of the Bible. The most important modern voice behind such theonomic readings of the Bible was R. J. Rushdooney, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Chalcedon, 1973).

[4] E.g., David Barton and Tim Barton, The American Story, 2nd ed. (Wallbuilder, 2020).

[5] A good example of push back against this understanding would be Steven K. Green, Inventing Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding (Oxford University, 2017). Another example is Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation (Zondervan, 2007). 

[6] C. Peter Wagner, Churchquake: How the New Apostolic Movement Is Shaking Up the Church as We Know It (Baker, 1999). More recently, see Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate (Destiny Image, 2013).

[7] Revelation 17:9 was obviously about Rome in its original context. Anyone in John's day in Asia Minor hearing about kings on seven hills would automatically think of Rome and its emperors. In fact, these verses may be the "decoder ring" to dating the book of Revelation.

[8] This is John Locke's concept of "tacit" or silent consent. If you live here, you agree to the rules even though you never signed up for them.

4.1 (Jesus would vote) ... Without Hurting the Rest

On to chapter 4 in the series, "What Would Jesus Vote?" The idea that Jesus would vote for the greater good needs to be balanced with an even stronger concern that the individual be protected from the whims of the majority.

Here is the series so far:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?
2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms
3.1 (He would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy
3.2 (He would vote) for the greater good
3.3 Test Case: Health Care

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Without Hurting the Rest
1. In the previous chapter, I may have surprised you by taking a generally positive view of utilitarianism -- "the greatest good for the greatest number." After all, sometimes something is good for most people but, in the process, harms a few.

For example, let's say there is a hostage standoff. There are twenty hostages, and the person holding them hostage is using one of them as a human shield. A shooter is confident that, if he shoots through the person being used as a shield, he can get the bad guy, and the other nineteen will be saved. What do you do?

In general, ethicists -- especially a Christian ethicist -- would say you can't just kill an innocent person to save the other nineteen. You may have heard the saying, "The end doesn't justify the means." It's the sense that a good goal doesn't give you permission to do something bad to make it happen.

This is the big critique of the "greatest good" approach. It can lead you to justify bad things in the name of the greater good. Opinions differ on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. The conundrum is that, by bombing these two cities, the US likely saved more lives than would have died otherwise -- both Japanese and American. So does the killing of all the "innocent bystanders" in these cities justify it? (The next debate is whether children who happen to have been born in a nation at war at the wrong time are innocent or have a certain corporate guilt, but we'll leave that for some other day.)

But utilitarianism doesn't have to to wrong in order to bring about good. That is why we added the phrase, "without hurting the rest." A society that loved its neighbor on a societal level would set up laws and structures that bring about the greatest good for the greatest number without hurting the rest.

2. In other words, you set up boundaries to prevent the majority from overrunning or abusing the rest. Everyone's life has to count.

This is a place where the American system and Christianity strongly overlap. From a Christian standpoint, every human being is created in the image of God. That gives every human being a certain dignity even if they are a dirty rotten scoundrel. I won't take a position on the death penalty in chapter 7, but some Christians argue that the death penalty does not take seriously enough the value of a human life -- even if the person is a serial killer. The other side would say that what is important is for the person to be put to death humanely. 

Many would argue that the US system -- and in fact those of other representational democracies -- have largely been set up on Judeo-Christian values. This claim is regardless of whether the founders were Christians or intended to do so. The idea is that these values were baked into their psyche as part of 1700s culture. The idea of a society that is most "loving" on a societal level is basically the idea of a society that fits best with the revealed nature of God as love. We will continue to pursue this theme in the remaining chapters.

How has the secular US managed to pull this off without establishing a federal religion (we'll talk about the "separation of church and state" later in the chapter)? We have largely come to the same end result by a different means. Wonderfully, it is possible to argue for the same overall goal of a loving society using language of "natural revelation" -- that is, using some of the very principles of nature that God has built into the world. 

It actually makes a lot of sense. God created the world to work a certain way when it is working the way it was intended. You can argue for this structure to a large extent from nature as well as from the revelation of Scripture. You just have to start with the assumption that everyone's life counts. That's the Judeo-Christian assumption.

The founders of America used the concept of a "social contract" to set up the US. 

Textbox: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity -- do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."

There it is. We contract together to create a society that will bring all these blessings to everyone. They were building on the work of philosophers like John Locke to create a social contract. I agree not to kill you if you agree not to kill me. I agree not to steal your stuff if you agree not to steal mine. We'll bring about the greatest good for the greatest number collectively with this agreement.

... without hurting the rest. Thomas Jefferson was channeling John Locke when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

We are still working out the equal part. Jefferson owned slaves when he wrote this, so there is sometimes a gap between the idea of America and the reality. [1] In fact, I have a hunch that this gap stands at the heart of disagreements over when the Supreme Court is allegedly "making law" instead of what some call "strict constructionism" (where the Supreme Court is allegedly just sticking to the letter of the Constitution). 

But the principle is clear enough. Every person should be equal in value and equal under the law. That sounds pretty Christian to me. It sounds like something Jesus would "vote" for.

3. The first ten amendments to the Constitution were the Bill of Rights. When the Constitution was being voted on by the states, states like North Carolina and Virginia refused to ratify it unless it had a Bill of Rights. Once this was agreed, the Constitution was ratified in 1789.

This was an important moment. The Articles of Confederation had not worked. From 1776 to 1781, the states worked on a system in which they remained more independent than together. The Constitution in effect said, we are now more of a union than separate states. The Civil War tested and reaffirmed this union, even though at the end of a gun. 

Still, the United States would not have thrived as separate states the way it has thrived together. We would not likely be a world power otherwise, although perhaps a few states that border the ocean might be. It is doubtful any of those states would be the most powerful nation. We would probably be more like the EU.

What individual rights does the Bill of Rights protect? Here they are:

• freedom of religion
• freedom of speech
• freedom of the press
• freedom of assembly
• right to petition the government
• right to bear arms
• prohibits government from forcing you to house soldiers during peacetime
• prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure of your stuff
• right to due process before taking your life, liberty, or property
• prohibition of double jeopardy
• you don't have to testify against yourself
• the government has to compensate you if they take your stuff
• right to a fair trial
• right to be informed of charges against you
• right to confront your witnesses
• right to legal counsel
• right to a trial by jury
• prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment
• statement that this list may not be exhaustive
• delegation of powers to the states that aren't given to the federal government

That's a pretty good list! What is great about the list is that it sets down protections for the individual over and against the majority (or even an evil magistrate). 

