The G.O.P. verses the G.O.D.

This is part 3 in a series on biblical illiteracy and its effects on America and within the Church.

For being dead in my trespasses, I knew quite a bit about the church. For about ten years, I grew up in a local church and participated in the various activities they had for kids. I was in Sunday school, I was a shepherd in a Christmas pageant, I could even repeat to you the Apostle’s Creed (We believe in one God, the Father…). But if you were to ask me about God Himself or about Jesus, I could tell you very little. I knew church. I didn’t know the gospel.

Part of that may have been that I was just a kid and I did not think in theological terms. But my experience in the church is like so many in our so-called Christian nation. We go to church, we learn the basics about how to do good and we come out of it Christianized non-Christians. And this leads to the main modern effect of biblical illiteracy: a Christ-less Christian nation.

De-churching

Why is our nation Christ-less? Wouldn’t a person of another faith call this a Christian nation? Don’t we see more people going to church than to temples, synagogues, mosques or other religious institutions?

It is true that America has long been a nation that loves its Christianity. Slogans like “one nation under God,” “in God we trust,” “God bless America” and “so help me God” have permeated into wider American culture. The last five of Moses’ commandments are engraved in the Supreme Court building. Atlanta is the mega-church capital of the world. Colleges such as William and Mary, Harvard and Duke began as religious schools, all of them Christian.

However, for the large majority of Americans, Christianity’s cultural impacts are what Christianity is all about. It is about getting people into the church doors, getting them to tithe, passing out literature, preaching a set of political beliefs, adding a big renovation to the building and fighting evolution. America has lost the church.

Matt Chandler calls this process “De-churching.” People are funneled into religious institutions to get God to bless them, only to leave disappointed:

“Here’s how I’ve seen the de-churched happen. You get men and women where, growing up in churches where the gospel is assumed and the nature and character of God is assumed, (they) are taught morality…I grew up in that. A lot of people grew up in that. We grew up in this, ‘Do this, don’t do this.’ That’s moralistic deism at its best! It doesn’t transform¹.”

Furthermore, Chandler says that this comes from an incorrect emphasis on pragmatism and not on Christocentric principles:

“Avoid silly myths but train your people in godliness. Now, the reason I say this is complex is because you can take one idea and teach it in such a way that’s irreverent and silly or take one idea and teach it in such a way that leads to godliness. Let me give you an example.

All over Dallas creative teams get together and they go, “We’re in a recession here. We’re going to talk about debt. We’re going to teach our people about debt. And so we’ve entitled our series, ‘Debt is dumb’…And our ministry to this community is going to be to let them know that debt is dumb…” and then you dismiss. That’s Christ-less, expounding upon nothing!²”

I’m afraid that so much of evangelical Christian culture has been filled with irreverent silly myths rather than biblically informed ideas and institutions. We get slogans and logical fallacies and dumb science and poor apologetics and Christian alternatives for everything secular culture has to offer without getting Christ. Thus, the first symptom of biblical illiteracy is a loss of the main thing. People can read the Bible in such a way that they find cool biblical characters like Noah, Abraham, David and Daniel without meeting God. As J.I. Packer writes, “We may know as much about God as Calvin knew…and yet all the time (unlike Calvin, may I say) we may hardly know God at all.”³

The Bible is about Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:16 says that all things have been created through Him and for Him. With that in mind, that means that all of the good pieces of advice, all of the wonderful hymns, all of the beautiful churches and Cathedrals, all of the Bible translations and all of hellfire and brimstone sermons mean exist because of and for Jesus Christ. When you lose sight of that, you create a Christ-less Christianity that exalts one doctrine or one denomination over what has always been the cornerstone of Christianity. A Christianity without Jesus Christ is nothing more than modernized, biblical paganism.

Republican = Christian?

Linus once said that there are three things you never talk about: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin. While the Great Pumpkin isn’t that divisive of an issue, people always get worked up over politics and religion. Mix the two, and you bring two swords where Jesus only meant to bring one.

Within the last forty or fifty years that seems to be what America has been doing. Ever since the millennium began, many people, including myself before my conversion, have thought that Christianity is synonymous with a political party, the Republican Party in particular. It has gotten to the point where some people share the belief of one blogger, who writes:

“Our call is not to vote Republican, but to think and act like Christians in the political arena as much as any other. We doubt this can be done in cooperation with the Democratic Party any more than it can be done with Nazis or Communists, for we recognize little substantive difference between explicit and practical atheism.”⁴

Religion, it seems, has divided people in the last decade on every issue, from moral issues like gay marriage and abortion to issues like the economy or the Iraq War. Political science professor Jo Renée Formicola writes, “While evangelicals can view the war in a values context, Democrats cannot or will not”⁵. As Formicola explains throughout her book The Politics of Values, the evangelical affiliation with the Republican Party does not mean that the Republicans are more concerned about honoring God, but using the Religious Right as a reliable voting bloc.

