Recently, when the two churches where I pastor came together for Bible Study one Wednesday evening, we had a passionate discussion about the Baptist faith and the issue of religious liberty. As anticipated, the discussion was not only passionate, there were distinct, conflicting opinions about what religious liberty has meant in American history and what it should mean today.
One voice took issue immediately with Thomas Jefferson’s words about “a wall of separation” between church and state, suggesting that no absolute separation was ever really intended in the first amendment and believing that the absence of religion in our public schools and government has led to the moral decay of American society.
The other voice felt that the moral decay of American society was not so much due to the absence of religion in the public square, but that the fault lay with the churches that have failed to have a transforming influence upon the culture. This voice also felt that the very intentional “wall of separation” between church and state has been a good thing, because mixing religion with government could have made matters even worse, as it once did in old Europe and still does in other religiously dominated countries, like the Middle East.
While these differing opinions and viewpoints were anticipated and are common among the faithful, the discussion prompted three new insights in my own thinking, which I think are critically important for shaping the future of the discussion and for helping our churches be faithful to their calling to bear a faithful witness to the gospel.
First, all there is a common understanding that something has gone wrong in American culture. All sides of the discussion about religious liberty believe that moral decay is taking place in our society. While there is still much good about America, America seems to have lost her moral compass, which is evident with the increase of crime and incivility, especially crimes against children and by children. We could all remember in our own childhoods (40 plus years ago) leaving doors unlocked and living in communities where neighbor helped neighbor and when there was a high level of trust in business, religion and even politics. But that time is no more. The moral climate of our land is changing for the worse. The liberal view of probable human progress through newly discovered political means is laughable. The conservative view that society can be saved through conserving certain political processes has never worked and isn’t working. The children’s poem rightly says “All the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put “Humpty” together again”---and our children will find out soon enough that neither liberal politicians nor conservative ones have been able to fix all that is broken in American culture and that they, our children will be left holding the bag.
Second, we all understood in some way that religious liberty is under increasing threat and the Christian faith has lost its privileged position in the public square. Even if the wall of separation Thomas Jefferson referred to was intentional, it was never intended to be an absolute bolting of the doors. When the wall of separation was going up in early America, there were many doors between each side that could be opened or locked when needed, much like those doors in motels which might join rooms together to allow access when family or friends were traveling together.
Not so long ago, church and state were more like family than strangers and the doors in the wall of separation were often opened to each other. Our discussion caused us to remember times when principals weep tears as they shard spiritual truth, moral truth, and intellectual truth with students. We also recalled learning Bible verses in early grades, having strong Bible clubs in schools and being taught to respect each other. We remembered prayers at formal convocations, balls games and visits by respected ministers in the schools. We remembered times when politicians seemed to be moral leaders as well and we remembered that faith did not have any kind of seat of power nor was the state ever attempting to establish religion (like some believe or desire to do today). However, what the Christian religion did have in that time, especially in its main protestant forms, was a seat of privilege and a place in the public heart of a majority of Americans. And because religion held that position, there was also widespread sense of self-respect, reverence, and self-confidence that is serious decline in our culture today.
What this loss of a “privileged position” for Christianity will mean for American society is only beginning to take shape. But it is already becoming clear is that the implications will go in at least two primary directions: There will be a continuing decay of morality and civility in the culture because there is no longer a generally accepted or celebrated moral foundation which once was the Judeo-Christian God. Even those who want to bolt the door for a more secure “separation of church and state” must admit that the name of God on money, government buildings, and the landscape dotted with church buildings across America, both large and small, old and new, reveal a former special status for religion in every village. But this “privileged” status is much less the case today and we are already seeing the implications which will become even more obvious in the years to come.
Also this loss of “privileged” status of religion is giving rise to new dangers and more serious threats to religious liberty in our country. Out of the stirring pot of moral decline, loss of civility, and religious confusion, new voices both anti- and pro-religious are either attacking or replacing the more humble, servant-oriented, religious reverence of the past. This may have freedom-limiting results. Fueled by a sense of power and opportunity, or maybe even out of vengeance for past failures or current flaws in religion, anti-religious sentiment is gaining strength in American life and the doors in the walls between church and state are being bolted more surely and securely allowing less access either way and making both strangers to each other.
Fueled by fear, confusion, and loss of privilege, some Christian groups, which were once freedom-loving and politically shy, now believe that by developing an organized type of political battering ram they can break the doors of separation down and gain re-entrance back into the soul of American life. The truth is, however, that this organized political attempt to “re-instate” religion assumes that religion once had something more than a privileged status in America. This is not true, as least since the signing of the Constitution and making of the first Amendment.
The status which the Christian religion once had in the American public square was often formalized, state-friendly and sometimes even state-prompted or directed, but the privilege given was humble and tentative, not official nor established. This polite allowance is what gave the Christian churches such favored status and real political clout. Faith groups entered into the soul of American life through her heart and not by legislation or establishment. Thus any newly organized power plays or formal attempts to regain what is lost by other means other than through the heart and soul of the people is not only introducing a very different kind of religious agenda than what has been known and acceptable (the servant-oriented Christian presence), it could be taken by the state or by the people as something threatening and could result in more anti-religious sentiment and it might work against the Christian religious agenda and mission.
