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America, Christianity, Culture War, Humanity, Liberalism, Pluralism, Religious Left, Secularism, Truth
A coalition of liberal Christians has recently put out a statement “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,” supporting a pluralistic society, rather than one distinctly Christian. ‘Christian Nationalism,’ in their term, “demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian.” This definition, and other features of the statement, tend to lump together the idea that American society should be Christian at the core with other ideas, as “to be a good American, one must be Christian.”
The statement, of course, raises questions it does not directly answer:
Christianity should not be privileged by the state? What worldview should the state privilege, then? For the state will certainly promote a worldview, otherwise it cannot enact and enforce laws.
And again, “Government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion.” No? And if someone wants to revive the practice of human sacrifice engaged in by so many religions throughout history? We mustn’t reject those religious views?
“Religious instruction is best left to our houses of worship, other religious institutions and families.” And whose morals and virtues will you teach in the schools?
We must have some kind of a nation. Why not a Christian one?
Now, when one looks at the greed and corruption, racism and hate, sprawling abortion industry and militant sexual revolution, it is fairly easy to say that we’re not a very Christian nation. There are a lot of Christians in the nation–and they do a lot of good!–but the character of society is in many ways not very Christian.
But the really important question is not “what is America?” but “what was America meant to be, what should it have been, and what might it be?” And there the answer is quite obviously “a Christian nation”–in some sense of the term: not as a nation where everyone was or was required to be a Christian, not in the sense that pastors wrote the laws or in the establishment of a state church, but in the sense of a nation founded largely by Christians and shaped through most of its history by Christian morals and principles (the obvious exceptions and hypocrisies notwithstanding).
For what these pro-secularism liberals seem to miss is that a society must have some governing ideology. Pluralism is never really advocated for that job, except perhaps by thoroughgoing anarchists, because real ideological pluralism would allow any religious and cultural practices a place, and that is obviously not the intention of such secular coalitions.
A limited pluralism is not a foundation-level ideology; something beneath it sets the limits. The supposed pluralistic ideology being pushed is actually grounded upon something else, some ideology that decides which values and practices are permissible and which aren’t. That underlying ideology is probably some form of atheism, pantheism, or (most likely) paganism.
So we have to see the choices clearly for the future of our society. The illusion is that we have a choice between a Christian nation or a pluralist nation; that is not the case. We have a choice between a Christian nation and a pagan nation. Either culture will promote an agenda for society, will teach their values in the schools and media, and will enforce their morals in the justice system.
“Christian nationalism” is simply the alternative to pagan nationalism.
Credo ut Intelligam 
Not defining ourselves as a Christian nation does not mean that we are a “pagan” nation (though I guess that could depend a little on how broad you make the term pagan). There have been many destructive acts perpetrated on both religion and on the populace when one religion has held sway over a government. Government and religion are not good bedfellows. They both corrupt each other.
When a particular belief system is ensconced in a government, it encourages the leaders of that belief system to seek worldly gains over the precepts of their faith. When a government is beholden to a belief system, it encourages the government to adhere to inflexible dogma, rather than listening to the particular wants and needs of their populace. Moreover, in an aspiring theocracy autocrats can easily use and abuse the religion to meet their own ends. The autocrat need merely don the recognized language of the religion and much that should be questioned by the populace is accepted in faith.
There are many examples in the past of how the combination of religion and government has gone poorly. These examples are well known enough, that I feel I barely need to list them. After the protestant reformation began, European Christians spent a good deal of time persecuting each other with the power of the government behind them. Prior to that, the Church may have been more united, but it was also more corrupt, more government than faith. Moreover, if you want to evaluate whether it is a good idea for one religion to control the government, just consider living in a country where a religion other than your own had the reins of power. Would you feel comfortable and happy in such a country?
So I would suggest that having one religion dominate the government is not a good thing, but what is the alternative. The alternative is a democracy, in which the people rule themselves. What is allowed is decided by what people can agree on. That leaves open quite a range of possibilities, though, depending on the makeup of the populace. If I was to try to advise for what should guide a governments actions, I think I would say that the government should seek to protect its citizens from harm both at home and abroad, a government should seek to protect the freedom of its citizens to pursue their own fulfillment provided that fulfillment doesn’t harm others, and finally that a government should seek to provide the resources necessary for all its citizens to pursue a full life.