But would Jesus "vote" for it? Our journey continues...

[1] I always read Langston Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again" on July 4.

3.3 The Merger of Three Churches

My journey through the ideological history of the Wesleyan Church finally reaches the merger. The video to the left is from the Wesleyan Church History and Discipline course that you can watch for free or take for ordination licensing through Kingswood Learn.

In some of the material that follows, I am operating from memory. For this reason, I strongly ask for correction if I have gotten any of the information wrong. Normally, I would ask Keith Drury, but he is quite enjoying heaven at the moment and has decided not to answer my emails.

Here are the previous posts in this series:

Preface to Wesleyan Ideological History
1.1 Wesley and High Protestantism
1.2 An Archaeology of Wesley's Thinking 

2.1 Methodist Ideology in the Early 1800s
2.2 Founding Perspectives of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection
2.3 The Birth of the American Holiness Movement

3.1 The Holiness Revivals of the Fin de Siècle
3.2 Modernism on the Outskirts

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12. Bob Black has said that the Pilgrim Holiness Church never saw a merger that it didn't like. Merger was in the water in the 1960s. In the late 50s, the United Church of Christ was a merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. In 1962, three Lutheran denominations merged. The United Evangelical Brethren and the Methodist Church merged in 1968 to form the United Methodist Church. 

The Wesleyan Methodists had already merged with the Reformed Baptist Church of Canada in 1966, also the year they voted to merge with the Pilgrims. A Pennsylvania district, the Allegheny Conference withdrew from the WMC over the merger, as did a number of churches in Tennessee and Ohio. About 13% of its churches and 11% of its membership was lost.

The reasons had a good deal to do with standards (dress, jewelry, matters relating to divorce). There was also a sense that mergers were a movement toward the one-world religion of the Antichrist. Some of my extended family did not go with the merger from the Pilgrim side for the same reasons. 

The WMs had come very close to merging with the Pilgrims in 1959 but didn't for logistical reasons and because of the resistance of the Allegheny district. I've already mentioned that Stephen Paine regretted spending so much time trying to appease that district as president of Houghton. It brought little result. 

I had Don Boyd as a worship professor at Asbury in the late 80s. You'd have never guessed that he was the district superintendent of this district when they split from the church. From my standpoint as a young Wesleyan, he was hyper-liturgical and quite foreign to me. I guess sometimes we go to the opposite extreme of where we start. It's not necessarily out of rebellion. Perhaps having grown up in a generally low church background, Boyd was attracted to elements that were missing from his WM worship growing up. Opposites attract

The Wesleyan Methodists had almost merged with the Free Methodists before, and many of us thought we merged with them in 1976. The presiding General Superintendent that year, O. D. Emery, thought the Free Methodists were liberal on inerrancy and so used a parliamentary trick to kill the merger. Ironically, the Free Methodists had actually added inerrancy language to their Articles of Religion so that we could merge.

The report of the committee recommending merger with the Free Methodists was brought to the floor of the Wesleyan General Conference in 1976. But instead of moving that the conference "adopt" the motion of the committee, Emery had all who wholeheartedly thanked the committee for their work stand to "receive" their report. Everyone stood and clapped. A whole lot of us thought we had just merged, but of course, nothing had been adopted and we never merged.

13. Now to the ideologies. Although there was substantial agreement between the Reformed Baptists of Canada, the Wesleyan Methodists, and the Pilgrims, there were some interesting differences that have left traces in the church even today. Sometimes Wesleyans will think that something seems obvious only to find out that there are other Wesleyans with quite different perspectives on the same thing. Sometimes these are artifacts of our parent denominations.

For example, the Reformed Baptist Alliance had two conditions for merger, where they sought slightly different rules for their churches in Canada. One had to do with divorce. I welcome insights here from those who might know for sure, but I can mention some of the issues that I have encountered with groups that did not go with the merger. I can think of three:

• Whether it is ever permitted for a Christian to initiate a divorce. Matthew 5:32 allows for divorce if a spouse has an affair, but 1 Corinthians 7:12 says not to divorce if an unbelieving spouse wants to remain with you. Someone might put these two together and say a Christian can never initiate a divorce. You could argue that although it's technically allowed for cheating, a couple should stay together if the cheater is willing.
• What are the obligations of the "innocent party," the person who is divorced but didn't seek the divorce? Many ultra-conservatives believe that a Christian must remain unmarried for the rest of his or her life even if they are not the one who initiated a divorce. "They're still married in God's eyes." Matthew 5:32 can be interpreted to say that you can never marry a divorced woman. I know some who even think that, if you repent after you have remarried, you should divorce your second spouse and go back to your first one (in stark contrast to Deut. 24:4).
• Can a divorced person even be a minister, or are they permanently disqualified? Can a minister be married to a divorced person (cf. Lev. 21:7)?

I'm guessing (please correct) that the RBs did not allow for any of these. I'm guessing they did not allow for divorce at all, did not allow for remarriage after divorce, and did not allow divorced individuals to be ministers. The Wesleyan Methodists allowed divorce for cause and remarriage if you divorced for cause or were the innocent party.

Interestingly, the WMs from Tennessee who did not go with the merger formed the Bible Covenant Church in 1966 in part because of the WM's "looser" standards on divorce. Then, ironically, the daughter of the leader of the new denomination sought a divorce from her husband. The leader supported her. The Bible Covenant church disintegrated.

14. A pattern of church change is for the denomination to appoint a study committee of scholars to investigate an issue and come back with a recommendation at the next General Conference. This is of course what had happened with the proposed merger with the Free Methodists. I remember three or four such study committees of note. One was on divorce and two have been on tongues.

From my standpoint today, these study committees are stacked. You appoint people to them whom you know are going to come out with the conclusion you want them to reach. The divorce study committee recommended the position that the next GC adopted. The first study on tongues retained a restrictive view on the use of tongues. The one brought to the more recent GC for the first time made tongues acceptable in public worship as long as there is interpretation.

Nothing to see here. Everything done decently and in order. Change management. I believe a study on membership preceded changes made in 2016. 

15. The other issue on which the Reformed Baptist's sought an exception was on the flexibility the WMC had on baptism. As an heir to the Methodist tradition, the WMC still allowed for infant baptism. The reason why infant baptism remains a possibility in TWC today is because of this heritage. However, the RBs insisted that they continue only to practice believer's baptism.

