Indecent Christians
On Election Day, an article by Uwe Siemon-Netto entitled "Is America still Christian? Does it go Europe’s way? Does it matter?" appeared in the Atlantic Times. Last week he published it on the Concordia Seminary Institute of Lay Vocation's blog as "After the Vote- A Theological Postscript."
The notion of America as "Christian" has always made me uneasy- despite the fact that at least one Supreme Court decision has explicitly declared it to be precisely that. My problem has less to do with the First Amendment than with Luther's doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Certainly anyone who denies that the Christian faith has played a substantial role in the formation of American culture (and European culture as well- although the EU made a conscious decision to exclude any mention of that role from its founding documents) is being intellectually dishonest. But I continue to wrestle with the question of what, if anything, makes a country specifically "Christian."
The Christian Right is, to a considerable extent, comprised of members of the Reformed tradition (using that term in its broader sense, as encompassing Arminians as well as Calvinists). That being the case, it is altogether unsurprising either that it tends to be open to what Lutherans would see as the brewing of the Two Kingdoms into one another- the use of the State as a means to advance the promulgation of the Gospel- but also with other manifestations of a specifically Reformed theology of church and state. The language of covenant between God and America is a recurring theme in our religious history precisely because Reformed Christianity has played such a central role in that history. Of course, no such covenant exists; Scripture never mentions the United States, as far as I've been able to determine, and when it pronounces that nation "blessed" whose God is the Lord it refers first of all to the only nation in history which has ever enjoyed such a relationship: Israel.
That God blesses nations composed largely of believers I do not doubt. But He blesses nations whose nations are devoid of believers as well. He makes the rain to fall on the good and the evil alike- and also on both the believing and the unbelieving. Indeed, individuals who believe are blessed. But their blessing customarily is hidden under the cross, and not- as the TV evangelists would have it- revealed for all to see in a blazing display of temporal and financial success. No, that we as a nation have been greatly blessed by God is no evidence that we stand in any particular relationship to Him.
That America is "a Christian nation" in the same sense that, say, Turkey is a Muslim nation or India a Hindu nation I do not deny. But we are certainly not a Christian nation in the same sense that even the modern state of Israel is a Jewish one, much less in the same sense that Iran is a specifically Islamic republic. Christianity is granted no special status under American law. Indeed, the First Amendment quite consciously forbids the granting of favored status to any religion.
And while official recognition of sharia might, I suppose, make a political entity Islamic, I fail to see how any equivalent arrangement could make America, or any other nation, in the same sense Christian. Nations as such, after all, are incapable of faith in Christ; only individuals can believe. While we read in history of mass conversions of entire nations to Christianity, at least in theory (at times even accompanied by mass baptisms!), the promises of Christ faith in which saves- that is, which make one a Christian- are simply not made to nations.
As Dr. Siemon-Netto points out, forty percent of Americans nevertheless attend worship on a given Sunday. The figure is only nine percent in Germany; elsewhere in Europe it is far lower. In Great Britain, more people attend Friday evening services in mosques than attend Sunday morning services in congregations of the Church of England!
Culturally, both America and Europe are foundationally Christian. Both cultures developed in a context in which Christian faith was not only generally held, but highly influential. But America- which might be called a Christian nation in the sense that has a culture heavily informed by Christianity- has doubtless held on to that heritage to a far greater degree than has Europe, there are signs that we are losing hold on it.
I once heard Fr. Richard John Neuhaus describe the religious situation in America by pointing out that India is the most religious society on earth, and Sweden is probably the least so. America, Fr. Neuhaus said, is a nation of Indians whose cultural elite is Swedish- and the Indians were getting restless. The problem is that those Indians seem to be increasingly at ease with the Swedishness of America's cultural elite. Hence, this remarkable paragraph from Dr. Siemon-Netto's article:
As a former ELCA pastor, I am not surprised by Dr. Siemon-Netto's tale of a "Lutheran" doctor excommunicated by his Missouri Synod congregation for working as an abortionist, who was subsequently welcomed with open arms by an ELCA congregation. ELCA congregations have, after all, been undercutting church discipline by congregations from more faithful traditions for decades. The chilling part of Dr. Siemon-Netto's tale is the fact that this "Christian" abortionist fully recognizes the humanity of the fetuses he aborts, even going so far as to personally baptize them!
That is perhaps the ultimate in ethically post-modern acts, a gesture of such cataclysmic moral obscenity as disqualify one from the ranks of the ethically decent, as well as to belie any claim this man may have to membership in the Faith into which he baptizes those he is in the act of murdering in cold blood. That "Lutheran" abortionist, of course, cannot credibly claim to be a subject of God's Kingdom of the Right as long as he continues to self-consciously terminate the lives of what he acknowledges to be human beings, created in the image of God and in need of baptism, at the whim of their mothers. But the point which perhaps needs to be made even more emphatically is that while he may be a citizen of God's Kingdom of the Left Hand- all of us are, regardless of our religious beliefs- he is nevertheless a citizen in rebellion, as are all who facilitate or even condone abortion except in the most extreme circumstances.
His is simply not the behavior of a decent man.
I have always maintained that I can respect a person who is pro-choice because he or she honestly does not believe in the full humanity of the unborn. But I can have nothing but moral contempt for an individual who acknowledges that humanity, but favors abortion on demand anyway.
That a person defiantly and contumaciously guilty of open and unrepented sin cannot by definition be a believer in Christ (however the ELCA and their allies avoid this point) is fundamental to Luther's theology (those with questions about that point should consult the section of this blog's right-hand margin entitled "Martin Luther to the ELCA"). But to be a believer in the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is to recognize that it is no part of God's plan for the government to necessarily be run by believers in Christ.
