The Success of Christian Governments
Wed Feb 08, 2006 at 03:39:27 PM PDT
I spent my first two years of college at a private Christian school in West Texas. Not just any Christian school-- it was a Church of Christ school. The Churches of Christ, as opposed to the quite forward thinking United Churches of Christ, think that the Southern Baptist Convention is run by a bunch of hippy liberals. While I did have some academically challenging and thoughtful courses, for the most part, every negative stereotype of Texas and fundamentalist religion was true in Abilene.
For a liberated liberal girl from a progressive college town in the Midwest, Abilene was a miserable place. The women wore skirts almost all of the time, were perpetually chipper & Stepford-esque, and said things like, "I want to be the wife of a youth pastor." The few minorities were on athletic scholarships and lived terribly segregated lives. Curfew was rigid & enforced even when you "checked out" for the weekend. University officials spent their weekends scoping out the bars, asking to see IDs and punishing any ACU student caught out. The university administrators banned an interdenominational prayer service with the Methodist & Baptist universities in town.
The joke that the few of us critical of the university & Churches of Christ told was:
St. Peter met a group of people at the pearly gates and gave them the tour of heaven. The group was overwhelmed by the beauty surrounding them--the brightest, biggest flowers with lovely scents surrounded them, lions lay down with lambs and gently rested, old friends and family met each other and were joyful and happy, beautiful music filled the air. Eventually, the group came upon a simple room. Each person peeked through the window on the door to a stark quiet room where somber people sat on hard wooden pews. As they looked through, St. Peter held his finger to his lips and whispered, "Shh...those are the Church of Christers...they don't think anyone else is up here."
The lowest point of my experience there, was an appearance by Marilyn Quayle. She appeared to speak at required daily chapel; however, a male student stood up after the opening prayer to announce that chapel had officially ended (because women are not allowed to minister to men, naturally). Throughout the auditorium there were signs saying things along the lines of "God hates fags," and "Homosexuals will burn." Mrs. Quayle stood up to greet the crowd and her first statement was, "It's wonderful to see such respect for the family here this afternoon."
The theocratic platform that Bush Jr./Cheney ran on in 2004 was remarkably similar to the theocratic platform of the Bush/Quayle 1992 campaign: prayer in school, public support of private schools, depriving homosexuals of basic civil rights, criminalization of abortion, etc. During that 1992 campaign, for which I had front row seats into the mind of the fundamentalists, my dad, a Classics professor at a state university in the Midwest, was asked to give a speech to a Christian student organization at his university on why, as a Christian, he was voting for Bill Clinton. He sent it to me then & I think that there are parts of that lecture worth sharing as we continue to struggle against those who are interested in imposing a theocracy on the American people. In particular, a significant portion of the lecture was devoted to a Christian perspective on what happens to the church and the state when the two are entangled.
Please note that this was a lecture given to a Christian audience by a Christian and was not intended to be an objective or comprehensive analysis of the subject. If you are interested, the entire text of the lecture is here. (It won't let me link to the PDF, so you can scroll down to find De Legibus Christianorum: On the Laws of Christians.)
Starting with Jesus and early Christian response to living in the Roman state:
Jesus ... had little concern for the issues that for most pious Jews defined what it meant to be a godly nation. So far as we know, Jesus never even protested the Roman occupation of the land. He seemed not to believe that pagan political dominion had any effect one way or the other on the coming of the Kingdom of God. He told his followers that if Caesar wanted coins with his picture on them, that they should go ahead and give him his coins. He told his followers that if a Roman soldier demanded their service as a guide for the legal limit of a mile, they should cheerfully lead him two miles.
In addition, Jesus did not send the proper message to the collaborators and sinners. He did not demand that they adhere to the details of the law. Instead, he seemed not only to tolerate them, but to like them. He set a poor example of keeping the Sabbath. He ate dinner with collaborators who collected taxes for the pagan oppressors and with prostitutes who took money for sleeping with Roman soldiers. Even when a woman was caught in the act of adultery, Jesus opposed stoning her as the Law commanded, and released her with a mild rebuke ("Go, and sin no more.") making no provision to assure that she would reform.
In fact, it could be argued that Jesus more than anyone in Judaea was subverting the Jewish agenda of keeping Israel a godly nation. He gave comfort to the enemies who brought ungodly customs to the land; He was soft on the unfaithful-the prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners-who threatened to subvert the godly nation from within. The only time Jesus spoke with any fire was when he was attacking the godly leaders of the nation who most endorsed adherence to the Law, undercutting the efforts of the Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he attacked as hypocrites. He showed no interest in driving the pagan occupiers out of Jerusalem, but he drove godly businessmen out of the Temple. (snip)
The early church continued Jesus' maddening behavior. They, too, seemed strangely detached from desire for political power. Paul urged obedience, respect, and prayer for political leaders (snip) Persecution of Christians arose periodically throughout the Roman Empire for another three centuries. Men, women, and children were burned at the stake, fed to lions and bears, beaten. Their property was confiscated; they were subject to the violence and prejudice of ignorant, uncontrolled mobs.