Meanwhile, the Pilgrims were rather lax on the question of baptism. Interestingly, the Salvation Army -- another Methodist offshoot -- does not require baptism as well. I remember my mother pointing out a known Pilgrim interpretation of Mark 16:16. It says that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But it doesn't say that those who are not baptized will not be saved.

I've already mentioned (I think) that my grandfather had been a Quaker before becoming a Pilgrim. When he was in his 50s (I believe), he was asked to assist in a baptism. So he thought that he should get baptized himself. My mother, similarly, was not baptized I believe until she was in her late 40s in Florida.

The merged Wesleyan Church did require baptism for membership. But it retained all the options: believer's baptism or infant baptism, immersed, poured, or sprinkled. Most Wesleyan churches do believer's baptism by immersion. At the moment, I sense a strong movement to baptize individuals as soon as possible after they confess faith. This follows the most visible model in Acts. 

However, historically, there has often been a time of catechesis before baptism. In my own view, both approaches should be allowed. Baptism doesn't save you (1 Pet. 3:21 is figurative speech). So you won't go to hell if you undergo some instruction before you are baptized. I also think that Paul sat much more loosely to baptism than most Baptists do (1 Cor. 1:17). 

In keeping with Wesley, Wesleyans do affirm baptism as a means of grace and not as mere symbolism. I find it more difficult to pin down what the grace is. We can be justified, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, and adopted without ever being baptized. Elsewhere, I have called it a sacrament of inclusion. 

In any case, the Wesleyan Methodists were more sacramental than the Pilgrims. They were, after all, more Wesley-an. The Pilgrims, like the Salvation Army, sat much more loosely to communion and baptism. The Quaker mixture in their roots shone through.

16. Baptism was not the only issue where the WMs and PHC had different flavors. As we have shown, the Wesleyan Methodist Church was born of social action. It had a "postmillennial" heritage that believed not only in saving souls but also in changing the world for the better. It had played a role in the women's rights and temperance movements of the 1800s.

The Pilgrim Church was firmly pre-millennial and dispensational. While it also had a very positive view of women ministers (by the way, so did the Reformed Baptist Alliance), the Pilgrims looked for the rapture to happen any day and the Tribulation to begin. If it had been up to the Pilgrims, a pre-trib rapture would have been part of the Articles of Religion as it had been for them. But a more basic eschatology prevailed with an allowance for different points of view.

17. In terms of inerrancy, I have already suggested that the Pilgrims were more charismatic and revivalist in their hermeneutic of Scripture. God could say whatever he wanted to say through the words to you. The WMs had better scholars and had more modernists like Stephen Paine around, and the new evangelical concept of inerrancy made it onto the books... in the original manuscripts.

Two superintendents were chosen from each main parent denomination. Two from the WMs and two from the Pilgrims. Parity was very important, with each side winning out on about an even number of things. The choice of J. D. Abbott as one of the Pilgrim GSs perhaps signaled a move for the Pilgrims toward greater respectability and class (I was named after his son).

Those in both parent churches who focused on standards were increasingly marginalized and, in many cases, did not go with the merger. Keith Drury once told me that he was specifically sent to preside over a West Virginia district conference because he was the only general official with a wedding ring. He said that as he moved his hand in preaching, the eyes of the audience followed it like they were watching a tennis match.

Finally, it was so distracting that he asked, "Is this a problem?" And he actually took the ring off. He said there was an audible sigh of relief and, from that point on, there was a delightful engagement with the sermon.

Increasingly, those women who had buns and only wore skirts/dresses were mostly found in small churches and camp meetings. There was increasingly a movement away from camp meetings, some of it no doubt intentional. Wesleyans were becoming a little more mainstream and "respectable." It was the Wesleyan version of what the Methodists did on a higher social scale in the late 1800s. 

Women began to wear earrings and jewelry, not to mention wedding rings. Now we began to eat out on Sunday. Wesleyans "secretly" went to movies although it would be discouraged in the Discipline until as recently as the last decade. Dancing wasn't common but its prohibition would largely be a joke on college campuses. Prohibitions on "mixed bathing" (men and women swimming together) would eventually phase out.

The denomination adopted a clever tactic to move toward change in these areas. These disputable issues were moved from membership requirements to a new section of the Discipline called "Special Directions." The Special Directions allowed for the older customs to be displayed prominently but there were no teeth to them. There were no consequences in not following them.

There would eventually need to be clean up here, but it could take decades. It is not ideal to have things you consider to be very important sitting next to items that are joked about and no one follows. It trivializes the important (and in some cases, could create legal problems).

Nevertheless, this was a fairly peaceful way to bring change to the church. Attempts to do similar things on the issue of drinking have not completely succeeded. Indeed, attempts to get around this issue have led to fundamental changes in the church's ecclesiology. Hopefully, such flux can be resolved in the next General Conference or two.

18. This was a different church than the Wesleyan Methodists of a century earlier. While there may have been a few lone rangers here and there participating in the civil rights movement, the annals of both denominations were pretty silent on the movement (Tony Casey did quite a bit of research here). In fact, the tone among many in my Pilgrim circles was more on the side of law and order, grumbling about the troublemakers protesting. MLK was no hero in my circles in those days.

When Roe v. Wade came through in the 70s and a position was discussed on abortion, one of the general superintendents argued there should be exceptions for rape using the illustration, "What if a woman were raped by a black man?" I don't know whether he put it that way because he himself was racist or if he was trying to appeal to individuals on the General Board who were.

It seems possible to me that the Wesleyan Church -- and maybe evangelical culture in general -- goes through phases. Periods with more focus on social issues are followed by phases with more emphasis on soul-winning and inner spirituality. It is a hypothesis. 

The focus on abolition and women's rights in the mid-1800s was followed by the inner focus of the late 1800s holiness/revival movement. Is it possible that, after there was a time of push for equality on matters of race and gender in the 1960s, the church turned into a "let's focus on winning souls" phase in the 1970s? The 1960s did not see the church pushing for civil rights, but the 70s soon followed with a push for evangelism. 

The surge of socially conscious young evangelicals in the 2000s (Millennials) gave way to a surge of Boomer leadership in the 2010s that was more interested in evangelism. And after the recent push for race adjustments in the late 2010s, the church has turned strongly away from social justice to talk more about marketplace evangelism. It's almost like the church can't stomach too much talk about social issues for too long. Perhaps it's too painful. It naturally retreats into an otherworldly (and less sensitive) focus? Again, it is just a hypothesis.

