Why America should not be declared a “Christian Nation”

What would it mean if the United States were officially declared a “Christian Nation”? How would it affect you in your everyday life? Would you have increased opportunity to practice your faith more freely? Would the government use its power to make moral laws that line up with your Christian beliefs or would it favor the ‘Christian beliefs’ of your neighbors?

Our best example might come from a time when much of Europe was a “Christian Continent.”   The Holy Roman Empire lasted from Emperor Otto’s coronation in 962 to 1806 when it was dissolved during the Napoleonic wars. For all intents and purposes it was considered the ultimate “Christian” political system.

The Empire was afraid what would happen if people began to compare the activities of its political and religious leaders with the Bible. There was tremendous power in the idea that a political leader could advance policies, not through debate, but by virtue that “God wants it this way, and if you disagree you are in opposition to God.”  To put this in perspective, imagine that President Obama could win the healthcare debate by simply saying that “God wants it this way, and if you disagree you are in opposition to God.”

Around 1419, John Huss began to speak against some of the customs of the Church, and because the Empire and the Church were so closely aligned, they spent a lot of energy trying to silence the “heresy.” The Empire was threatened because if Huss won the debate, he would show that the Church could be challenged and if the Church could be challenged, then it threatened the Empire itself, which based its power on the idea that God considered the Empire to be correct on all issues.

When people heard what Huss was saying, they began to doubt their old idea of a unified corpus Christianum and consider that people did not have to agree on everything when it came to faith.  A century later, in 1517, Martin Luther initiated the Reformation in an attempt to bring the Church around to his ideas.  People ended up siding with Luther or against him along geographic lines and Germany was split along these lines from which it never fully recovered until the Empire dissolved.

Added to this was the fact that popes and emperors tended to distrust each other, and felt that they had to fight to remain in control of the situation.

Many people believe that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents the formation of a “state church” such as the Church of England.  While there are good reasons to believe that this was intended to be much broader, let’s assume for the sake of argument that Congress would still be free to declare that Christianity is the official religion of the country and that our laws were supposed to mirror God’s law.

Christianity has struggled with issues of power and control since its inception.  Throughout Jesus’ ministry, His disciples often asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest among us?”

They probably thought that Jesus would name John or Peter or Mathew and make this honored disciple a Vice President of the Kingdom.  But Jesus turned their question upside down.  

In Matthew 18 we read His answer. “Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven” (NIV).

In recent months as I’ve read various calls for America to be declared a Christian nation, I’ve been surprised at some of the language used.  Tom Snyder on World Net Daily said that the idea of separation of church and state is promoted by “theophobic atheists, neo-pagan fascists, radical liberals, socialists, Marxists, anti-Christian bigots, sexual perverts, Christophobic politicians and journalists, and other such people who wish to obliterate the European Christian foundation on which America was built.”  See http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45069

Snyder concludes that, “separation of church and state does not mean separation between politics and religion or politics and the Bible. As Gary DeMar points out, there is a big difference between an ‘ecclesiocracy’ where the church rules society through religious leaders with preachers and priests as the government officials, and a ‘theocracy’ where God rules the outward behavior of all people through the civil government chosen by the people. Thus, the Founding Fathers did indeed establish a Christian theocracy, but they did not establish a Christian ecclesiocracy.”

But who will tell us how God would rule the “outward behavior of all people”? Would some people claim to be closer to God and that they could tell everybody else how to live out their faith in their everyday lives? 

History tells us that it would not be a debate between Christians and atheists.  If Christianity won predominance over every other religious system in the nation, it would be a debate between Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentacostals, and any other denomination you could name. Then it would be between the liberals and conservatives, and ultimately between conservatives or between liberals, the powerful – not the faithful – would control.

People interpret faith differently, and while most people think they believe the right thing, history tells us what to predict what would happen if one person’s right thing and the other person’s right thing were in disagreement.   Anybody who has served on a church board can tell you how much debate goes on about the smallest issues – churches have split over the color of carpet, whether somebody could play a guitar in church, or whether a woman can make an announcement in front.  Even the Protestants in Europe during the Reformation went to war and killed each other over whether the Eucharist was really the body and blood of Christ.

If America were declared a Christian nation, would this tendency to fight over the smallest differences in faith change? Would churches that uphold traditional marriage gain power over those who performed same-sex marriages? Would those who view national healthcare as a Godly objective fight with those who found problems with it? Would the liberal churches or conservative churches dominate the landscape? 