Third, the final lesson that I gained from the discussion on religious liberty is that the Christian church has a responsibility and an opportunity to respond to the new political situation taking shape in America, but the churches must be careful that her approach is humble, non-coerced, servant oriented and not for selfish political gain or seen as gaining political advantage over others, even those who are anti-religious. Nothing turns people against religion quicker than religious people saying they preach love and compassion, while appearing to have others hidden agendas to spread fear and hate.
Christians, and especially Baptists, have all kinds of differing ideas on what should be done to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the morally declining, religiously diverse, and increasingly anti-religious American situation. What should guide our witness must not be the liberal agenda, the conservative resurgence, or the suggestive, misleading, anxiety producing media personalities who make their money and careers out of crying wolf and telling us that the sky is falling. Although the moral, political and religious situation is changing around us, and there may be increasing threats to religious liberty, America is still the most religiously free country on earth. The privileged status of American Christianity has been lost and its influence in the public square has shifted, but this does not mean that religious liberty is about to crumble. The acceptable plurality of religion in America almost guarantees some form of religious freedom, but the influence of one particular religion, even Christianity, will continue to be less dominating and may lose all of its special privileges in the future.
What should guide future Christian thinking and action in a political landscape, where as Christians we have less political clout? Shouldn’t it be Jesus’ own teachings? In dealing with questions the religious and political situation of his day, which was in many was worse than our own, Jesus offered this unforgettable word: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God.” But the question is: what are Caesar’s things and what are the things that are God’s? We know that Caesar will take care of his part. It was Jesus who took care of helping us know God’s true political agenda and he did it in the model prayer we all know by heart.
First, Jesus did not tell his followers to pray for their country, but to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom. That could be a surprise for some Americans to realize we are not the only country God wants to bless. I don’t think this should mean that we shouldn’t pray for America, but certainly, as Christians, we shouldn’t put any personal political agenda at a higher place than our prayer for God’s rule in the hearts and lives of people all over the world. This is a “rule” that we must pray for and it is a rule that comes through the heart, it is not a rule we can make happen by any kind of political manipulation.
Second, Jesus told his followers to make bread and forgiveness their major political and prayer priorities. This means that in the political arena we are called to work as a voice for the most basic physical and spiritual needs people have in this world. These two priorities of caring and forgiving do not forbid Christians from getting involved in other political matters on their own time, but they clarify what political agenda we churches should have and can call truly Christian and God-directed.
Many of the religious and moral agendas churches promote in the world go too far beyond these most basic and most urgent physical and spiritual needs. Often we see caring and forgiveness set aside, while other agendas are pursued. But while there are other matters which are very important and deserve Christian involvement, no agenda should take precedence over being Christ to others. In other words, you can’t practice hate of a person you think is wrong and say you are still a follower of Jesus’ rule of love and forgiveness. That’s why it is absurd to kill an abortion Doctor or to hurt anyone whom you oppose, and think you are still Christian. The political “hard ball” of the Christian is of the caring, loving, and forgiving heart and to fall to bear witness in this way is to miss the servant- oriented politic of Jesus. We must stick to God’s priorities, even when we Christians take part in the sometimes ruthless political process. I wonder what the watching word might see as the true heart of God, if we were to stay with God’s agenda, keeping Jesus’ prayer priority in view even while we work in the political process?
Finally, the last political agenda we should have and should pray for as churches is “not to be lead into temptation, but to be delivered from evil.” Beyond doubt, the greatest temptation Jesus faced and the greatest evil the church has ever succumbed to in the past is the wrong use of power. Remember Jesus’ temptation by the devil in the wilderness to misuse his power and to short cut God’s calling? Jesus overcame the devil’s compromise by staying on course with God’s true agenda—the cross. Today, our greatest threat as the church, is not the world against us but it the church against itself, when it forsakes God’s priorities. When the church trades the way of the cross, humility, compassion and service, for the world’s way of manipulation, division, power-politics and success, we have sold our own divine birthright for a mess of dirty political porridge and we have failed to bear witness to the real power of God to work in the hearts and lives of people in the world.
To be reminded where our real power lies, we must look no further than how the Lord’s Prayer ends. It ends with these very sobering words of warning for any church or Christian who thinks they can bring God’s kingdom through earthly, human politics. Remember how the prayer ends? It goes: “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory, forever. Amen.” Do you see this dramatic difference from most religious political agendas? Many think they can bring God’s kingdom for God through politics, but Jesus said it is God who will bring the Kingdom in his own way, by his own power, and for his own glory.
What happens to our Christian witness when we forsake God’s agenda and pick up our own? Is this not what is happening in some churches? The Christian right or the Christian left are not biblical agendas. Righteousness is God’s agenda, and this righteousness is to begin at the house of God. That is how the Bible states it because the greatest threat to religious freedom is failing to stay true to God’s agenda, not falling out of privileged places in the culture.
If we could learn this and if we could practice God’s priorities in our politic, I believe we could help more hurting hearts. When we do this, there will not only be a greater witness to God’s agenda, people will also see our hearts and there will hopefully be more, not less liberty for religion in America’s future.
This is what I learned last Wednesday evening. What did you learn?
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