Christianity and American Democracy
A year and a half from now there will be another presidential election in the United States. I am starting to think about the election because the line of wannabe candidates is queuing up even as I write this.
The incumbent president is completing the last of his two-term limit, and with a divided Congress squabbling between two major political parties and pointing their fingers at each other. Most of us Americans have a myopia that blinds us from looking farther back beyond our last paycheck or past quarterly reported earnings or last IRS audit, but over the last half century American politics has shown the ebbs and flows of one major political party becoming so powerful and self-serving, that it has fallen out of popular favor to the other major political party, which has proven to be just as powerful and self-serving.
With each passing day less and less is found within our American society that points to Christianity, while more and more of our society resembles the self-importance of the Greek empire, the self-determination of old Japanese and Chinese empires, the wantonness of the Roman empire and the materialism of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian empires. Although the founding fathers of the United States were men guided by upon Christian principles, it is naive to infer that the existence of Christians within the citizenry of any nation makes that country a Christian nation. We have seen countless aspects of America that display how un-Christian we really are . . . from racial slavery, rampant violence, pornography, to the tobacco and alcohol industries.
There is a huge distinction between Christianity, on the one hand, and the American society, culture and political system, on the other hand. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, atheists, and all other non-Christians need to know this for Christ's sake.
They need to know that the one and only Jesus Christ - crucified for sinners, risen from the dead, and reigning as God from heaven today - was accomplishing His purposes, gathering a people for Himself from every culture, and building His church long before America ever existed, and He will be omnipotently doing the same centuries from now, even if America becomes nothing more than a footnote in world history. Christianity and the American culture are radically distinct. It is possible to be a faithful Christian under any regime in the world - and may be easier to be a radical, cross-bearing disciple of Jesus in regimes less prosperous than America.
We should make that clear over and over in these days and the ones to come.
Nevertheless, Christian participation in, and support for, democracy and freedom is rooted in our supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. This is true in at least two ways.
1. Because Jesus Christ is the only person who can be trusted with absolute power, Christians are very suspicious of any move toward the dictatorship of a sinful man-that is, any man. For the Christian, democracy is not rooted in the wisdom and trustworthiness of self-governing man, but in the sole right of Christ to govern absolutely with his supreme wisdom and trustworthiness, and in the folly, pride, sinfulness, and untrustworthiness of all other men.
C. S. Lewis said it like this in 1943:
I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. . . . I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. ("Equality," in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces)
2. Because Jesus Christ accepts only un-coerced belief and obedience, Christians reject the use of the sword and the bullet to constrain religious faith, especially Christianity. Jesus said, "This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me" (Matthew 15:8). He also said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting" (John 18:36). Coerced lip-religion is vain. A kingdom built with bullets is not the kingdom of Christ. He alone will build his kingdom in the end, and it will be with the sword of his own mouth, not the sword of our hands (Revelation 19:15, 21).This leads to the position that for the sake of Christ, Christians support freedom and its inevitable correlate, pluralism, in politics and culture. That is, for Jesus Christ's sake Christians support the legal protection of many beliefs and behaviors that are anti-Christ.
In summary:
1. For Jesus Christ's sake we must radically distinguish Christianity from the American cultural, political system of democracy and freedom.
2. And for Jesus Christ's sake we may support and serve the cause of truth and justice through that system.
The incumbent president is completing the last of his two-term limit, and with a divided Congress squabbling between two major political parties and pointing their fingers at each other. Most of us Americans have a myopia that blinds us from looking farther back beyond our last paycheck or past quarterly reported earnings or last IRS audit, but over the last half century American politics has shown the ebbs and flows of one major political party becoming so powerful and self-serving, that it has fallen out of popular favor to the other major political party, which has proven to be just as powerful and self-serving.
With each passing day less and less is found within our American society that points to Christianity, while more and more of our society resembles the self-importance of the Greek empire, the self-determination of old Japanese and Chinese empires, the wantonness of the Roman empire and the materialism of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian empires. Although the founding fathers of the United States were men guided by upon Christian principles, it is naive to infer that the existence of Christians within the citizenry of any nation makes that country a Christian nation. We have seen countless aspects of America that display how un-Christian we really are . . . from racial slavery, rampant violence, pornography, to the tobacco and alcohol industries.
There is a huge distinction between Christianity, on the one hand, and the American society, culture and political system, on the other hand. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, atheists, and all other non-Christians need to know this for Christ's sake.
They need to know that the one and only Jesus Christ - crucified for sinners, risen from the dead, and reigning as God from heaven today - was accomplishing His purposes, gathering a people for Himself from every culture, and building His church long before America ever existed, and He will be omnipotently doing the same centuries from now, even if America becomes nothing more than a footnote in world history. Christianity and the American culture are radically distinct. It is possible to be a faithful Christian under any regime in the world - and may be easier to be a radical, cross-bearing disciple of Jesus in regimes less prosperous than America.
We should make that clear over and over in these days and the ones to come.
Nevertheless, Christian participation in, and support for, democracy and freedom is rooted in our supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. This is true in at least two ways.
1. Because Jesus Christ is the only person who can be trusted with absolute power, Christians are very suspicious of any move toward the dictatorship of a sinful man-that is, any man. For the Christian, democracy is not rooted in the wisdom and trustworthiness of self-governing man, but in the sole right of Christ to govern absolutely with his supreme wisdom and trustworthiness, and in the folly, pride, sinfulness, and untrustworthiness of all other men.
C. S. Lewis said it like this in 1943:
I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. . . . I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. ("Equality," in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces)
2. Because Jesus Christ accepts only un-coerced belief and obedience, Christians reject the use of the sword and the bullet to constrain religious faith, especially Christianity. Jesus said, "This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me" (Matthew 15:8). He also said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting" (John 18:36). Coerced lip-religion is vain. A kingdom built with bullets is not the kingdom of Christ. He alone will build his kingdom in the end, and it will be with the sword of his own mouth, not the sword of our hands (Revelation 19:15, 21).This leads to the position that for the sake of Christ, Christians support freedom and its inevitable correlate, pluralism, in politics and culture. That is, for Jesus Christ's sake Christians support the legal protection of many beliefs and behaviors that are anti-Christ.
In summary:
1. For Jesus Christ's sake we must radically distinguish Christianity from the American cultural, political system of democracy and freedom.
2. And for Jesus Christ's sake we may support and serve the cause of truth and justice through that system.