And what about those who were not Christian? Would they find themselves pressured to convert or face losing their rights to hold office, vote, or even own property?

Looking at history, the only way the idea of a “Christian America” that is envisioned would ever be able to “succeed” is by seeking power, suppressing dissent, and persecuting those who disagreed.  It might not follow a particular denomination, but because Christianity itself is so diverse there would need to be a central core of beliefs. There might be a few “true believers” who would carry their message forward without feeling upset by this change, but the majority of the people, including most Christians, would live in constant fear and frustration.

In an age when many Christian conservatives argue that the government cannot properly handle the issue of health care, many of the same people seem to have confidence in the government’s ability to handle matters of faith.  For that reason alone, separation of church and state should be a conservative cause. Religion does best when it stands on its own two feet and does not rely on the crutch of government.  Just as conservatives argue those who receive a lifetime of government funding cannot handle the open market, they should recognize that once churches depend on government “marketing” they will cease to be as productive.

 After a thousand years of religious leadership, the former Holy Roman Empire is now one of the most secular places on the globe. People look at churches as irrelevant antiques. And many government-funded churches in Europe are dying on the vine. This was because religion depended on the government and when the government pulled back, religion folded. If Americans want faith to thrive, it should grow on its own – not be stifled or forced by government. Faith does not need a government handout or increased bureaucratic overhead that would inevitably result.  Imagine if churches were run like the DMV!

This is not to say that there aren’t times when churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations can’t partner with government for humanitarian purposes, but rather that the government should stay out of matters of faith and doctrine.

Rather than seeking power in order to turn the United States into a Christian Empire, it would be better for individual Christians and churches to follow Jesus’ words, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven” (NIV). The best way to grow Christianity is not through achieving power but through caring acts of kindness and mercy. Evangelical Christians should not seek to become a Christian nation, but they can seek to be a nation of Christians who have been attracted to Christ through their faith and freely chosen to follow Him. If Christians must rely on the power of government to increase their impact on the world, they are doing something very wrong.

Declaring that this is a “Christian Nation” would not make America better – it would make America a nation of robots and would misrepresent the freedom that faith can bring.  America should be a nation where people can choose their own faith and not have to be afraid that they will be marginalized or at a disadvantage when it comes to how their government treats them. America is a big place, and is definitely big enough for all peaceful people of faith as well as those who choose not to follow any faith. That’s what freedom of religion is all about.

Faith in Context: President Obama & Faith-based Initiatives

By Monte Sahlin – As he said he would during the campaign last year, President Obama has retained the “faith-based initiatives” emphasis at the White House, but restructured the organization that he inherited from President Bush. The new unit consists of two parts, where Bush’s White House had only one: An Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and a President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The council is make its final recommendations in February next year (2010), so it appears that further changes may yet surface. At the same time it is clear that Obama is committed to some kind of working relationship with the nonprofit sector, including the large part of it that is related to religious constituencies.

The key staff person in the White House for this activity is Joshua DuBois, a 27-year-old Evangelical activist who served as Obama’s liaison with the religious community during the campaign last year. DuBois was a student at Boston University and associate pastor at the Calvary Praise and Worship Center in Cambridge. This is a neighborhood that I am personally familiar with because in the 1970s, I planted a congregation there and worked in Boston as a community organizer. The congregation is small, not affiliated with any denomination, but Pentecostal in orientation, made up largely of African Americans and for a while, at least, shared space with two other Protestant congregations in Faith Lutheran Church. Pastor DuBois got the church involved with the Ten-Point Coalition, an effort by African American churches in the Boston area to prevent teen violence and gangs run by the National Ten-point Foundation, also located in Boston. DuBois maintains a mentoring relationship with a teen in Boston even as he takes on the very busy schedule of a White House staffer. He chairs the advisory council as part of his job. The other members include:

