On Independence Day, be glad the United States is not a Christian nation
July 2, 2022
vancemorgan
Christianity, or any branch of it, loses its Christian character when its self-appointed supporters outnumber its actual adherents. Marilynne Robinson
Is America a Christian Nation? Attempts to answer this controversial question usually focus on specific language in the founding documents of the United States, quotations from the correspondence and essays of the Founding Fathers, the percentage of the citizenry who identify themselves as “Christian,” and individual interpretations of history. It is an intimate debate in which the various sides tend to align themselves with well-established and well-defined political and religious commitments.
Acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson addresses the question of America’s status as a Christian nation by asking instead: what would one expect if America (or any other country) were a Christian nation? Your own answer suggests that what we would find might surprise us. In her essay “Awakening,” from her 2014 collection of essays, The Givenness of Things, Robinson notes that although some have celebrated a resurgence in Christianity in recent years, that resurgence has “a harshness, a bitterness, a rudeness, and something else has brought self-importance to the public.”
On this reading, America as a Christian nation, far from a city on a hill, resembles more the bitterness of Bedford Falls without the redeeming influence of Jimmy Stewart. How can that be? Two years before the 2016 presidential election, Robinson noted that “the word ‘Christian’ is now viewed less as a designation of an ethic and more as a designation of a population group.” The role played by millions of self-identifying Christians in the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, and their continued support of the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, is so well documented that in recent years the name “Christian” has been in the has become synonymous in many people’s minds with a white person (most likely male) who voted for Trump.
“Christian” is used to justify a certain kind of tribalism, a distancing of oneself from “other” different descriptions, and to reinforce a defensiveness that tries to convince us that Christianity is a persecuted majority. In “The Sacred, the Human” from her 2018 collection of essays What are We Doing Here? Robinson writes that a vocal group of self-proclaimed Christians have “established a sham moral system based on the fundamental refusal” of its core tenant “to love your neighbor as yourself.”
How does this “sham system of morality,” which many say is compatible with Christianity, differ from the basic principles of gospel-based ethics? Most fundamentally and profoundly, the Gospels identify every person, regardless of race, gender, social status, power, or homeland, as equally valuable and precious in the eyes of God, bearers of the divine image. According to the recorded words of Jesus, practical evidence of knowing this truth includes clothing the naked, giving water to the thirsty, and forging our swords into ploughshares. The words “stranger” and “alien” never carry negative connotations in Scripture, nor are the poor, dispossessed, homeless, widows, or orphans ever the recipients of anything less than divine attention and love.
Moreover, democracy is at best a natural companion to a Christian ethic. When we read in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” we understand that Thomas Jefferson is not promoting the teachings of any particular religion as much as he is describing the sacred equality of all men. This equality is not subject to our various tribal concerns, but is an equality at the heart of Christianity. Although the Founding Fathers failed to universally apply this equality, Jefferson recognized that a committed commitment to this equality is necessary to create and sustain the community of diverse individuals that is the dream of democracy.
Such communities, Robinson argues, require the ability to love and respect those we don’t know and even those with whom we deeply disagree. Such love and respect are central Christian values, but they are noticeably absent from many contemporary interpretations of “Christian.” In “Fear,” Robinson warns, “When Christians abandon Christian standards of conduct in defense of Christianity, when Americans abandon American standards of conduct in America’s name, they are doing harm beyond the power of an enemy.”
When “Christian” comes to identify a population group or becomes a tribal designation, a commitment to a reasonable understanding of Christian ethics is missing. Furthermore, the very radical inclusiveness and openness of the gospel message resists any attempt to create an identifiable Christian nation. In her recent essay, A Proof, a Test, and Instruction, Robinson suggests that the story of those who first came to the New World seeking freedom from religious tyranny and oppression, anyone who wishes America to have a “Christian nation” should give food for thought .
It is evident that for some time there has been a controversy in the minds and imaginations of many who profess to be Christians as to who the true Christians are. In a nation as diverse as ours, an ongoing attempt to build one out of many, the conflicting and often exclusive teachings, dogmas, and agendas that divide cults into “more Christian than you” tribes are for our best dreams as well our destructive of a nation and the faith that welcomes all to its heart.