19. The time of merger was also the time of the Vietnam War. The 1950s had seen a surge in civil religion with "in God we trust" put on the dollar bill and "under God" added to the pledge of allegiance. McCarthy had led the Senate in a witch hunt for communists among us. At Houghton College, Wilbur Dayton was recruited as president in 1972 to try to get those young people in line. He would be ousted by 1976. He was a nice man, godly, intelligent. But he wasn't what the young people of the 1970s wanted in a president.

Civil religion was the name of the game. Civil religion is when there is a swirl of patriotic fervor mixed in with one's religious fervor. To question the war was almost like questioning God. So the church focused rather on evangelism and the 1970s version of church growth. There was Ezekiel's Wheels where young people rode their bikes around the country witnessing. A young John Maxwell was beginning to wow ministers with dramatic soul-winning techniques. 

Maxwell's GRADE program sorted the church into Andrews (evangelists), Timothys (disciplers), Barnabases (encouragers), and Abrahams (prayer warriors). It was an early version of APEPT today (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers). The Abrahams prayed while the Andrews went door to door asking Evangelism Explosion's, "If you died tonight, would you have the assurance of going to heaven." Bus ministries blossomed.

The new church was off to the races... 

3.2 (Jesus would vote) For the Greater Good

 Chapter 3 continues in the series, "What Would Jesus Vote?" Here is the series so far:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?
2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms
3.1 (He would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy

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4. Rather, Paul says in Galatians 6:10, "Therefore, as we have occasion then, let us do good towards all -- and especially toward those in the household of faith." Paul believed that Christians were oriented to do good to all people. He may have put the household of faith first on the list, but all people were on the list, including all the non-believers of the world.

We sometimes encounter any number of excuses to avoid doing good to others on anything like a systematic or macro-scale. For example, some would say that the state shouldn't be involved in helping others -- that it's the job of the church to help others and the government just messes things up. As I write this book, Hurricane Helena has devastated eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina (September 2024). It has been amazing to see some in my denomination spring to action to help, using our church network as hubs to distribute water and other needed supplies. This effort seems absolutely biblical and wonderful in God's eyes. 

However, I might also add that the church would not have been enough for this moment. For all the good the church can do, it is no match for FEMA, the National Guard, the power companies (which are usually monopolies in certain areas), and other aid agencies created for disasters like these. In this case, they have also sprung into action and are doing their part. Aid was approved even before the disaster struck and, from what I can tell, all is playing out as best it can.  

By contrast, others would say that the church shouldn't get distracted with helping others because that's a social gospel, which they think is wrong. Or someone might say it's a distraction from trying to save souls, which is the church's number one business. I once heard an evangelism professor say that since the church has limited resources and the salvation of the world is such an important, urgent task, it simply doesn't have the time or extra resources to give toward anything but saving souls.

We will address all these distractions from doing good in the world soon enough. Suffice it to say, Jesus spent a good deal of time helping people as his first order of business. And it is a myth that the Bible only sees the government as an instrument of justice that isn't supposed to help people. Romans 13:4 says that the state is God's servant for your good. Once again, there is a whole lot of good to be done in the world. More to come.

Utilitarianism and Capitalism
5. Now, we get to the question at hand. What would it look like to apply the love principle to a country or a government? (There is another crucial question that we'll get to in the next chapter, namely, "To what extent should Christians try to make the laws of the land mirror Christian values?" But we'll hold off on that one for now.)

Assuming that the goal was to create a country that maximally played out the love of neighbor in its overall structure, what would that look like? It seems to me that there would be at least three dimensions in play:

1. It would try to set up a structure that brought the greatest good for the greatest number.
2. It would empower and protect the individual so that s/he was not overrun or oppressed by the majority.
3. It would restrain those actors who threaten or endanger the above.

The next few chapters will play out these goals for a thriving (a.k.a. loving) society. In the rest of this chapter, we will talk about the greater good. 

6. In the 1700s, a shift was taking place in British society. It was changing from a society that was largely directed and controlled by a king to one in which its people had more and more say in its direction. It was in this crucible that the United States was formed. As Lincoln put it in his Gettsburg Address, "a government of the people, by the people, for the people."

A man named Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) tried to come up with a way to orient England so that everyone counted, not just royalty and the aristocracy. The idea he came up with was what he called the "greatest happiness principle." The structure and decisions of society should be oriented in such a way that it results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number. It was a rough idea, perfected by thinkers like John Stuart Mill (1806-73) after him. 

This philosophy is called "utilitarianism." In theory, it is the bedrock of political decision-making. It is the language of the game of politics. Politicians always talk about bringing about good. Of course, it often is not the greater good they are really working toward. Rather, they may be out for the "good" of themselves or the good of special interest groups that are funding them or the good of their party or the good of some small segment of society. But politics typically plays the game of acting like it is advocating for the greater good. 

To some, it may seem strange to invoke these secular thinkers. But it seems to me that the concept of pursuing "the greatest good for the greatest number" is a pretty good starting point for thinking about what it might look like to shape a society that embodies the love of neighbor. Why? Because it aims to create a society where as many people are thriving as possible (without hurting the rest).

Of course, what is good? Questions like this are why politics is so complicated and why genuine Christians often disagree on who and what to support. At the same time, these complications also can open a door for us to make excuses and hide our true motives -- sometimes even from ourselves.

As we move forward, I'm going to very broadly say that to bring about good is to benefit someone. So the greatest good for the greatest number is to bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number without hurting the rest. That last condition, "without hurting the rest," will be very important in subsequent chapters. 

Again, part of our problem in society is unintended consequences. Sometimes we try to bring about a good but in the process create more problems than we expected. You might fix one problem and cause two more. Or you might plug a leak that later causes a major catastrophe. 

In the next chapter, we will also talk about protections for individuals. One key to American society and other representational democracies is the concept of a "bill of rights" that protects individuals from actions that are positive to a lot of people but to the detriment of others. It might be really "good" for one group for another to disappear. But that isn't allowed.

7. At about the same time that utilitarianism was bubbling up from the British Enlightenment, capitalism was also being born, first set out by Adam Smith in this same period (1723-90). Issues of money are some of the most hotly contested in politics, and few of us are experts in economics. Here is another area where Christians can sincerely disagree -- as well as an area where it is easy to rationalize bad motives and hide them even from ourselves.

Our economic philosophies are so deeply fried into our psyches that it is incredibly difficult to have a sane, objective conversation about them. America's struggle with communism and the Soviet Union for almost a century has made it difficult for us to think rationally about such things, it would seem. A common tactic to dismiss a candidate is to put the label "socialist" on them. No need for further conversation or thinking at that point apparently.