• Diane Baillargeon, CEO of Seedco, a New York nonprofit involved in economic development projects. She is a self-described secular member of the council.
• Anju Bhargava, president of Asian Indian Women in America, an immigrant women’s advocacy and help group. She is also a Hindu priest.
• Charles E. Blake, presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), one of the largest historically African American denominations in America.
• Noel Castellanos, CEO of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and a well-known Evangelical leader.
• Arturo Chavez, president of the Mexican American Catholic College and a former prison chaplain who has worked as a community organizer and teacher. He is Catholic.
• Peg Chemberlin, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches and president-elect of the National Council of Churches and a minister in the Moravian Church.
• Fred Davie, an ordained Presbyterian minister and senior staff member at the Arcus Foundation.
• Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and a key player in the interfaith coalition that has pushed for religious liberty legislation.
• Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church, a nondenominational megachurch near Orlando, and a board member for the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA).
• Harry Knox, a former Methodist pastor who is liaison with religious leaders for the Human Rights Campaign, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.
• Vashti McKenzie, presiding prelate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Tennessee and Kentucky.
• Dalia Mogahed, director of the Gallup Poll’s Center for Muslim Studies. She was born in Egypt and is a practicing Muslim.
• Otis Moss, a long-time civil rights leader, retired pastor of a Baptist church in Cleveland and a board member for both the M.L. King Centerand Morehouse College.
• Frank S. Page, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in South Carolina.
• Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit that recruits young people to participate in interfaith community service. He is a Muslim born in India.
• Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an attorney and Catholic lay leader.
• Nancy Ratzan, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, an attorney and president of Reform Jewish congregation in Miami.
• Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs. She is a lawyer and teaches courses on church-state relations.
• David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and both a rabbi and an attorney.
• William J. Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, the largest historically black Protestant denomination, and pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
• Larry J. Snyder, a priest and president of Catholic Charities, one of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in America.
• Richard Stearns, president of World Vision; an Evangelical lay leaders with a long background in business before he joined the Christian humanitarian agency.
• Judith Vredenburgh, CEO of Big Brothers/Sisters of America, the largest youth mentoring nonprofit, and a self-described secular member of the advisory council.
• Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, and one of the best-known Evangelical social action leaders.
• Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Protestant denomination.

The president has asked the council to focus on four priorities: (1) connecting faith-based and community groups to economic recovery, (2) promoting interfaith dialog and cooperation in the arena of community service, (3) encouraging responsible fatherhood and healthy families, and (4) reducing unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions, strengthening maternal and child health, and encouraging adoptions.

What does this mean?

President Obama hopes to avoid some of the mistakes of the previous administration, such as trampling long-held notions about the proper line between religion and government, and overly politicizing the involvement of people of faith, while continuing the necessary cooperation between government entities and religious charities which has been a key part of America from its founding. In many ways it is a return to the ideas that Colin Powell presided over in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Presidents’ Summit on Community Service. In a time of need in a democracy, elected officials are always going to challenge religious leaders to mobilize their adherents to help out simply because religion advertises itself as being about compassion, love and charity.

 

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Reprinted from http://msahlin.typepad.com/faith_in_context/ with the author’s permission. 

Monte Sahlin has worked to understand contemporary trends in our society and to help congregations and faith-based organizations make innovations since he organized ACT while in college at La Sierra University, Riverside, California, in the 1960s. ACT was a student volunteer organization that served in inner city neighborhoods and with suburban teenagers.

He is currently chairman of the board for the Center for Creative Ministry, a research organization and resource center helping pastors, congregations and other organizations understand new generations and how to engage with them. He is also chairman of the executive committee of the Center for Metropolitan Ministry, a “think tank” and training organization based on the campus of Columbia Union College in Washington, DC, as well as an adjunct faculty member at the Campolo School for Social Change at Eastern University in Philadelphia and in the DMin program at Andrews University. In addition, he serves on the steering committee of the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, a coalition of researchers from more than 40 denominations and faiths who produce the Faith Community Today (FACT) research.

Sahlin is an ordained pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, currently serving in the Ohio Conference of the denomination. He served for 12 years at the denomination’s North American headquarters with responsibilites for church ministries, media projects, social needs and issues, and research and development. He then served eight years as a regional vice president. He has pastored small and large congregations in major metropolitan areas and Appalachia.

He is the author of several books, scores of research studies and hundreds of magazine articles. His most recent book is entitled “Mission in Metropolis.” Others currently available are “Ministries of Compassion,” “One Minute Witness,” “Understanding Your Community,” “Trends, Attitudes and Opinions” and “Adventist Congregations Today.” In 2005, he coauthored with Harold Lee, “Brad: Visionary, Spiritual Leadership,” a history and evaluation of the career of Charles Bradford, the first African American to serve as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.

Sahlin has worked as director, board chairman or strategic consultant with more than 100 innovative, community-based ministries, church plants and nonprofit organizations over the last four decades. In 1994 he was awarded an Outstand Public Service Award by the United States government and in 1996 he participated in the Presidents’ Summit on Volunteerism as well as the prepatory gathering of 50 representatives of the nonprofit sector at the White House.

