THE DISTRACTION OF THE CIVIL RELIGION
A second thing that happens when we fail to distinguish the civil religion of America from the kingdom of God is that we end up wasting precious time and resources defending and tweaking the civil religion—as though doing so had some kingdom value. We strive to keep prayer in the schools, fight for the right to have public prayer before football games, lobby to preserve the phrases “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance and “in God we trust” on our coins, battle to hold the traditional civil meaning of marriage, and things of the sort—as though winning these fights somehow brings America closer to the kingdom of God. This, we think, is part of what it means to “take America back for God.”
Now, you may or may not agree that preserving the civil religion in this way is good for the culture. Vote your conscience. But can we really believe that tweaking civil religion in these ways actually brings people closer to the kingdom of God, that it helps them become more like Jesus? For example, does anyone really think that allowing for a prayer before social functions is going to help students become kingdom people? Might not such prayer—and the political efforts to defend such prayer—actually be harmful to the kingdom inasmuch as it reinforces the shallow civil religious mindset that sees prayer primarily as a perfunctory religious activity? Might it not be better to teach our kids that true kingdom prayer has nothing to do with perfunctory social functions, that true kingdom prayer cannot be demanded or retracted by social laws and that their job as kingdom warriors is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) whether the law allows for it to be publicly expressed or not?
In other words, rather than spending time and energy defending and tweaking the civil religion, might it not be in the best interest of the kingdom of God to distance ourselves from the civil religion? Couldn’t one even go so far as to argue that it would be good for the kingdom of God if this civic brand of pseudo-Christianity died altogether? Isn’t one of the primary problems we’re up against in this nation the fact that Christianity has been trivialized by being associated with civic functions? And aren’t we actually reinforcing this trivialization by fighting so vigorously to preserve this pseudo-Christian veneer? Maybe Kierkegaard was right when he stated that the worst form of apostasy the Christian faith can undergo is to have it become simply an aspect of a culture.8 Perhaps it would be a benefit to the advancement of this kingdom if America looked as pagan as it actually is, if the word God wasn’t so trivially sprinkled on our coins, our Pledge of Allegiance, our civic functions, and elsewhere. Then perhaps the word might come to mean something significant to people who genuinely hunger and thirst for the real thing!
When the public stance of Christians is associated with preserving and tweaking the civil religion, we reinforce the impression that Christianity is primarily about the civil religion, about engaging in social functions, answering a pollster a certain way, and perhaps performing “religious obligations” a couple times of year by going to church and giving a couple of dollars. Would it not be better if kingdom people spent their time and energy doing authentic kingdom things—that is, looking like Jesus? Would it not be beneficial if we individually and corporately dedicated ourselves to serving others in Christlike love?
WHAT IF WE DID THE KINGDOM?
What if the energy and resources used to preserve and tweak the civil religion was rather spent feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, befriending the drug addict, and visiting the prisoner? What if our focus was on sacrificing our resources to help inner-city schools and safety houses for battered women? What if our concern was to bridge the ungodly racial gap in our country by developing friendships and collaborating in endeavors with people whose ethnicity is different than our own? What if instead of trying to defend our religious rights, Christians concerned themselves with siding with others whose rights are routinely trampled? What if instead of trying to legally make life more difficult for gays, we worried only about how we could affirm their unsurpassable worth in service to them?
In other words, what if we individually and collectively committed ourselves to the one thing that is needful—to replicating the loving sacrifice of Calvary to all people, at all times, in all places, regardless of their circumstances or merit? What if we just did the kingdom?
This is far more difficult than merely protecting the civil religion, which perhaps partly explains why so many prefer focusing on the civil religion. Doing the kingdom always requires that we bleed for others, and for just this reason, doing the kingdom accomplishes something kingdom-of-the-world activity can never accomplish. It may not immediately adjust people’s behavior, but this is not what it seeks to accomplish. Rather, it transforms people’s hearts and therefore transforms society.
FORGETTING THE “POWER UNDER” OF PRAYER
We have seen that buying into the myth of a Christian nation harms not only global missions but missions in America as well. A third damaging aspect concerns the effect the myth has on kingdom people in terms of what power they tend to trust. If we think that our nation is Christian—or at least close to being Christian—then it makes sense that we who take the Christian faith most seriously need to gain more of Caesar’s “basically Christian” power to enforce a more “Christian” way of living. We would obviously never think this way if we were missionaries in, say, China. We succumb to this Constantinian temptation only because we mistakenly think that America, as opposed to China, is already “basically Christian.”
As a result, many Americans place exaggerated confidence in the ability of Christians to influence society by political means rather than by distinctly kingdom-of-God means. What are distinctly kingdom-of-God means of influencing society? The answer, as always, is found by looking at Jesus.