The Church and the State

For centuries, Christians have been trying to decide how involved they should be in government. Historically, there have been many positions on this issue, because, when it comes to government, Scripture only gives general principles. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 13:1-7 that Christians need to be responsible citizens. There is no command to spread democracy.  There is no command withdraw from society. There is no command to take over the world with a Christian kingdom.  Yet, people who have flown the banner of Christ have done all three.

After the apostolic era, Christians had relatively little political power since they were undergoing various forms of persecution as well as trying to sort out their own doctrine.  This persecution was not constant throughout the four centuries A.D. and in fact they occasionally stopped.  However, it was not until the rise of the Roman emperor Constantine that Christianity gained any foothold in any government.  Gradually, the Church and the State became one as the Roman Catholic Church formed and today the Holy See still operates as its own independent state, with various councils and offices carrying out the Pope’s jurisdiction.  In fact, the Church made war around the 11th century A.D. to try and conquer the Holy Land.  Clearly, there is precedence for a totally Christian theocracy⁶.

Yet, in America’s Puritan tradition, there is also a case for separatism.  Many of the Pilgrims came to America seeking to seal themselves off from the Church of England.  They still had a de facto Christian state in their colonies, but they had no interest in their native culture or in the cultures of the Native Americans.  They wanted nothing to do with what they saw as the corrupt churches in Europe.

Also still is the precedent for Christians to be a force for democracy.  Puritan preacher Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, sought to create a state grounded in common law with religious freedom.  This included freedom for Jews and Catholics, radical for the time considering nations would war over Protestantism and Catholicism.

In twentieth century America, Christian political activity was relatively low outside of fighting against evolution–most famously in the Scopes Monkey Trial. “Through much of the middle of the century,” says sociology professor Tina Fetner, “Christian evangelicals were dedicated to withdrawal not only from politics but from the secular world more generally”⁷. The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was the first Christian movement that enacted major political change. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized non-violent protests with a very political agenda. For King, involvement in politics and doing God’s will were the same. He writes:

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained…So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides—and try to understand why he must do so⁸.”

However, King never aligned with any particular party and it was a Democratic president who signed legislation promoting racial equality, something Christians overwhelmingly support today. Additionally, it was mostly black churches that supported this movement. Many white churches opposed the movement, calling it “extremist.” Even with this Christian movement, there was not one defining Christian political position.

The Architect and the Faithless Donkey

So how did Republican become synonymous with Christian? In short, it was Roe v. Wade. The 1973 court decision united Christian activists in such a way that many thought that evangelicals needed to enter into the political sphere. Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority paved the way for later evangelical involvement, as did organizations like Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. But, as Formicola describes:

“(Former George W. Bush aide Karl) Rove played the politics of values like a master from his earliest days as George W. Bush’s political consultant. From the beginning, he targeted a specific segment of American Christians—evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons—thus co-option a specific religious and ideological base: conservative constituencies that would support the president in 2000 and could be counted on to assure his 2004 reelection as well. Was it brilliant or divisive? It all depends on your point of view—or ideology.

The politics of values is so volatile and remains that way today because it is a zero-sum game. It is committed to focusing on the voting strength of a particular religious group, like the evangelicals, and promising to advance their moral values in the political process⁹.”

Rove has been called “The Architect,” because in the 2004 election he “found every last evangelical voter in every country church—and found 4 million Christian votes that he credited with defeating John Kerry”¹⁰. And, aside from Christian political groups often siding with conservative political leaders to push a Christian platform, that is the reason why many have linked the cross with the elephant. Republicans have given Christians what they want: leaders who value faith, particularly the Christian faith, and who will represent good biblical morals in a society infected with sin.

Combine that with a lack of outreach to Christians from the Democrats over the Bush years. As Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club notes, “We (Democrats) walked away from the single institution most Americans turned to when they try to be better than they are. It was a huge mistake.”¹¹.  It was not so much of an atheist, Nazi party, as our blogger friend suggests, but a lack of outreach and sound political strategy.

President Barack Obama explains his party’s position, or lack thereof, on faith:

“Conservative leaders, from Falwell and Robertson to Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans only care about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats for the most part have taken the bait. At best we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that—regardless of our personal beliefs—constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst some liberals dismiss religion as inherently irrational or intolerant…”¹².

If the 2008 campaign is any indication, Democrats will likely begin reaching out to faith groups more and more. Perhaps in four to eight years, the pajama-hadeen of bloggers will hop on the donkey and brand the elephant with the mark of the beast.

The future of Christian politics

I had some explaining to do when I told my friends I voted blue in 2008.

I remember the night of the election was one where my campus ministry held an open discussion on topics ranging from God’s existence to political beliefs. Most everyone I talked to voted for McCain which was fine by me. But as I was talking with a fellow “Parlor helper” about my vote, a friend of mine was sat smiling across from me.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You seem a little proud of your vote,” she laughed. “How bold of you to step out of the mold and go for Obama.”