Chris Seiple: Religious Freedom: The Ultimate Counterterrorism Weapon?

 

Google Tech Talk
August 12, 2009

ABSTRACT
Presented by Chris Seiple.

While the U.S. can summon hard power with relative ease, employing soft power is more difficult. Indeed, smart power suggests that hard and soft power are two sides of the same coin, that our interests are protected when our values are promoted. If Americans want to engage the world with efficient and enduring effect, we must better understand the essence of American power and the foundation of the global public square: religious freedom.

Read more

Pope Benedict XVI on Religious Freedom (CNA)

A short Catholic News Agency overview of international religious persecution and the importance of preserving religious freedom.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Undergo Persecution in the former Soviet Union

By Derek H. Davis, J.D., Ph.D. – Since their formation in the late 19^th century, Jehovah’s Witnesses have suffered relentless persecution worldwide for their controversial religious beliefs.  Archibald Cox, Jr., famous for his role as the Watergate prosecutor that helped force the resignation of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, once noted that Jehovah’s Witnesses were “the principal victims of religious persecution … in the twentieth century.”   Persecution against Witnesses was especially strong during WWII when their political neutrality, conscientious objection to war, and refusal to salute any nation’s flag made them the target of governments and citizen mob groups alike.  Except for the Jews, they were proportionally the most persecuted group in Nazi Germany; they were banned during the war in countries like Russia and Spain, and sometimes beaten and jailed in places like Britain, Canada, Cuba, and the United States.   The ACLU reported that by 1940 in the United States alone, “more than 1,500 Witnesses . . . had been victimized in 335 separate attacks.” 

Today the Jehovah’s Witnesses are best known for their door-to-door preaching, distribution of literature (especially The Watchtower), and for their refusal of blood transfusions.  In the United States, legal challenges by Witnesses (twenty-three Supreme Court rulings between 1938 and 1946) have strengthened their civil liberties, especially religious freedom, and Witnesses claim generally to suffer less religious persecution today in the U.S. than perhaps anywhere else in the world. 

Although they currently number about 7 million adherents worldwide, Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned or harshly restricted in many countries.  Persecution seems especially strong in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations that formerly made up the bulk of the Soviet Union.   

In Azerbaijan, for example, where there are only 800 Witnesses in a population of 8 million citizens, Witnesses are continuously subjected to raids on religious meetings, confiscation of literature, arrests of those attending religious meetings, and verbal and physical abuse by Azerbaijan police.  On July 15 of this year, police raided a house in the Gakh District to confiscate 1,428 Witness journals said to represent “religious extremism.” Police also disrupted religious meetings in Baku and Ganja where worshipers were arrested and taken to the police station for questioning and detained for hours. According to Wolfram Slupina, in Ganja “police and local officials justified their actions by claiming that Jehovah Witnesses are not registered, even though Azerbaijani law does not require official registration for people to meet together in private homes.”

In Tajikistan, where Jehovah’s Witnesses have been legally registered since 1994, the Ministry of Culture issued a decision in 2007 to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Consequently, approximately 600 Witnesses in that country can no longer meet legally for worship.  Reasons cited for the ban were Witnesses’ refusal of military service and their witnessing activities in public places.   

Witnesses seem to receive harsh treatment in Russia also.  Forum 18 News Service reports that four lawyers (from Canada and the USA) defending Jehovah’s Witnesses have been deported from Russia since March.  The deportation strategy hinders the Witnesses’ attempts to defend themselves in seven court cases where Russian officials seek to ban their literature as “extremist.”

According to Forum 18 News Service, public prosecutors across Russia have conducted more than 500 check-ups on local Jehovah’s Witness communities since February 2009.  Witnesses believe prosecutors are conducting “fishing expeditions” that might enable them to shut down Witness headquarters in St. Petersburg and over 400 dependent organizations across Russia.  The nationwide sweep seems to have been ordered by the General Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow, which complained that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ missionary activity and rejection of military service and blood transfusions “provoke a negative attitude towards its activity from the population and traditional Russian confessions.”  Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia generally believe that the General Prosecutor intends to use Russian laws on religious extremism to restrict or ban worship and distribution of their literature. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses have demonstrated themselves for nearly a century and a half to be  peaceful and law-abiding citizens in those areas of the world where they reside.  They deserve better treatment in CIS countries and elsewhere.  Religious freedom can progress only when assaults against established, peaceful, honorable groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses cease. 

