The Myth of a Christian Nation

by Gregory A. Boyd

  Of course it seems perfectly obvious to most Americans that killing to defend and promote freedom is justified, but fundamental aspects of one’s culture always seem obvious to people embedded in the culture. This criterion of personal freedom certainly hasn’t been obvious to most people throughout history, including most Christians throughout history. And it’s “obviously” wrong to many non-Americans—including many Christians—around the globe today. Even more importantly, it certainly isn’t obvious in the teachings of Jesus or the whole of Scripture. In this light, kingdom people in all countries need to seriously examine the extent to which the ideal that leads them to think a war is or is not “just” is the result of their own cultural conditioning.

  Assessing this is no easy matter. It helps to be mindful that the person you may end up killing in war probably believes, as strongly as you, that they are also fighting for a “just” cause. It also helps to consider the possibility that they are disciples of Jesus just like you, perhaps even mistakenly thinking their cause is a function of their discipleship just as some American soldiers believe. You have to believe that all of their thinking is merely the result of their cultural conditioning—for you obviously believe they’re wrong to the point of being willing to kill them—while also being convinced that your own thinking is not the result of cultural conditioning. Can you be absolutely sure of this? Your fidelity to the kingdom of God, your life, and the lives of others are all on the line.

  But suppose, for the sake of argument, we grant not only that justified violence provides an exception to Jesus’ teaching but also that political freedom (or any other particular ideal) is a legitimate criteria for determining if violence is justified. This doesn’t by any means yet settle the matter for a kingdom person contemplating enlisting in war (or not resisting being drafted into war). For one has to further appreciate that there are many other variables alongside the central criterion of justice that affect whether a particular war is in fact “just.”

  Do you know—can you know—the myriad of personal, social, political, and historical factors that have led to any particular conflict and that bear upon whether or not it is “justified”? For example, do you truly understand all the reasons your enemy gives for going to war against your nation, and are you certain they are altogether illegitimate? Are you certain your government has sought out all possible nonviolent means of resolving the conflict before deciding to take up arms? Are you certain the information you’ve been given about a war is complete, accurate, and objective? Do you know the real motivation of the leaders who will be commanding you to kill or be killed for “the cause,” as opposed to the propaganda those leaders put out? Are you certain that the ultimate motivation isn’t financial or political gain for certain people in high places? Are you certain that the war isn’t in part motivated by personal grievances or done simply to support or advance the already extravagant lifestyle of most Americans? Given what we know about the corrupting influence of demonic powers in all nations, and given what we know about how the American government (like all other governments) has at times misled the public about what was really going on in the past (e.g., the Vietnam War), these questions must be wrestled with seriously.8 Fidelity to the kingdom, your life, and the lives of others are at stake.

  Yet even these questions do not resolve the issue for a kingdom person, who must know not only that a war is justified but that each and every particular battle they fight, and each and every life they may snuff out, is justified. However justified a war may be, commanders often make poor decisions about particular battles they engage in that are not just and that gratuitously waste innocent lives. While militaries sometimes take actions against officers who have their troops engage in unnecessary violence, the possibility (and even inevitability) of such unjust activity is typically considered “acceptable risk” so long as the overall war is just. But on what grounds should a person who places loyalty to Jesus over their commander accept this reasoning?

  The fact that a war is justified means nothing to the innocent lives that are wasted, and the question is, how can a kingdom person be certain in each instance that they are not participating in the unnecessary and unjust shedding of innocent blood? It’s questionable enough that a follower of Jesus would kill their national enemy rather than bless them simply because it’s in the interest of their nation for them to do so. But what are we to think of the possibility that a follower of Jesus would kill someone who is not an enemy simply because someone higher in rank told them to?

  The tragic reality is that most people contemplating entering the armed forces (or contemplating not refusing their draft), whether they be American or, say, Iraqi, North Korean, or Chinese, don’t seriously ask these sorts of questions. Out of their cultural conditioning, most blindly assume their authorities are trustworthy, that their cause is justified, and that each person they are told to kill is a justified killing.9 They unquestioningly believe the propaganda and obey the commands they’re given. Throughout history, soldiers have, for the most part, been the unquestioning pawns of ambitious, egotistical rulers and obedient executors of their superior’s commands. They were hired assassins who killed because someone told them to and their cultural conditioning made it “obvious” to them that it was a good and noble thing to do. So it has been for ages, and so it will be so long as the people and nations operate out of their self-interest.

  But there is an alternative to this ceaseless, bloody merry-go-round: it is the kingdom of God. To belong to this kingdom is to crucify the fleshly desire to live out of self-interest and tribal interest, and to thus crucify the fallen impulse to protect these interests through violence. To belong to this revolutionary kingdom is to purge your heart of “all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice” (Eph. 4:31)—however “justified” and understandable these sentiments might be. To belong to this counterkingdom is to “live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). It is to live the life of Jesus Christ, the life that manifests the truth that it is better to serve than to be served and better to die than to kill. It is, therefore, to opt out of the kingdom-of-the-world war machine and manifest a radically different, beautiful, loving way of life. To refuse to kill for patriotic reasons is to show “we actually take our identity in Christ more seriously than our identity with the empire, the nation-state, or the ethnic terror cell whence we come,” as Lee Camp says.10

  So, while I respect the sincerity and courage of Christians who may disagree and feel it their duty to defend their country with violence, I honestly see no way to condone a Christian’s decision to kill on behalf of any country—or for any other reason.