“Why? Who’d you vote for?

“Obama. I’m just not as vocal about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d thought I’d have to do some explaining.”

It is amazing to me how the wedding of Christian principles and Republican platforms have forced people like myself and my friend to “explain” our votes. The GOP, I guess, has accomplished its goal of making many evangelicals a reliable vote. But moreso than brilliant political strategy, I believe this shows people’s lack of both political knowledge and biblical knowledge. Pastors endorse candidates from the pulpit while Christian television talks about keeping this a Christian nation, namely, through the Republican Party.

There is no such thing as a Christian political party. While politicians may agree with Christians on certain issues, no major political institution exists to glorify God. Both the Republicans and Democrats exist to promote political agendas and not the glory of God in Jesus Christ. A Christian is someone who in some sense echoes what the Apostle Paul says, “For me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phillipians 1:21). How he chooses to do that is of no concern provided that he walks in the light as Jesus did and that he bases his convictions off the Scriptures.

One of the reasons why so many have fled to the Republican Party to push for Christian ideas in government is that they believe God’s blessing on America is directly tied to how obedient it is to God’s Word as a nation. Scripture gives us no indication of that. The Old Testament has many accounts of God revealing aspects of His will of decree (how He runs the Universe, as opposed to what he will or commands us to do) to Israel. But He has given no such prophecy to us. He has simply said to go forth and proclaim the Good News. It is our duty as Christians to try and make the world a better place. It is not our duty to assume God will punish America based on how many gay people there are in New Orleans or how many abortions there are every year. We don’t want these things to happen because we want to see God honored. A love for fellow man will motivate a Christian to tell his friends the Good News.

An ideal future for Christian politics would be this: that we live out the gospel in whatever situation God calls us. Democrats and Republicans alike are of no match for the power of the gospel. Being a member of a certain political party does not automatically make one Christian or non. Politics will always involve compromise. As Christians, we can always compromise on practice, but never on principle. That is the biblical political position.

Pastor Robin Boisvert sums it nicely in his article “The Church, the State and the Christian”:

“The state is God’s servant and is willed by God, but it is not of the same divine nature as the church. It is a temporal, not an eternal institution, supremely concerned with this world. Its interests lie in the here and now, not the hereafter. The church, on the other hand, while certainly concerned with this world, deals also with ultimate issues taking her above and beyond this present world order. She is of an eternal order. Both church and state have been ordained by God. Both act as his servants in their proper spheres. But a time will come when the state will no longer be necessary¹³.”

The Christian nation will not come until Christ’s return. A biblical worldview will reflect this: that the main concern is to display the magnificence of Christ’s sufferings and not to elect an official in order to get God to keep us in suburbia driving nice cars. If many Christians believe an elected official can do that, then they should by all means try to elect him with a clear conscience. But never assume that a conservative, liberal or moderate political platform will automatically glorify God because it has common ground with the Bible.

1. Chandler, Matt. “Preaching the Gospel to the De-churched.” Durham, NC., 4 June 2009. Advance09. 17 June 2009 <http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/>. [↩]
2. Chandler, Matt. “A Shepherd and His Unregenerate Sheep.” Minneapolis, 3 Feb 2009. Desiring God 2009 Conference for Pastors. 18 June 2009 <http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/>. [↩]
3. Packer, J.I. Knowing God. London: InterVarsity Press, 1973. p. 22. [↩]
4. Thayer, Tyler. “Is God Socialist.” Blog comment. ManSpeak. 6 Nov 2008. 17 June 2009. <www.manspeak.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/is-god-socialist>. [↩]
5. Formicola, Jo Renée. The Politics of Values: Games Political Strategists Play. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Pg.107. [↩]
6. Most of my general knowledge of Church history comes from an online lecture series by Dr. Frank James of Reformed Theological Seminary.  To listen to the lectures, visit www.itunes.rts.edu. [↩]
7. Fetner, Tina. How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Pg. 1 [↩]
8. King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. Clayborn Carson. New York: Warner Books, 1998. Pg. 197-198. [↩]
9. Formicola, pg. 38 [↩]
10. Miller, Lisa. “The Evangelical Right in Disarray.” Newsweek 7 July 2008. 18 June 2009 <http://www.newsweek.com/id/143760>. [↩]
11. Gibbs, Nancy and Michael Duffy. “How the Democrats Got Religion.” Time 12 July 2007. 18 June 2009 <http://www.time.compolitics/article/0,8599,1642649-2,00.html [↩]
12. Cited from Formicola, pg. 104-105 [↩]
13. Boisvert, Robin.  ”The Church, the State and the Christian.” Covenant Life Church Resources. 19 June 1009. <http://covlife.org/pdf/Church_and_State_rboisvert.pdf>. [↩]

TagsBiblical, David, Democrat, illiteracy, Political, Republican, Series, Wells