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Derek H. Davis, J.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.  

The mission of The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Center for Religious Liberty is to advance religious liberty for all persons, in all parts of the world, without regard to their religious, ethnic, gender, racial or national background. Religious liberty is a basic human right that must be nourished and protected by all human societies; it is the cornerstone of modern societies’ efforts to build a more peaceful world. The Center advances this mission by publishing relevant literature, hosting and sponsoring lectureships and conferences, sharing its expertise with media and other public information outlets, and partnering with other persons and groups who share the goal of advancing religious liberty.  The web site for the Center can be found at www.umhb.edu/academics/crl

3 states still ban religious clothing for teachers (Associated Press)

EXCERPT:

PORTLAND, Ore. — A law backed by the Ku Klux Klan nearly a century ago to keep Catholics out of public schools is still on the books in Oregon, one of the last states in the nation to prohibit teachers from wearing religious clothing in classrooms.

Both Pennsylvania and Nebraska have similar laws, which try to balance the constitutional conflict between protecting students from the establishment of religion in schools and the rights of teachers to express their beliefs through their dress.

Oregon’s law, originally aimed at priest collars and nun habits, survived a legal challenge in the 1980s by a Sikh convert who wanted to wear her turban in the classroom and was recently upheld by the state’s Legislature.

A Muslim teacher in Pennsylvania lost a similar challenge in 1991 to that state’s even older law for the right to wear a headscarf at school. So far, it has not posed any serious legal issues in Nebraska.

That such a law still exists was a surprise for many Oregonians who learned about it when Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act in July, allowing workers to wear religious clothing on the job.

…

Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt wanted to include teachers in the new workplace law. But it was opposed by the ACLU during a legislative session dominated by the recession and one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Dave Fidanque, ACLU executive director for Oregon, said the law helps ensure religious neutrality in public schools even though times have changed. “It’s not an easy issue,” he said.

Schools have been battlegrounds because “those who feel very strongly that their particular brand of religion is best feel the need to have their religion endorsed by public schools to attract more followers to their beliefs,” Fidanque said.

(Read the full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7tADnxuR79MJPcf7h0C8jxGSMGQD9AFCJK00 )

Civil Rights Pioneer E.E. Cleveland talks about meeting Martin Luther King, Jr.

On August 30, 2009, renowned evangelist Edward Earl Cleveland died at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88.  Cleveland worked for more than 60 years as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, evangelist, church leader, teacher, and civil rights leader.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended one of Cleveland’s tent meetings in 1954 in Montgomery and the two created a lasting friendship.  Also in attendance for at least one night of the meetings were local seamstress, Rosa Parks and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.

Cleveland marched in several civil rights marches, including the March on Washington.  Cleveland describes his involvement in the civil rights movement in a sermon he delivered during Black History Month on February 11, 2006. 

 
E. E. Cleveland – Black History Month 02-11-06 @ Yahoo!7 Video

Religion in Public Schools: Academic, Not Devotional (J. Brent Walker – Washington Post)

EXCERPT:

The Texas Board of Education, the nation’s second largest purchaser of public school textbooks, is revising its K-12 social studies curriculum and deciding how to characterize religion’s influence on American history. Three consultants have recommended emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and civic virtue of religion. As America’s children go back to school, how would you advise the Texas board? How should religion be taught in public schools?

God has never been kicked out of the public schools. Teaching about religion in the classroom is among many appropriate ways religion can be included in the school day. But, of course, the devil (excuse the pun) is always in the details of how to teach about religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the constitutionality and even desirability of teaching about religion, going back to the prayer and Bible reading decisions in the early 1960s. A wide array of religious leaders and church-state experts fashioned a statement on teaching about religion 15 years ago that was incorporated into federal Department of Education guidelines that both the Clinton and Bush administrations embraced. These guidelines provide:

Public schools may not provide religious instruction, but they may teach about religion, including the Bible or other scripture: the history of religion, comparative religion, the Bible (or other scripture)-as-literature, and the role of religion in the history of the United States and other countries all are permissible public school subjects. Similarly, it is permissible to consider religious influences on art, music, literature, and social studies. Although public schools may teach about religious holidays, including their religious aspects, and may celebrate the secular aspects of holidays, schools may not observe holidays as religious events or promote such observance by students.

 

Read the full article at: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/j_brent_walker/2009/09/the_devil_is_in_the_details_1.html