  3. HAVEN’T SOME WARS RESULTED IN GOOD THINGS?

  Though it was brutally violent, wasn’t the Civil War a good thing in-as-much as it freed blacks in this country? As costly as it was, wasn’t it a good thing that thousands of American and British soldiers were willing to kill and be killed to resist the advancement of the Third Reich? If Christians would have “turned the other cheek” and “loved their enemies” in these situations, blacks would still be enslaved, the Jews possibly exterminated, and much of the world possibly under Nazi rule.

  It was obviously a good thing that blacks were freed from slavery and that the Third Reich was stopped. Other wars have produced positive outcomes, despite their carnage. For people who think only in terms of the kingdom of the world, this settles the matter: the good goal justifies the bloody means. From a kingdom-of-God perspective, however, the matter cannot be settled so quickly. Four further things must be said.

  First, a kingdom person can agree that the outcome of a war was to some degree good without saying that the war itself was a Christian war or that it was good that Christians fought in it. As we have noted throughout this book, for the sake of the holiness of the kingdom, we must guard against labeling Christian everything that might be considered comparatively good. The kingdom of God is not merely the goodness of the ki
ngdom of the world. Rather, the kingdom of God is the radical alternative to the kingdom of world. It is not merely good: it is beautiful. And there’s nothing beautiful about war, however good its outcome may be.

  Second, it’s not the case that if all who profess Christ had “turned the other cheek” and “loved their enemies” blacks would still be enslaved and the world would now be under Nazi rule. To the contrary, it was mostly nominal Christians who enslaved blacks and who supported the Nazis! Had professing Christians been remotely like Jesus in the first place, there would have been no slavery or war for us to wonder about what would have happened had Christians loved their enemies and turned the other cheek!11

  There’s a general principle behind this observation: the thing that creates the need for violence is the thing that ensures it will be countered with more violence—namely, the idolatrous depravity of the human heart. So long as hearts are depraved, people will live and die by the sword, for the tit-for-tat kingdom is forever exchanging blows. There is therefore no need to worry about the theoretical possibility of too many people “turning the other cheek” and “loving their enemies.” Until God’s kingdom is established on the earth, we can unfortunately be assured there will always be governments and others creating situations that call for violence, and governments and others willing to address that situation through violent means.

  This leads to our third point. The kingdom person must always remember that God is the Lord of all creation and Lord over all the nations. As Lord of all, God takes responsibility for the governance of the world. Though all versions of the kingdom of the world are polluted by the influence of the fallen powers, God is the one who ultimately gives them their “power over” authority, who sets the general parameters of the amount of good and evil they can accomplish, and who thus takes responsibility for the care of the world as a whole. He is the one who takes responsibility to orchestrate the sword-wielding powers he finds in the world (Rom. 13:2–4).

  Though much takes place through these authorities that is against God’s will, kingdom people must trust God’s ability to wisely manage the whole. We are not to “worry about our life,” let alone the life of the world (Matt. 6:25). God uses the power of the sword to keep law and order, and though agents can and do use this power for evil, God ensures overall law and order will be maintained in the long run. Indeed, if need be, he can use the evil of one nation to keep the evil of another nation in check. Hence, no evil scheme of any person or any nation can thwart his ultimate purposes for creation (e.g., Job 42:2; Ps. 47:2–3, 7–8; 66:7; 75:6–7; Isa. 40:22–23). He is the God of all gods, the Lord of all lords, and the King of all kings (e.g., Deut. 10:17; Ps. 136:3; 1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 19:16).

  This means that kingdom people must leave to God the ultimate responsibility of governing the world and instead focus their attention on living out the radically distinctive call of the kingdom. We must not allow our fallen and fallible ideas about “what the world needs” to compromise the unique call on our life to live in Christlike love, even toward our nationalistic enemies. We must never let expediency replace faithfulness as the motivation of our behavior. Though it may violate our fallen “common sense” to do so, we must remember that Christ’s death on the cross wasn’t “common-sensical.” To the contrary, Paul admits it is “foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18, 23). Jesus didn’t concern himself with fixing or steering the Roman government. He entrusted this matter to his Father and allowed himself to be crucified by the Roman government.