I personally believe that a carefully monitored capitalism is the most likely path to a society where the greatest number of people are most likely to thrive without hurting the rest. Can capitalism hurt people? I believe history shows it can. It's like having a lion as a pet. It can be magnificent, but be careful that it doesn't eat you.

We'll have several opportunities to return to a Christian evaluation of capitalism in the pages that follow. For the moment, let's remember what the founding concept of capitalism was. The original goal of capitalism was to bring about the greatest thriving for the greatest number. The concept was that if you and I are in a back-and-forth over the price of something, we will eventually arrive at a cost that is mutually advantageous. 

You will try to get as much money as you can from me, while I will try to pay as little money as I have to. We will eventually meet in the middle, at a mutually advantageous price. We both win. [2]

Adam Smith's primary goal was to create a thriving society. It was not necessarily to create a wealthy class that would just replace the current aristocracy. In John Stuart Mills' synthesis of capitalism with utilitarianism, capitalism best tries to maximize happiness by setting up a system where, in our back-and-forth with each other, we arrive at the best outcome for the most people... without hurting the rest.

Notice that the operating premise of capitalism is human self-interest. One might even say selfishness. Everyone will try to get as much as they can for themselves. Far from being a sacred system, it is a system that is built on a recognition of human fallenness. That is why I believe it is likely the best core economic system. It has a proper understanding of human nature.

Interestingly, communism might actually work if everyone were a true Christian. Communism assumes that we will all share everything in our reach with everyone else. Acts 2:44-45 looks pretty communal -- they shared their possessions in common and each person redistributed his or her excess to others in need. The problem is that it doesn't work given human fallenness. I believe the twentieth century is rife with illustrations of its failures.

But capitalism also does not accomplish what it aims for without careful monitoring and guidance at times. Here again, we get into areas where even economic experts disagree. Good intentions can bring about unintended consequences that are bad.

For the moment, let us simply say that the goal of capitalism was never to create immense wealth for a few on the backs of the many. That is exactly the opposite of its goals. The initial goals of capitalism fall right in line with the goal of creating a society that loves its neighbor on the level of society.

It seems to me we have forgotten this goal. Milton Freedman famously wrote that the ultimate responsibility of the CEO of a business and its board is to increase its shareholder value and maximize profits. [3] I suppose that statement is in line with the way capitalism works. But the ultimate goal of capitalism must always be to maximize human thriving. Only then does it cohere with fundamental American values and, incidentally, have a chance to play out the love of neighbor on a societal level.

[2] Adam Smith described this natural meeting in the middle as something that would happen "as if by an unseen hand" in The Wealth of Nations.

[3] Milton Freedman, "The Social Responsibility of a Business Is to Increase Its Profits," New York Times, September 13, 1970. As a side note, one could argue that the economic philosophy of Freedman and others played a direct role in the ultimate fall of Russia into oligarchic corruption. Operating on a philosophy of almost no regulation or government intervention in the transition from communism, it is no surprise that Russia has largely become a state run by the incredibly rich with an almost entirely disempowered people. 

3.1 (Jesus would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy

This is a series titled, "What Would Jesus Vote?" in the lead-up to the election. Here is the series so far:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?
2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms

This post is on chapter 3. Jesus would vote for the greater good.

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Chapter 3: (Jesus would vote) For the Greater Good
1. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he gave a two-pronged answer often summarized as "Love God, love neighbor." Here is the full quote:

Textbox: "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law? 

And Jesus said to him, "You will love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart and your whole life and your whole mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it. You will love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, the whole Law and the Prophets are hung." 

Paul is even more explicit in Romans 13:8: "The one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law." In other words, if you love God and love your neighbor, you will have done everything that God requires of you. The love command is not another command. It is the command. If you have loved God and loved your neighbor, you have done all that God expects of you.

Just so that there is no doubt, Jesus says the same thing another way with the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12: "Everything that you would have people do to you, so also do to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." This is another way of saying to love your neighbor as yourself, and Jesus says that it captures all of Scripture. [1]

2. Now, I have heard some truly insidious interpretations of the love command. They are actually quite devilish, a good example of trying to evade the commands of God by ingenuity. This interpretation says that Jesus was not saying to love everyone. He was saying to love everyone in Israel. This clever (and possibly demonic) teaching tries to escape God's command to love everyone and redirects the command only to those in the church. 

Let that sink in. This re-interpretation basically says, "You only have to love other Christians. You don't have to love anyone else." And of course, you can decide who the true Christians are. It takes the clear message of Scripture -- in fact, the central ethic of the Bible -- and twists it so that we can hate whoever we want if they are not Christians. This is potentially a doctrine of demons.

What about loving your enemies? Jesus says in Matthew 5:43-44, "You have heard it said, 'You will love your neighbor and you will hate your enemies.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Here again, the insidious love-dodging interpretation says, "Jesus is only referring to your enemies within Israel. He isn't referring to people outside of Israel."

You get incredible points for cleverness, but this is again a doctrine of devils because it directly undermines Jesus' central teaching. After all, what examples does Jesus give to support what he is saying? Jesus says that God sends rain and sun on both the righteous and the wicked (5:45). That is, God gives good gifts to everyone on the planet. Jesus doesn't say, "Be like God who gives sun and rain only to Israel." He says, "Be complete [in your loving] just as God is complete [in his loving]" (5:48). In other words, you must love everyone.

What about the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10? Doesn't Jesus explicitly pick someone outside of Israel as his example of who our neighbor is? The response of this group of interpreters is that Samaritans were still within Israel. They are the kinds of enemies that we must love, enemies within the church (and true America). In this line of thinking, the church is usually thought to have completely replaced Israel.

I'm quite sure that the Jews of Judea didn't see it that way. They saw the Samaritans as vile outsiders. Jesus was deliberate in his choice of a Samaritan. His point was to pick someone that a Jew would not want to show love to, an outsider.

What about the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25? Doesn't God sort out who gets to enter the kingdom and who doesn't based on whether they have helped anyone in need? Once again, a devilish ingenuity comes into play. The parable is no longer about helping those in need. It is about the way people have treated Christian missionaries. So God is not angry at the way people have treated others in general but the way people have treated Christians. Ingenious! Devilish!