During these centuries Christians took limited advantage of the legal recourses that were available to them. They appealed to Caesar. They published defenses of the Faith. But they never took up arms. The Greek of the Old Testament they read from told them that the great heroes of Israel, like Joshua, slew their enemies "with the mouth of the sword." (English versions tend to render the phrase "with the edge of the sword.") Christians, though, fought not with the "mouth of the sword" as Israel had in the conquest of the promised land, but with "the sword of Christ's mouth," the Christian proclamation. They denounced wickedness both inside and outside the Church. But they neither seized nor accepted power. They followed the Lamb "wherever he goes." The Lamb went to the altar for sacrifice, and the early Christians followed him.
The Christianized Roman Empire:
In 312 Constantine became Emperor in a battle fought in legend if not in fact, under a new standard--the cross of Christ. Christians were, of course, ecstatic. Finally, they had an emperor who publicly embraced Christianity. How could the country fail to become more like the Kingdom of God when the emperor himself now advocated a Christian agenda? And indeed he did. Constantine immediately set about redressing injustices against the Christians; in fact, Christianity became the favored religion of the Empire. (snip)
In a limited sense Christian ascendancy in the government made the world a better place. In this period the empire encouraged almsgiving and improved prison conditions. A new law forbade prison-keepers to let their prisoners starve to death. Prisoners were even allowed a weekly bath--on Sunday, a new holiday.
But in other areas the new Christian nation didn't do so well. The simple fact that Christians entered the political process did not change the nature of human empires, which differ profoundly in their goals and ground rules from the Kingdom of God. The Christianized Roman Empire was still involved in machinations for power, compromises of ethics for money, and war. Constantine, newly won to Christianity, deferred his baptism until he was dying--largely because being an effective leader of the Christian Roman Empire demanded some unpleasant things of him, like killing his father-in-law, three brothers-in-law, his eldest son, and his wife.
Nor was the church made stronger by the change of government. To the contrary, it was co-opted. Within 2 years of Constantine's conversion, Christian churches announced that Christian military conscripts who refused to fight would be excommunicated. How could Christians fail to support a nation that now protected and encouraged their religion?
So, the government continued to use torture, unethical measures for raising revenues, gladiatorial events and other politically useful, but ethically wicked activities. What changed was that the church was largely co-opted. They put the sword of Christ's mouth back into its scabbard. It would be somehow uncouth to continue to wield it now that they were protected by the mouth of Caesar's sword. Christian ministers ceased to insist with the same vigor as in the past that Christians must not support gladiatorial events or that torturing, enslaving, or killing another human was wicked, since those things were now so obviously necessary not for the support of a pagan empire, but of a Christian one.
(snip)
The church in the newly-Christianized nation became a different kind of church. And I don't think the change was merely an accident of sequence: the chicken crowed and two hours later the postman came. It was causal: The dynamics that caused the church to be co-opted and its message and means corrupted will produce similar changes whenever the church persuades a government to embrace a Christian agenda.
On the Inquisition:
It is particularly tragic that among the most feared of the Inquisitors were the Franciscans, the followers of the gentle St. Francis of Assisi, who were chosen initially because their devotion to God and deep spirituality were beyond question. No Christian who seriously contemplates urging faithful young Christians to undertake an agenda of making a nation more Christian must ever forget those young Franciscans. I warn us all most severely before God not to forget those faithful young boys, who sacrificed all to follow Christ, and who, so gradually they never quite understood it, found that their faithful service to Christ consisted of stretching the limbs of unbelievers until they tore, of burning the flesh of sinners in order to save their souls--all for the greater glory of God, whose power, glory, and kingdom now depended on the purity of a Christian nation.
On Christianized government at the local level, East Texas in the 50s & 60s:
Liquor sales were forbidden in our county until about 1975, and whenever a candidate arose who seemed weak on the liquor issue, the churches defeated him. That did not mean there was no liquor in our county, of course. It was readily available for both adults and minors. In school board elections the Christian agenda was to stop school dances (where students were incited to lust), to lower girls' hemlines, to prevent their cross-dressing in pants, and to keep boys' hair short. All these positions were argued with appeal to Scripture, and churches prayed intently for the right school board members, who would bring godliness to the schools. Many of you have lived in similar towns, and you know I am not distorting the facts, but that good Christians have spent decades of Sundays fighting battles like these--straining gnats, while they and their children were swallowing camels.
