By Bryan Fischer
What follows is the latest exchange in an ongoing email conversation with a fellow believer on Christians and public policy. (John is not the individual’s real name.) As the ellipses indicate, I have edited his original communication for space purposes. My reply follows.
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On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 7:58 PM, John wrote:
Bryan,
As I await your reply to my last email, it seems as though OneNewsNow/AFA has been on a hot streak of sending emails about America being a Christian nation…The more I looked at the arguments, the more I realized that it doesn’t really matter what the founding fathers believed or didn’t believe with regard to Christianity/deism or whatever. What I would rather focus on is that there is no such thing as a Christian nation, no matter what any man says. When Jesus left the earth, He said nothing about anyone establishing some geographical boundaries and keeping out “the heathon” or at least their political views. Nor did God ever promise to bless or keep safe any country post-Christ. These emails are claiming that if we don’t get our act together soon, God may remove His blessing and protection from us. What does that even mean? Do you really believe that God has specifically set apart and cared for the USA more than the other countries of the world? Personally, I don’t believe God is an American, a Republican, or a Democrat. I believe He is God and we don’t need to put Him in a box to make us feel better about ourselves.
Besides this, there were many atrocities committed in early America, including the breaking of every Native American treaty we every signed and killing them and/or kicking them off their land…This is man-made theology – it is not Biblical…We have conveniently found a way to ignore anything overtly anti-Christian about our founding and highlight a few words in some documents.
We are to make disciples, not countries. We are to show people who God really is, not make them read the Bible in schools. The thing I hate the most about the argument that the Bible should go back to schools is that OneNewsNow (among many others) claims it will make kids behave better. Morality has NOTHING to do with salvation. It just keeps your kids’ ears from hearing bad words or being exposed to questionable things. So what? Are not the souls of men more important than making everyone follow some moral code? Outward obedience has never been what God is after. That’s where I feel this whole “Christian nation” argument takes you. You end up down a road of forcing the Bible into public office and subjecting everyone to the 10 commandments with no regard for their eternal status…
Churches now teach politics. They teach that the end of the world is upon us because of immorality and crooked politicians. I wonder when in history did these things not exist?…[W]e arrogantly think we are a Christian nation and the light beacon of hope for the world. We aren’t…I may sound cynical here, and that’s because I am. It frustrates me like nothing else. Fighting for having an identity as a “Christian nation” isn’t worth fighting for. Why put our hope in this country when we can place it in a God that will never fail us as our political leaders do?
John
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John,
Well, if we’re not a Christian nation, what else could we be? We’re not an atheist nation like Russia or China; the Declaration of Independence proves that. We’re not a Muslim nation or a Hindu nation. What else could we be but a Christian nation? There aren’t any other choices.
We date our calendars to the birth of Christ. Israel doesn’t do that. They date their calendars from the creation of Adam. Why? That’s easy – because Israel is not a Christian nation. Muslim nations date their calendars from Muhammad’s flight to Medina, not the birth of Christ. Why? Because they are not Christian nations.
You say we haven’t been perfect. Exactly. How do we know that? Because we are a Christian nation. We’ve fallen short of the Christian ideal. But that complaint is only valid if the standard exists in the first place, and is a standard we as a nation should have followed.
That we have fallen short shouldn’t surprise anyone who has read Romans 3:23. No one has ever said we a perfect nation, let alone a perfect Christian nation. No such thing as a perfect person, other than Christ, and no such thing as a perfect nation.
If we aren’t a Christian nation, then you have no business complaining about our conduct as a people. Your complaint only makes sense if we are violating some standard we ought to be living up to. I’m not sure you see the enormous implications in your very complaint about our nation’s shortcomings.
Why would it even bother you that we have done these things if God truly has no interest in our conduct as a nation? Why do you even complain that we as a nation did not keep our treaties with Indian nations? That should be a matter of indifference to you if God doesn’t care what nations do. If everything is just about salvation, why do you even care about such things?
The moment you say we should have kept our treaties with Indian nations, your entire argument collapses in a heap.
I assume you oppose the institution of slavery, and are glad that we changed our nation’s public policy on this matter. But if so, you are accepting the proposition that our nation’s public policies can be good or bad and that conforming them to the biblical ideal is better than the alternative. But on your view, all we should do is just preach the gospel to the slaves, and allow them to continue to serve as human chattel.
In your view, as long as somebody shared the gospel with Native Americans, there’s no problem with us pushing them around all we want.
Consistently following your position would mean we would have no interest in reforming policies that allow babies to be butchered in the womb, just moments from birth. And we’d have no complaint about the gassing of six million Jews by the Nazis. Your position, if followed consistently, would be to ask the Germans for permission to share the gospel with the inmates at Auschwitz, then once that was done, to politely thank the Nazis, step back, and let them gas away without a murmur of complaint.
I’m afraid, Greg, that your position, followed to its logical outcome, is enormously callous and cold-hearted, and in my view, utterly lacking the compassion of Christ for people made in the image of God.
I must point out to you that if your position were followed by Christians of the 19th century, slavery would still today be alive and well in the United States. If you do care about such things, then you’ve just made my argument for me, that there are certain ideals nations should live up to, and these ideals are found in the Bible.
You can’t read the Old Testament without recognizing the severe cost for a nation that embraces God and then turns its back on him. People pay a price for that, and nations pay a price for that. You may disagree with that view, but you have to dismiss most of the Old Testament in order to do it. It’s fine if you want to think of these things that way, but if you claim to be a believer in the whole counsel of God, you can hardly complain about Christians who do take the Bible seriously when it comes to the fate of nations.
One additional thought. You claim that I am putting God “in a box.” I would humbly suggest it is the other way round. You have walled God off from the entire world of public policy, and confined his interest solely to the issue of individual salvation. That, to me, is an enormously restrictive view of God and at variance with the Bible’s teaching that he is Lord of heaven and earth.
Bryan
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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, Bryan Fischer, is Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association, and is the host of the daily ‘Focal Point’ radio talk program on AFR Talk, a division of the American Family Association. ‘Focal Point’ airs live from 1-3 pm Central Time, and is also simulcast on the AFA Channel, which can be seen on the Sky Angel network.
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