This insidious line of interpretation gets even worse. It not only sees the church as a complete replacement for Israel, but it sometimes equates "Christian" America today with Israel. It thus blurs into the blasphemous America worship that we strongly warned against in the previous chapter. Now it is potentially a tool for Christian fascism.

See what this interpretation has done with the Bible. It has made it possible to hate everyone but "true" Americans and "true" Christians. In theory, it could open the door for the mass slaughter of those who aren't pure like the real church. It could open the door for a Holocaust of whomever you don't want to consider to be truly under the umbrella of God's people. In short, it is an incredibly scary, hard-hearted line of interpretation.

3. But Jesus did not filter his audience by whether they agreed with him or not. Yes, he did focus on Israel and Israelites in his earthly mission (Matt. 10:5-6). But this was never the end game. The long term goal was to see the whole world reconciled to God. The Great Commission was always the end game -- to make disciples of all the nations. This mission was not a "convert or die" one but one bringing good news to everyone. 

This is the message of Ruth and Jonah. God is not just concerned with his people. He cares about Moabites and Ninevites too. Look at the family tree of Jesus in Matthew 1. There you'll find Tamar who was likely a Canaanite and Rahab who was from the city of Jericho. Jesus says that God's eye is on the sparrow (Matt. 10:29-31) -- not just the Christian sparrows. Although it was not part of his earthly mission, Jesus casts a demon out of the daughter of a Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30). His conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4 falls into this same category.

Someone might say, "But all of these ended up joining the people of God." True, but Jesus' talk about going two miles when compelled to go one (Matt. 5:41) was possibly an allusion to a Roman solider -- another confirmation that the enemy Jesus is commanding to love in Matthew 5 included non-Israelites. The transformed mind that Paul urges of the Romans (12:2) did not distinguish between those who do evil to you within the church and those who do evil to you outside the church (12:17). Rather, he says to try to live at peace with everyone.

He slides from these comments in Romans 12 into a conversation about the Roman state at the beginning of Romans 13, a clear sign that he has always had worldly enemies in view. This whole train of thought leads up to the love command in 13:10. If Paul means for us to restrict the love command only to others in the church, he has been very unclear about it, for he has been talking about the secular state.

No, the core Christian ethic is that we must choose to love everyone. This is its radical message. This fact makes any attempt to undermine this message all the more devilish, for it undercuts God's central command to us. It opens the door for us to unravel the very heart of Scripture. It must therefore be rejected in the strongest of terms. 

4. Rather, Paul says in Galatians 6:10, "Therefore, as we have occasion then, let us do good towards all -- and especially toward those in the household of faith" ...

[1] The phrase, "The Law and the Prophets" is a shorthand way of referring to all of the Old Testament. Jews conceptualized the Old Testament in three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. "The Law and the Prophets" thus referred to the two main divisions of the Jewish Scriptures. 

2.2 Voting as a Kingdom Citizens (from a different kingdom)

Previous posts include:

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?
2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen

Jesus would vote as a kingdom citizen continued

Christ vs. Culture
5. America is a wonderful place for me. When you enjoy living in your country so much, you don't think much about whether your allegiance could ever be a question. However, the situation at the time of the New Testament was much different. The vast majority of those in the New Testament had nothing to do with the Roman government. They were just stuck under Roman rule whether they liked it or not.

Now, some early Christians were part of the Roman system. Sergius Paulus was a Roman proconsul who came to faith in Acts 13:12. Quite possibly, Theophilus was also a Roman governor of some kind, the person for whom Luke-Acts was written. We know that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens (Acts 16:37) -- that placed them in an upper elite within the overall empire. But these individuals are the exceptions in the New Testament.

The early church went to great lengths to try to show the Roman Empire that they were an asset to it. Take 1 Timothy 2:2. Paul urges Timothy and the Ephesians to pray to God for the emperor and all those in authority. He instructs them to live peaceful and quiet lives. Who wouldn't want people all over their empire like that?

I seriously wonder if Paul wrote Romans 13:1-7 in anticipation that some Roman official might some day read his letter. After all, Christian Jews had already been kicked out of Rome once before in AD49 because of controversies in the synagogues. [6] How brilliantly inspired to make it clear that Christians were an asset to the empire and not a threat! Paul tells the Romans to submit to the Roman authorities. He tells them to pay their taxes. He calls the Roman state "God's servant for your good" (13:4). They should have no reason to fear if they are law-abiding members of society.

It is of course ironic because the emperor at the time was Nero, who would eventually put Paul (and Peter) to death. We probably should take Romans 13 as the ideal situation, not the state as it often plays out. Paul knew full well that the Roman government was not always just. After all, Pontius Pilate put Jesus to death. These are some of the reasons I think Paul is being somewhat aspirational here and also positioning the Roman church advantageously in relation to the Roman state. 

1 Peter 2 is also addressing a church that is undergoing significant persecution. Peter tells the churches of Asia Minor not to make waves but to live squeaky clean lives so that they don't cause any trouble (2:12). He tells slaves to submit to unjust masters and wives to obey unbelieving husbands. The goal is not to give any pretense for persecution and to silence the foolish who say Christians are bad people. Like 1 Timothy, 1 Peter urges Christians to submit to the emperor, governors, and "every human authority" (2:13). [7] 

In 1 Peter we find a theme that we will also find in Hebrews. Christians are to consider themselves "foreigners and exiles" here on the earth (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:11). Even though Paul was a Roman citizen, there would always be a sense in which he didn't fully belong. Hebrews puts it this way: "We do not have any lasting city here, but we are seeking the one that is coming" (13:14). Whether it be Rome or Jerusalem, we belong elsewhere.

Hebrews 11 has already anticipated this statement earlier. Abraham did not have a country, but he was looking for a city whose builder and maker is God (11:10). He was seeking a heavenly homeland instead (11:16). We can line this language up with the expectation that the kingdom of God will come when Christ returns. As we mentioned in chapter 1, Paul says that our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).

6. Those of us who live in a place like the United States live under a government that, on the whole, is far more friendly to Christianity than the Roman Empire was at the time of the New Testament. Still, there is a principle here. We should always keep in mind our priorities. We are citizens of heaven first. We should sit more loosely toward our earthly citizenship. That is not to devalue it. It is just to make sure we always have our priorities straight.

A good friend of mine, the late Keith Drury, once told me that his father would always say around election time, "I wonder who they'll pick as their president." It wasn't that he didn't vote. He did. But he installed in his children a reminder that, as Jesus put it, our kingdom is ultimately not of this world (John 18:36) -- at least not yet.