All this is not to say that I’m against the practice of religion, nor that Christianity nor any other faith should be outlawed in any fashion. However, when it comes to a particular faith trying to make others follow their code of morality, it should come by that other person willfully choosing to convert to that faith, not by being forced to adhere to its principles. You may argue that a nation enforcing no religion will be quite immoral, but I don’t think that that at all necessarily follows. For one, I’m advocating not for no religion, but for lack of religious control over government. If the faith of the believers means anything, it should mean something independent of whether the government is enforcing the belief system. Secondly, I don’t think nonbelievers are inevitably immoral, any more than believers. Human nature runs in them both and just because a believer is taught something is immoral, doesn’t mean that believer avoids it. Moreover just because a nonbeliever is given no religious decree against something, doesn’t mean they go out and practice it. For example, both Christians and non-Christians find value in monogamy (though many from both groups do violate that). And I think everybody is against murder and stealing. And most find value in self-sacrifice. I think a good government instead of enforcing a particular religion is one in which its people are free to pursue any belief system, and surely such a government is also one in which faith actually means something because it is pursued freely rather than because it is enforced.
I could say quite a bit more on the subject, and wouldn’t mind doing so, but I probably should get back to my day job. I have many thoughts on your posts, but I usually don’t take the time to write them down. This time, though, I felt the subject was pertinent enough and my views clear enough that I decided to take the time to respond.
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Madison! How good to hear from you, and thank you for engaging with the issue. You are as thoughtful as I remember–and substantially less laconic!
I think we need to separate the idea of a Christian society from the idea of a theocracy. In a theocracy you have a ruling class, say of clergy, who claim to govern in the place of God. We can’t have a theocracy until Christ returns and does the governing Himself.
But a Christian society is simply one that recognizes that laws and morals must come out of some worldview, and chooses the Christian worldview. Such a society actually provides the basis for a limited religious pluralism–freedom of religion, within bounds. Those bounds, however, are determined by the underlying morality of the Christian faith: so, to use my previous example, no human sacrifice. But that does not mean that everyone is required to be a Christian; people may freely exercise other faiths, they must simply do so in the context of Christian laws. A Christian society would not force its members to be Christians.
But the root question is where those boundaries and controls come from. You think they will not come out of pagan ideology, but out of the basic working of democracy. But isn’t democracy a second-level feature of society? Isn’t it a function of having a worldview that thinks people should be free? And not every worldview does.
We had slavery in this nation for a long time, not because we were a Christian nation but because we were not enough of a Christian nation. We had slavery because our laws were grounded not upon Christian love and charity, but upon the democratic idea that the beliefs of most people should be the law of the land. And if the beliefs of most people were racist? Racism became institutionalized.
Don’t we need a worldview beneath democracy and pluralism to control the boundaries in which freedom may flourish?
Thanks for your thoughts on this!
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Thanks for the reply, and for the comment about having been laconic. I was laconic and quite uncertain about almost everything last I met you. We even had a lunch conversation dedicated to that, which I well remember and appreciate you having taken the time to talk with me. I still have plenty of uncertainties, but I’ve gotten to the place where I have some sense of who I am and some basic beliefs.
Anyways, I think I have some grasp of what you’re proposing as far as a Christian nation, but the problem is that I don’t think such a thing could be achieved, and I think that what would be achieved in the process of trying would be worse than the alternative. Moreover, I’m not sure I fully understand what such a generalized Christianity would be. What exactly would these Christian principles be that we would be governed by, and how would it be decided which Christian principles were necessary to governing and which were a matter of faith? There are such a wide variety of Christian denominations and they have such a wide variety of beliefs they see as important. Moreover, in my experience, whatever belief is peculiar to a particular denomination ends up being elevated above many of the other arguably more central teachings of the Bible.
As to there being morality outside of Christianity, I had once believed as I think you may that without Christianity, people would be utterly rudderless and immoral. But over time, I have often enough seemed to witness the opposite. In many cases, it is the religious that help bring about some of the worst things, and it is the non-Christians and even outright atheists that are taking the higher moral ground on many of today’s issues. The Christianity of much of America has been perverted and subverted, and in its current form I do not trust it to take the lead on moral issues.
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