  Of course, from a kingdom-of-the-world perspective, our refusal to operate according to common sense—that is, opting out of the “save the world through violence” mindset—will undoubtedly seem irresponsible. “It’s your duty as a citizen of your nation to defend it—lest evil take over,” we may hear. This has been the bloody mantra of all versions of the kingdom of the world throughout history. While we should worry about being despised because we’re viewed as self-righteous hypocrites (see chap. 7), we should never worry about being despised because we refuse to participate in a culture of violence (Luke 6:22; John 15:20). Our response can only be to testify that we have a higher duty to a greater king and a greater country—and to invite our antagonists to join us in fulfilling this higher duty and serving this greater country.

  Finally, not only are kingdom people called to trust God’s ultimate lordship over the nations as we walk in humble obedience to Christ, we are also to trust that he will use our sacrificial obedience to Christ to accomplish his purposes in the world. It is the power of the cross, not the power of the sword, that holds the hope of the world, for the power of the cross is also the power of the resurrection. Even if it looks like evil gains the upper hand as we return evil with kindness rather than retaliate with violence, we are to know by faith that this apparent loss is only apparent.

  We must remember that for three days it certainly looked like the Devil had won, but Christ’s resurrection proved otherwise. God vindicated Christ’s loving sacrifice and, in principle, ended the Devil’s stronghold on the world. This victory forms the basis of our confidence that God will vindicate our non-common-sensical imitation of Christ. As we manifest kingdom life by replicating Jesus to the world, it may often look like we are doing little—and even sometimes look like we are losing ground. But we know, against all common sense, that nothing could be further from the truth. However trivial they may seem, we know that Christlike acts are doing more to bring the world to the glorious end God has for it than any “power over” act ever could.

  Kingdom people need to see the world through the eyes of the kingdom of God, the eyes of faith, not through the eyes of the kingdom of the world. For example, to the natural eye it looks like the relative strength of two armies fighting on the battlefield determines the outcome of a battle. But the eye of faith should see that this outcome is much more affected by a man standing on a hill raising his arms in prayer (Ex. 17:8–13). Faith understands that the fate of nations may hinge more on whether a kingdom person is praying than on the decisions of its leaders (Ezek. 22:29–31).

  Looking at the world in this way, a kingdom person can see the shallowness of the argument that moves from a comparatively good outcome produced through violent means to the necessity of violence to produce a good outcome. While the Civil War did produce at least one good outcome, for example, a kingdom person must see the shallowness of concluding that this outcome could only have been achieved by having over six hundred thousand people—most of whom professed Christ—slaughtering each other. A kingdom person should rather wonder what might have happened had more kingdom people been willing to live out the call of the radical kingdom. What might have happened if more people had trusted “power under” rather than resorting to “power over”?

  How much of the violence of the Civil War could have been avoided if, say, a larger number of kingdom people were persistently and fervently in prayer to end slavery and avoid war? Such considerations are of course silly from a kingdom-of-the-world perspective, but from a kingdom of God perspective few questions could be more relevant. And how much of the bloodshed could have been avoided had more white Christians demonstrated Calvary-quality love by resisting the evil of slavery through nonviolent means?

  Similarly, what if millions (rather than hundreds) of whites had been willing to “come under” black slaves by helping with the underground railroad? What if more than a miniscule number of white Christians had refused to benefit in any way from the slave trade? What if, rather than taking up arms, Christians from the North and South would have been willing to sit down together and seriously ask the kingdom question, how can we sacrifice of our own resources to make it economically feasible to Southern, white land owners to set blacks free? What if instead of fearing a loss of congregants and revenue, denominational leaders had leveraged their authority to get white pastors to treat owning slaves as seriously as the sin of, say, adultery?

  In other words, what might have happened if multitudes of those who claimed to be Christi
an were actually Christlike? Undoubtedly, the outcome would have been much better than the “good” outcome of the war, and it would have been achieved without such a diabolical loss of life. In fact, as noted above, had sufficient numbers been willing to live out the call of the kingdom, slavery never would have been a reality in the first place.

  We accept arguments about the necessity of violence because historically this is the approach that’s usually been used to resolve large-scale conflicts. What is more, while military victories tend to be celebrated, nonviolent victories seem to pass without notice. Most know about Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., but the nonviolent revolutions that ended various unjust dictatorships and brought increased freedom to more than three billion people in the twentieth century alone are hardly ever discussed.12

  Consequently, we are conditioned to think violence is the only viable approach to resolving conflict. Yet kingdom people are called to follow the example of Jesus, not the example of Caesar or world history. We are called to trust “power under,” not “power over.” And we are thereby called to show by our life that, while violence sometimes brings about some positive results, violence is never inevitable—if only kingdom people will live out their unique kingdom call.

  4. DON’T YOUR IDEAS LEAD TO PASSIVITY?

  Your proposal is a prescription for disaster! Like the hangman, if Christians don’t aggressively fight the forces of evil in our culture, eventually we will find ourselves getting hung. The marriage of gays, for example, is a stepping stone toward outlawing our religious right to preach that homosexuality is a sin. Christians have a responsibility to take a strong public stand now to stop this slippery slope into a culture that may eventually make being a Christian illegal. You’re irresponsibly encouraging Christians to sit by while we see our rights slowly erode.