This is the perspective we find throughout the New Testament. We mentioned in chapter 1 that the New Testament takes a "Christ against culture" perspective in Richard Niebuhr's typology. In this view, the church is seen as something distinct and separate from the world. The New Testament saw the church as somewhat disengaged from the world.

Paul shows this dynamic well in 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 when he was dealing with the man who was sleeping with his stepmother. "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church," he says. That's God's business. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's." By contrast, the church should be very concerned about corrupting forces within the church.

We live in a different culture than Paul. I argued in the first chapter that we can have a much bigger effect on our culture than Paul was likely to have in his. If we can influence our world positively, why wouldn't we? But the principle remains. We are ultimately "other." We are ultimately strangers, immigrants if you would, in our lands.

Citizens in Two Kingdoms
7. A former colleague of mine told me recently that he and someone else in our church (who had been in the military) for a time had a battle over the American flag in the sanctuary. My colleague would sneak the American flag down from the pulpit and put it down on the level of the congregation. Then the other individual, as soon as he saw it, would put it back up on the platform. I couldn't help but laugh when I pictured this "game" that I think went on for quite some time. I think my colleague finally hid the flag from him.

I grew up with an American flag on the church platform. I never thought anything about it. There was a Christian flag up there with it. Although I now would not prefer it, I don't personally think it's worth blowing up a church. But I hope you're beginning to see why it doesn't seem quite right. No human state should stand on the same level as God's kingdom. Should Canadian churches have a Canadian flag on the platform? Should Orthodox churches in Russia have a Russian flag? Certainly, Nazi churches had a Nazi flag in the German churches.

There's a name for this dynamic. It's called "civil religion." It's what we've been talking about in this chapter. It's when the trappings of our patriotism begin to take on a religious dimension. [8]

I'm not trying to be heavy-handed or to give off a judgmental, condescending feeling. There's nothing wrong with patriotism. What I do want to do is plant a seed in your mind. Whenever you see matters of patriotism begin to give off a somewhat religious vibe, remind yourself, "My true citizenship is in heaven. I'm just passing through my current land as a stranger."

[6] As mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius in his work The Twelve Caesars, in particular in Claudius 25.4.

[7] This instruction of course has exceptions. In Acts 4:19, Peter indicates to the Sanhedrin that when obedience to earthly authorities comes into conflict with God's commands, God's commands win.

[8] The term was used to describe these dynamics by Robert N. Bellah in his 1967 essay, "Civil Religion in America."

2.1 Voting as kingdom citizens -- unconditional loyalty

A few days ago I started a new series on the question, "What Would Jesus Vote?" (WWJV). The first post asked if Jesus even would vote: 

1. Would Jesus Even Vote?

I thought he would in our world, although it wasn't an option in the first century. 

We now begin to answer the question. The first answer is that Jesus would vote as a kingdom citizen.

________________________

Unconditional Loyalty
1. I've given words as a minister at several burials for individuals who were once soldiers. To honor them, a team of veterans came to give a gun salute, and a flag was presented to the family. These were very meaningful ceremonies, and the flags the families keep are precious.

From time to time, I have gotten an uneasy feeling when the "Christian" part of the ceremony felt like a formality, and the American part seemed to be the truly important part to those present. That is to say, there have been times when it felt like the "religious fervor" for the American part was far stronger than the fervor for prayer to God or the reading of the Scripture. The feeling was something like, "Hurry up, preacher, so we can get to the good stuff." 

The feeling is a little like when the person who has died was a Freemason. Pastors are instructed to make sure that the Freemason ceremony is distinct from the Christian part of the burial. Those ceremonies can also take on a kind of religious flavor that, at least at times, feels like it is in competition with Christian Scripture and prayer. 

Some things are so deeply ingrained in our minds that it's hard to explain them -- or show that they're not quite right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with patriotism. July 4th is a wonderful day of celebration for us as Americans. Veteran's Day and Memorial Day appropriately remember those who have fought and sacrificed to preserve our freedoms.

These events can also take on a kind of religious-level fervor. It is very common in America for these holidays and devotions to find their way into our churches. We have a flag on the platform next to where the word of God is preached. These days become religious holidays on Sundays alongside Christmas and Easter. It can be hard to see why some of these dynamics are a little odd -- especially to individuals who worship with us from other countries.

2. It has taken me a long time to figure out how to express why these practices seem a little off. I think I am finally finding some words by using what I'm calling a "fervor scale." It is how we feel toward something special. First, there is respect (1). I'm calling this the lowest level of fervor. You respect a policeman. You might respect a teacher or a pastor.

Then there is devotion (2). You might be devoted to someone or something. Some people are very devoted to exercise. Others are devoted to various causes. Someone might be devoted to being a vegan.

Some people are devoted enough that we might speak of reverence (3). Some Roman Catholics revere their priests. I would say that much American devotion to the flag and to soldiers is certainly at the level of reverence. Soldiers killed in action can take on the flavor of Christian martyrs in terms of how much we revere them. Roman Catholics would argue that they do not worship the Virgin Mary. They would say they venerate her.

You can see what the highest level of devotion is. It is worship (4). According to Scripture, there is only one thing that Christians can worship, and that is God. "You will have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3) is the first of the Ten Commandments. It is really another form of the greatest commandment: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, life, and strength" (Deut. 6:5). Jesus says that this love of God -- along with love of others -- sums up all of God's law (Matt. 22:36-40). 

Textbox: "You will love the LORD your God will all your heart and will all your life and with all your mind." Matt. 22:37

This is worship. We are also talking about holiness here. The more we set something aside as special, the more holy it is to us. God is ultimate holiness because he is the most special and "set apart" thing in all existence. He is in a category by himself.

The problem is that some may feel more devotion to things American than to the things of God. Even feeling the same devotion to God and country suggests either that our devotion to God is too little or our devotion to country is too much. There really is no debate about which must have our supreme allegiance. God says, "I am Yahweh. That is my name. I give my glory to no other" (Isa. 42:8). 

Textbox: If we have the same feeling about our country that we have about God, then either our devotion to God is too little or our devotion to country is too great.

In the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase, as the elderly aunt begins to pray for the Christmas meal, she blurs into the Pledge of Allegiance. [1] It's funny because it is something that we could see happen. And the reason it could happen is because the feeling many Americans have toward their country is virtually religious, similar to the feeling someone might have in prayer. It fits.

