Our Christian nation

The idea of Christian nation seems the antithesis to the Reign of God. Where Jesus freely gives up the need for the kind of temporal power offered him in the desert, we must give up the idea that Christianityu will control a nation. it will be the transforming force if we allow it - to force it will destroy the Kingdom.

I look back at early church history. While Constantine's interest in Christianity and his eventual conversion stopped the persecution of Christians and led to the growth of the church, it also created to a church-state convergence as the church hierarchy became the apparatus of government. Over the ensuing millenium, despite much which may have been good for individuals (certainly God can speak to us in spite of our church), it led to a consolidation of secular power through the pope and the church, suppression of the masses through collaboration of the aristocracy and the church, perversion and commercialization of church doctrine, and new persecutions, particularly of Jews, infidels, and individuals of conscience who followed God rather than the church state (think Tyndale or Hume who all burned at the stake). As citizens, our ultimate allegiance is to God and not a nation, not even a "Christian" nation. I believe some leaders in this country have a vested interest in creating a "Christian" nation but do not necessarily follow God.

Jesus has clearly made this distinction when He said "My kingdom is not of this world" and "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's."

The things our founding fathers did in the name of God to settle on this continent we call America are shameful to me as a Christian and as an American. I know throughout history, thousands of people have used God’s name for personal gain and sin, and I know thousands more will before our time is done. And I know that, praise the Lord, God is bigger than all of it, and He is sovereign and will prevail, but it doesn’t make any offense right. I don't want to go too far off in a tangent, but the fact is that we have a seedy, sin-filled underbelly under our history of our proud “Christian nation.” As Christians, we should cringe every time we hear that term and it should cease from our vocabulary. It should not be our default argument in a separation of church and state debate.

In my finite opinion, we as Christians should flee this talking point not only because it brings to mind Christian imperialism, but also because it makes us lazy as Christians. Over the last 200 years, America has largely failed at our mission to spread the gospel and love one another as ourselves. Over the last decade, our system of theocratic programs and policies have rendered ourselves irrelevant in the world kingdom conversation. China, a nation with no trace or history of Christianity is now the leading the world conversation on Christianity. In turn, our history of being Christian nation has made our bellies fat, our spirituality lazy, and our compassion delegated and boxed off for bake offs, soup kitchens, and boycott campaigns, something to do when we need a break from chasing our American dream of prosperity.

Mixing of Jesus and politics helps facilitate this. With our safe Christian nation in tact, we put our faith in our politicians and democracy over Jesus and Christianity. We leave the message and principles of Jesus up to the government with programs, laws and codes of conduct to help condemn, judge and impose our way of live from a cold distance where any message of love is easily lost.

Sadly, the cold fact is that you cannot align Jesus with government or “the state,” because “the state” in its inherent form is oppressive in some nature. Man has created no government that does not oppress some class of people. Even our mighty democracy systematically allows for people to fall between the cracks. As such, when we align Jesus with “the state” we are identifying Jesus’ name with the oppression of some class. And I don’t think that is what Jesus was about.