A Growing Problem
Last week I listened, intently, to a pastor as he described the recent departure of roughly eighty-five percent of his congregation. Methodically, he shared the sadness he felt as he watched a previously united group of believers turn on each other and on him; fighting with intense emotion, anger and even hatred. No doubt he was discouraged to lose so many church members, but it wasn’t the fact they were gone that bothered him, it was why they left. Over the last year the pastor outlined a growing sentiment in his church that conflated Christianity with nationalism, he said, “For most of the congregation, they didn’t draw a distinction between their Christian faith and their strongly held support of American nationalism.”
He continued, “Most of my congregates wanted me to mix the two and to preach the gospel, while interspersing conservative political doctrine and support for policies that projected nationalism, even when those views where not consistent with Christianity. I was, and remain, unwilling to do that.”
As I considered what he was saying, I realized I have heard many examples of people using language to imply religion and politics are one and the same; a comingled belief that can easily describe how they feel and what they want to happen. I don’t believe in this approach, nor do I believe it wise.
However, I must admit I have become numb to this developing trend and thus haven’t spent time thinking about its impact on our country. That is until I heard the pastor speak and internalized his profound concern that too many Christians seem to have lost their way and cannot distinguish their faith from their politics.
As you know, sometimes exposure to an idea stimulates you to pay more attention; with a keener awareness you sometimes notice things that previously passed you by. That happened to me over the weekend. As I was driving on a trip, I heard a women advertise a conservative political group that’s mission is to “protect our God-given rights.” I immediately was taken by the phrase, “God-given rights.” I don’t understand what she means. In my view humans have not been given, nor is there anything in the Christian faith that says because we believe we have been given earthly rights. Now I could be wrong, and if there is something in Christian teaching that shows I am misguided, I encourage readers to educate me. Short of some newfound learnings, however, I think God has given us direction, choices, guidance, and teachings, but he hasn’t given us rights. People’s rights, whatever they might be, come from their government and the constitution or laws of the country they live in. If you are so unfortunate to be a Christian in Russia, your rights are exclusively determined by the government and your ability to freely practice your religion is diminished. In this country, citizens are provided legal rights that allow for religious freedom, among many other freedoms we possess, but we do not naturally have rights which come from God.
If the woman in the ad had said ‘our mission is to protect our constitutional rights,’ I would have likely not even noticed, but that isn’t what she said. She magically married constitutional rights with religion and directly suggested our freedoms are derived from God. Words matter, and hers were intentional and should be taken with the seriousness she meant them.
Now you might think this is splitting hairs and a non-issue. My response would be, is it really? Is it really something to be ignored. Our constitution was written, not in the context as rights we possessed as Christians, but rather as Americans. Furthermore, those rights applied to all people, yes even non-Christians. The brilliance of our founding fathers is shown in their foresight in protecting all, from some. People may not like that, but America’s greatness is in the strength of our willingness to allow those who disagree with the majority to worship without fear of reprisals or, worse yet, a band of people deciding how they must interpret God.
I have never personally felt pressure in my journey to come closer to God. I was born and raised in the Christian faith and remain true to that today. However, many of the things I hear some Christian groups espouse doesn’t sound anything like the faith I was taught. And that is okay, I except that, that is part of being an American. If they want to believe things that conflict with my beliefs, there is nothing wrong with that, or better yet, anything I can or should do about it. But if they want to gain power and control me through political efforts wrapped in the messaging that it is God who has empowered them or even worse, God who has ordained it as their right, then I have a big problem with it.
And that is really the point. I get very nervous when groups of people teach a doctrine that borrows the goodness of God to accomplish their questionable individual agenda. That is even more dangerous when there isn’t a discernable line between politics and religion. It leads to extremes; nothing is more powerful than the belief that God called you to do something. What if, what you convince yourself God is calling you to do, is a bastardization of God’s word? You do not have to look far in world history to see the dangers that come from a country and its population mixing religion and nationalism.
Since hearing the ad, I began to wonder if I could speak to the person who founded this group, what I would say. First off, there would be no point in arguing with them. However, I would love to ask what right do they believe that God has given them, and how do they intend to protect it? Again, I can’t think of one right we have been provided by God. We have been given gifts, and those gifts are opportunities, but not rights. We can think, we can feel, we can learn, we can suffer pain, and we can believe. We are afforded the full human experience by the grace of God, but we are not given rights.
I suspect many of you don’t see why this is an important item to think about. I respect that, but I would ask you to consider what happens when small examples become big; when the government tells you can and can’t do something because someone has decided their view of God is the only view. People born in China presumably would have the same “God-given rights” of those born in America (certainly God wouldn’t select to treat people differently because of where they are born), and yet, there have been decades when the government forbid its people to have more than one child. The point being government can determine how you live your life and what legal rights you have.
Next time you hear someone talk about their nationalist view of America while using their faith as tool to engender support, ask yourself, are they perpetuating the idea that nationalism and Christianity are seamlessly married? I believe you can be a nationalist and a Christian, and if that is your perspective that is fine. However, I also believe conflating those two ideas as one, is a problem, and it is a growing problem.