But it is also inappropriate. In the case of Aunt Bethany, we might suggest that her devotion to God is too little. Is it possible that, in some cases, our devotion to country approaches the level of a devotion that should be reserved for God alone? [2]

If our devotion to anything other than God gets to the level of what our devotion to God should be, that is an idol. This is the sin above all sins -- to worship something instead of or alongside God.  

3. There is a sentence in a recent book that really clicked with me on this topic. Here it is: "Loyalty to the Kingdom must be unconditional, while loyalty to the country must be conditional." [3] This should be an obvious statement because to do otherwise puts country on the level of God, which is blasphemy. However, I have found that it doesn't feel obvious to everyone. In fact, this statement might almost seem offensive to some. This is a serious problem from a biblical and Christian standpoint.

There's a lot of talk about Christian nationalism these days. It has proven very hard to express what is being warned about here or why it is wrong. These things go so deep into our psyche that it can be incredibly difficult to see what's going on inside ourselves on a deep level. Here's how I might describe it. Christian nationalism is when the fervor for our country reaches a level where it is on par with our loyalty to God. In effect, we begin to worship our country. [4]

I recently processed this concept with someone. First, I suggested that virtually everyone feels free to disagree with the American government. Indeed, those who would most likely fall in the category of Christian nationalism are some of the most likely to strongly disagree with the current government. For example, many strongly opposed mandates for churches not to meet during the COVID pandemic. Some of the strongest language today against the government -- some of the strongest since the Civil War -- comes from individuals who might be categorized as Christian nationalists.

So how does that work? Those whose devotion to the United States falls somewhere near or in the worship category are most vehemently opposed to the United States? 

It's because their devotion is not to the real US. The real US consists of the real people who are its citizens, including individuals who immigrated here and became citizens. The real US is the real US government and the real people who are in office. It is the real Constitution and the real laws of the land as they stand.

The real America is far from perfect. The real America needs a lot of work. It is a beautiful dream but a work in progress. Pretty much everyone agrees with this.

Here is the big AHA moment. The America that some worship is not the real America. It is an ideal of America. It is their ideal of America. It is an America that some want to make by force -- which of course is not something the real America allows for at all. It is a vision for what they want to make America become based on their ideal of what it used to be at some point. (By the way, most American historians think this is a skewed picture of what it used to be.)

4. In the conversation I had, the respondent suggested that it is not the concrete America that should get our unconditional loyalty -- any more than any church denomination should. Rather, he argued, it is the ideal of America that is worthy of our unconditional loyalty alongside our unconditional loyalty to God. This response threw me for a bit of a loop because, again, it seems obvious to me that God must be on a level by himself. "My glory I give to no other" (Isa. 42:8).

But here's why that is idolatry and, ultimately, blasphemy. Even an ideal version of the US Constitution involves a President, a Congress, a Supreme Court, and a people who are human. This side of eternity, humans will always be susceptible to sin. In fact, any form of government this side of eternity involves fallen humans who are susceptible to sin and temptation.

What this means is that no matter how ideal a version of the United States you can imagine, it will always involve sinful humanity or at least humanity that is susceptible to temptation and sin. That means that even the most ideal form of America cannot have our unconditional loyalty. Any government run by humans will eventually involve sin. I shouldn't even have to make this argument, but it kiboshes any pretense that a human government of any sort could merit our unconditional loyalty. 

In fact, to say so is really a trick of the Devil to substitute something for God and his kingdom.

A related reason why even an ideal America could not be on the level of the kingdom of God is the fact that what actually makes the American system of government so good is that it involves thorough checks and balances against sinful humanity. The President does not have absolute power. The Congress does not have absolute power. The Supreme Court does not have absolute power. It was designed in full recognition of the human thirst for power and tendency to get into conflict over it. Given the uncertainty of men, it works better, I think, than any other system of government.  

Western representational democracies (call them republics, if you want) are thus quite possibly the best possible form of human government. They are so because they take into account humanity's nature as selfish and bound to try to seize power to itself no matter the effect on others. In other words, it is the best because humanity is sinful. 

But this comes nowhere near to being as good as the kingdom of God, where the monarch -- God -- is not only all knowing but all good. The kingdom is already inaugurated with Christ's resurrection, but it will not fully be here until Christ returns. This side of eternity, humanity will never be perfect citizens of the kingdom of God... but they will be when the kingdom fully arrives. That means that the kingdom of God truly will be a perfect kingdom in a way that no earthly kingdom can ever be.

No earthly kingdom can come close. Actually, it would be a joke even to suggest such a thing except that it is blasphemy, idolatry, and thus quite serious. Let us dismiss without any further thought that our loyalty to any earthly kingdom -- including some ideal United States -- can be unconditional. Our unconditional loyalty must be reserved alone for God and his kingdom. 

[1] I take this illustration from Miranda Cruz's new book, Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters (InterVarsity, 2024), 11-12.

[2] Let me be very serious for a moment. There was a philosopher in the early twentieth century (Wittgenstein) who argued that talk about God wasn't really about some Being out there. Rather, he argued it was just a type of language game that we play in certain religious settings. I don't agree with him. I think God actually exists out there and not merely in games we play with ourselves and others.

BUT, I wonder if he is right about many Christians. Could there be many people who call themselves Christians who really aren't in conversation with the real God? Their prayers are really talking to themselves. When they pray in church, they are really talking to those around them. Their devotion is really a game they don't even know they're playing. They enjoy the music. It gives them a buzz. It makes them feel good. They enjoy fellowship with the other people as they play the church game. They say God and the Bible, but they really mean the values and identity of their tribe. They read the Bible like a mirror for what they already believe.

If the worship of the real God isn't real for many Christians, then it would be no wonder if they feel the same or greater fervor for other things.

[3] Cruz, Faithful Politics, 12.

[4] Some people roll their eyes when you begin to make comparisons with Nazi Germany. But those who effectively worship America would be in that same fourth category as those who came to worship Germany, even though the fever is not as intense or empowered at this time. In the case of Germany, they did not worship the real Germany, but an idea of Germany that they then forced on Germany with a religious fervor. Christian faith in Germany also got intertwined with German nationalism with such a force that cautionary voices like Bonhoeffer's and others seemed like nothing next to it. 

This is called "syncretism," the blending of faith with cultural forces that are actually contrary to faith. While nation worship is very serious in the sight of God, in the past it has been mild and innocuous enough. However, since human nature has not changed, we should never say never. Hannah Arendt pointed out in the aftermath of WW2 that the main actors in Germany's evil were just ordinary people. She called it the "banality of evil," in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Viking, 1963).