In a certain sense I share the concerns that moved them. Alcohol did, in fact, produce a lot of misery in Angelina County, just as it does everywhere. The school dances did, then, as they do now and shall until time ends, offer an opportunity for some hormone-driven young people to warm to more intense activities. Some girls did wear provocative clothing, and at least some of us guys were not entirely unmoved by the spectacle. Some guys did, in fact, use their haircuts (or lack thereof) to demonstrate varying degrees of disdain for conventional values. I think that churches are right to perceive these as important areas of concern and that Christians should challenge one another to great caution concerning alcohol, sexual temptation, and pride. The irony, of course, is that virtually all the people in that community and the students in that school were members of the churches. The churches were failing to persuade the hearts of their own members on these matters and were asking the government and the schools to intervene with the force of law and regulation.
(snip)
Christians elected a sheriff to prevent bootlegging, and school board members to retain a Christian agenda in the student handbook. Yet somehow, what now appear larger issues received little attention. All the conservative churches in our county were entirely segregated. The Christian sheriff kept the blacks "in their place." Christian business people subjected blacks to a demeaning double standard. None of this was out of hatred, of course. At least on Sundays Christians in my church were very careful not to say "nigger." They used the much more polite "nigra" instead. As, for example, one Sunday when the elders of our church circulated quietly through the congregation before services whispering, "There are some nigras coming into our services today. Don't be ugly or anything. Just ignore them, and they'll go away." The congregation dutifully complied, and the "nigras" never returned. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
Why couldn't the church see more clearly on that issue? Why didn't it speak out? Much of the answer is that everybody knew that we lived in a Christian town, a Christian county. The church was, therefore, at peace with its community and its structures. We were socially acceptable and didn't want to lose that status. How could we oppose our neighbors, our community's customs and beliefs, ourselves, the laws of our Christian government. To do so would have been unpatriotic, radical, probably communist, and certainly un-Christian.
Similarly, because Christians dictated the political agenda, and the agenda was specifically directed at such spiritual concerns as overcoming the sins of the flesh, mundane political issues like economics and education were neglected. Yet again, government with a Christian agenda was bad government.
Against the idea of a "Christian" nation:
You can see that for both practical and theological reasons I oppose Christian political agendas. This view stands in direct opposition to the idea that America is a Christian nation and that Christians should use legislation to retain possession of their country.
(snip) The New Testament knows nothing of Christian nations--even as a goal in the far-off future. Nowhere in the New Testament are Christians commanded or authorized to take over a nation or to make laws for their unbelieving neighbors. We are most severely enjoined to love our neighbors, to do good to them, to forgive them if they do us wrong, to pray for them, and to bear truthful witness to Christ among them. (snip) But let there be no nonsense about Christians employing the force of law to compel God's unbelieving children to obey what they do not believe and cannot, therefore, understand--in order to gain something called a Christian nation. (snip) Such grand strategies, nowhere commanded by our Lord or his apostles, distract our attention from the missions we are commanded to undertake, whitewash over the walls of our churches, which so often are a home for dead men's bones, make us feared and hated by unbelievers in ways that our Lord never intended, and close people's ears to the Gospel for generations.
(snip)
...we must never change the sword of Jesus' gentle mouth, into the bloody mouth of Caesar's sword. If we do, we have succumbed to the temptation that our Lord resisted. We will have bowed down to Satan and worshipped him in exchange for the kingdom of this world. It is not his to give or ours either to take or to desire. We are citizens of another city, not made with hands. And that is more than enough.
I worry about the children if the Church gets sidetracked from its mission. What happens if the dearest of our children, who are devoted to Christ from their earliest years, are sidetracked into supporting an agenda which somehow causes them to spend their lives persecuting rather than serving, cursing rather than blessing, regarding God's unbelieving children as dangerous enemies to be forced into submission "for the greater glory of God"? Far more important than the nature of this weak little country, that lives for a day and tomorrow is gone, the church is responsible for the eternal souls of each little child who grows up in its care, and who will learn from us what Christians do and how they think. I cannot imagine that the goal of Christian education is a generation of Pat Robertsons and Pat Buchanans. That is not the Spirit of Christ.
I think that most of us--Christian or not--know that the goals, actions, and tone of the theocratic movement (spearheaded by Dobson, Falwell, Parsley, Blackwell, et al) are not consistent with the message of the New Testament and the words of Jesus. Maybe there are some words in here that will allow us to challenge those who forget it.
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