Among other things, Jesus set an example for us to follow by being a person who consistently prayed (Matt. 26:36; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; 11:1). Not surprisingly, the New Testament reinforces this example by instructing kingdom citizens to be people of persistent prayer (Luke 6:28; 11:5–8; 18:1–6; Eph. 6:18; 1 Thess. 5:17; 1 Tim. 2:8; James 5:14). This is one means of influence we are to place our trust in, and so intercessory prayer—a distinctly kingdom-of-God form of social action—is one of our primary sacrificial acts of service to the world. As kingdom people, we have a unique authority and responsibility to affect what comes to pass by calling on God, and we are to use this authority in service to others.9 It’s one of the primary ways we exercise “power under” others.
Both the Old and the New Testaments emphasize the power and urgency of prayer. In fact, dozens of times the Bible depicts the fate of a nation as hanging in the balance not on what society did or on what politicians did, but on whether or not the people of God prayed.
To give one example, the Lord told Ezekiel that because the leaders of Israel were acting unjustly, oppressing “the poor and needy,” he was going to bring judgment on the land (Ezek. 22:29). Yet he “sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach…on behalf of the land”—someone who would pray—in which case he “would not destroy it.” Unfortunately, the Lord “found no one.” “Therefore,” he told Ezekiel, “I have poured out my indignation upon them” (Ezek. 22:30–31).
What a revealing passage! Despite its unjust practices, the land would have been spared had the Lord found an intercessor. A number of times in Scripture the prayer of one or more people altered God’s plan and thus altered the course of history (e.g., Ex. 32:10–14; Deut. 9:13–29; 1 Kings 21:21–29).10
Dare we accept the obvious implications of this passage in Ezekiel? Dare we believe that the primary thing that may affect what happens in and to a nation is not what politicians do behind closed doors, but what kingdom people do—or don’t do—on their knees in their prayer closets (Matt. 6:6)? Dare we accept that it’s not primarily the righteousness or sinfulness of a nation that determines whether God blesses or curses it, but the presence or absence of prayer on the part of those who call themselves his people?
When the 9/11 attacks occurred, a number of evangelical spokespeople pointed the finger at the ACLU, gay-rights lobbyists, and other typical evangelical scapegoats—despite the New Testament’s repeated insistence that we are not to judge others (Matt. 7:1–5; Rom. 2:1–3; 14:2–3, 10–13; James 4:10–12). Because of the sin of these people, it was suggested, God’s “hand of protection” had been lifted off our nation.
According to Jesus, however, the whole business of trying to discern the hand of God in catastrophic events—just as a psychic might read tea leaves—is misguided (Luke 13:1–5). But blaming others for tragic events is even worse! If we took Ezekiel 22 seriously, our inclination would not be to judge others, but to assume responsibility ourselves. Whatever sin might exist in the ACLU, among gay-rights lobbyists, and others, we who are citizens of the kingdom of God must assume it to be a mere dust particle compared to the tree trunk of sin that protrudes out of our own eyes (Matt. 7:1–5). And whatever else our tree trunk includes, it includes the sin of not praying enough for others and for our nation. Were the people of God judging less and praying more, who knows but that this tragedy might have been lessened or avoided altogether? Who knows?
Why do we not place more trust in the power of prayer to affect the world? One primary reason, I think, is our national myth. Because we think our nation is “basically Christian,” we tend to trust Caesar’s “basically Christian” power more than Christ’s. We therefore allow ourselves to be sucked into the “power over” game of politics, thinking that if only we can pass certain laws and enact certain policies, the Christian status of our nation will be improved. While we, of course, tip our hat to the need for prayer, our actions belie the fact that we generally (there are marvelous exceptions!) place more confidence in our individual and corporate political activity than we do in the power of prayer.
As U.S. citizens we have a civil right to influence the political system. But in following our consciences, we must never forget where our real power—our distinctly kingdom power—lies. It’s not in “power over” but in “power under.” It’s not the power of your vote—every citizen of a democratic country has this; it’s the power of your kingdom heart expressed on your knees in loving service to the world.
We will only be motivated to live this out consistently if we understand that the power of Caesar is not and never can be a distinctly kingdom-of-God power. Hence, the urgency for us to exercise the unique kingdom power of prayer is the same for kingdom people in America as it is for those in North Vietnam, China, or India. The kingdom of God always looks like Jesus wherever and whenever it appears.
SOCIAL ACTIVISM JESUS STYLE
The myth that America is a Christian nation causes us to minimize a second, distinctly kingdom way of influencing society. Many are so conditioned by the “power over” mindset of the world that they can’t even envision an alternative way of affecting society and politics other than by playing the political game. Some thus conclude that, since Jesus didn’t try to overhaul the political systems of his day by political means, the Christian faith must be reduced to private piety without any social relevance. This is an especially prevalent assumption among upper-middle-class, white evangelicals who often don’t notice how the white-dominated power structures of society privilege them while oppressing others. In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth!
As John Howard Yoder has brilliantly shown in his book The Politics of Jesus, everything about Jesus’ ministry was socially and politically relevant.11 Precisely because he did not allow the society or the politics of his day to define his ministry, he positioned himself to make a revolutionary prophetic comment, and ultimately have revolutionary impact on the society and politics of his day.
Jesus didn’t buy into the limited options the culture placed before him. He rather exposed ugly injustices in all kingdom-of-the-world options by offering a radically distinct alternative. It is a kingdom that resists the demonic pull toward “power over” violence that characterizes all versions of the kingdom of the world. It is, therefore, a kingdom that, through self-sacrifice, unmasks the ugly injustice and violence of all versions of the kingdom of the world and the demonic powers that fuel them. It is a kingdom that doesn’t wage war “against flesh and blood” but instead fights against “rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12) that hold all people, oppressor and oppressed, in bondage.12 It is a beautiful kingdom that is not so much spoken as it is displayed in loving action.
For example, Jesus never entered into the fray of particular debates about the status of women in society. He rather exposed the ugliness of patriarchalism by the countercultural way he treated women. Ignoring negative consequences for his reputation—and ultimately for his life—Jesus befriended them and gave them a culturally unprecedented dignity. In a society in which women were generally understood to be the property of men and in which women had few rights, Jesus’ actions were revolutionary. While the mustard seed of the kingdom continues to grow slowly, Jesus’ life established that in the kingdom community men and women would be regarded as equals (Gal. 3:26–29). As such, it provides a beautiful alternative to the male-dominated kingdom of the world and exposes the ugly injustices of this present world system in the process.
The same may be said of Jesus’ treatment of social outcasts. His beautiful service to lepers, the blind, the demonized, the poor, prostitutes, and tax collectors screamed volumes about the inhumanity of various first-century social taboos and laws. While the mustard seed of the kingdom continues to grow slowly, Jesus’ life established that in the kingdom community no distinction would be made on the basis of a person’s social, economic, moral, or even religious standing. As such, it provides a beautiful alternative to the sociopolitical structures of the world and exposes the injustices of these structures in the process.
Along these same lines, Jesus exposed the inhumanity of certain religious rules (which in first-century Judaism had political force) by healing and feeding people on the Sabbath. And he exposed the evil of racial prejudice by fellowshipping with Samaritans and Gentiles and placing them in praiseworthy positions in his teachings (e.g., Luke 10:29–37; 17:11–19; John 4:4–39; cf. Matt. 8:5–10). While the mustard seed grows slowly, Jesus’ life established that in the kingdom community people would be placed above rules and walls of racism would be torn down. As such, Jesus’ kingdom provides a beautiful alternative to the socioreligious structures of the world and exposes the inhumanity and racist dimension of these structures in the process.
Finally, and most fundamentally, Jesus exposed the barbarism of the Roman government, and ultimately the barbarism of all “power over” kingdoms, by allowing himself to be crucified by them. Instead of using the power available to him to preserve his life, he exercised the power of love by giving his life for the very people who were taking it. While the mustard seed continues to grow slowly, Jesus’ death established that the kingdom community would not be characterized by “power over” but by “power under.” It would be a community where people have the same attitude as Jesus and thus place other people’s interests above their own (Phil. 2:4–5; cf. Rom. 15:1–2; Gal. 6:2; James 2:15–16; 1 John 3:14–18). It would be a community that looked like him, for it would be a community of people who “live in love, as Christ loved [them] and gave himself up for [them]” (Eph. 5:2). As such, Jesus’ community provides a beautiful alternative to the “power over” structure of the world and exposes the self-centered ugliness of these structures in the process.
This is what we are called to be: a community characterized by radical, revolutionary, Calvary-quality love; a community that manifests the love of the triune God (John 17:21–26); a community that strives for justice not by conquering but by being willing to suffer; a community that God uses to transform the world by providing it with an alternative to its own self-centered, violent way of existing. How socially and politically revolutionary it would be if his disciples lived up to
their calling!
AN EXAMPLE OF THE KINGDOM IN ACTION
A small illustration of how socially relevant and unique the kingdom of God in action can be may be helpful. A church I know committed itself to fixing up a dilapidated inner-city school. Government funding in their region had been drastically cut, and this church appropriately saw this as a marvelous kingdom opportunity. As they planned for and prayed about this project, word seeped out, and they began getting calls from local businesses and neighbors who wanted to help in the project, for kingdom beauty always attracts good-hearted people. Thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of food and materials for the workers were donated, and dozens of people from businesses and the surrounding neighborhood ended up joining the church in its work. With hundreds of people sacrificing time and energy, it took only ten hours for this school to undergo an “extreme makeover.”
The kids who attended the school, the teachers who taught there, and the neighbors and businesses who participated in or witnessed this renovation were deeply impacted. A fragmented, economically disadvantaged community was drawn together, resulting in a school building they could all take pride in. A long-term relationship developed between this school and the church, with people from the church volunteering in and praying for the school on a regular basis. Even more fundamentally, people saw Calvary-quality love in action, and some of them began to wonder, “Why would these people do this for us?” This is the question the church ought to be continually raising in people’s minds by its radical service to the world.13
The Myth of a Christian Nation Page 12