There are two problems posed by the result of last month's election. Neither has to do with the fact that it displayed a lack of dominance of the process by the Church. Secularists who purport to see a threat to the First Amendment posed by faithful Christians exercising their vocation as decent people in God's Kingdom of the Left by voting to protect the weak from the strong may be excused for confusing sectarian Christianity with an ethical standard which transscends religion. After all, Christians of the Reformed tradition have been confusing them for centuries by speaking and writing as if it were necessary in order for God's purposes for government to be achieved that power be wielded by Christians, rather than simply by decent people.
But the other problem- the one which seems to me to be of the most concern to Dr. Siemon-Netto- is far more worrisome.
Contrary to what many on the left claim, in no sense was last month's election a repudiation of cultural conservatism. The problem is that cultural conservatism really wasn't on the radar- even for Christians. Admittedly, when people have lost their jobs or are otherwise having difficulty making ends meet,economic questions tend to dominate. Barack Obama was elected president because he was the Democratic nominee in an election in which the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression trumped abortion, the war in Iraq, and every other issue.
But it is worrisome in the extreme that abortion was of less concern to the average "Evangelical" voter than the price of gas.
It would be less troubling if it were possible to convince oneself that that average "Evangelical" really didn't believe that a living being of species Homo sapiens is by definition a being created in God's image, whose life is sacred before Him. It would be less troubling to believe that a majority of America's "Evangelicals-" like a majority of America's Catholics- do not really believe the teachings of their religion in this matter, and are simply hypocrites who claim to be something they are not.But there is no evidence to support that view. Rather, it seems that- exactly like that nominally Christian doctor who baptizes his victims before killing them- they just don't care that much.
Apparently, the price of gasoline is simply a more compelling issue to them than the wholesale slaughter of innocent members of our species.
A certain amount of compassion and understanding is due anyone prioritizing the issues in the face of the kind of economic crisis all of us are facing at this particular hour in history. But no amount of rationalization concerning the state of the economy will make the fact that American Christians, as a group, seem to regard the price of gasoline as a more pressing issue than the sanctity of human life a bit less ugly.
The question seems to me to be less how Christian America is, than to what degree American Christians see decency as a foundational part of their identity, either as voters or as Christians. Perhaps some of it is merely another manifestation of that form of mental illness known as "post-modernism," and Christianity has been "deconstructed" in the minds of American Christians to the point where the concept of Christianity has simply lost all inherent meaning.
Perhaps. But my guess is that the explanation is much more prosaic, and even more disturbing.
My guess is that, as a group, American "Evangelicals' have simply sold out, and accepted the culture of death- or at least decided that fighting it isn't that important.
My guess, in other words, is that their salt has simply lost its savor.
The notion of America as "Christian" has always made me uneasy- despite the fact that at least one Supreme Court decision has explicitly declared it to be precisely that. My problem has less to do with the First Amendment than with Luther's doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Certainly anyone who denies that the Christian faith has played a substantial role in the formation of American culture (and European culture as well- although the EU made a conscious decision to exclude any mention of that role from its founding documents) is being intellectually dishonest. But I continue to wrestle with the question of what, if anything, makes a country specifically "Christian."
The Christian Right is, to a considerable extent, comprised of members of the Reformed tradition (using that term in its broader sense, as encompassing Arminians as well as Calvinists). That being the case, it is altogether unsurprising either that it tends to be open to what Lutherans would see as the brewing of the Two Kingdoms into one another- the use of the State as a means to advance the promulgation of the Gospel- but also with other manifestations of a specifically Reformed theology of church and state. The language of covenant between God and America is a recurring theme in our religious history precisely because Reformed Christianity has played such a central role in that history. Of course, no such covenant exists; Scripture never mentions the United States, as far as I've been able to determine, and when it pronounces that nation "blessed" whose God is the Lord it refers first of all to the only nation in history which has ever enjoyed such a relationship: Israel.
That God blesses nations composed largely of believers I do not doubt. But He blesses nations whose nations are devoid of believers as well. He makes the rain to fall on the good and the evil alike- and also on both the believing and the unbelieving. Indeed, individuals who believe are blessed. But their blessing customarily is hidden under the cross, and not- as the TV evangelists would have it- revealed for all to see in a blazing display of temporal and financial success. No, that we as a nation have been greatly blessed by God is no evidence that we stand in any particular relationship to Him.
That America is "a Christian nation" in the same sense that, say, Turkey is a Muslim nation or India a Hindu nation I do not deny. But we are certainly not a Christian nation in the same sense that even the modern state of Israel is a Jewish one, much less in the same sense that Iran is a specifically Islamic republic. Christianity is granted no special status under American law. Indeed, the First Amendment quite consciously forbids the granting of favored status to any religion.
And while official recognition of sharia might, I suppose, make a political entity Islamic, I fail to see how any equivalent arrangement could make America, or any other nation, in the same sense Christian. Nations as such, after all, are incapable of faith in Christ; only individuals can believe. While we read in history of mass conversions of entire nations to Christianity, at least in theory (at times even accompanied by mass baptisms!), the promises of Christ faith in which saves- that is, which make one a Christian- are simply not made to nations.
As Dr. Siemon-Netto points out, forty percent of Americans nevertheless attend worship on a given Sunday. The figure is only nine percent in Germany; elsewhere in Europe it is far lower. In Great Britain, more people attend Friday evening services in mosques than attend Sunday morning services in congregations of the Church of England!
Culturally, both America and Europe are foundationally Christian. Both cultures developed in a context in which Christian faith was not only generally held, but highly influential. But America- which might be called a Christian nation in the sense that has a culture heavily informed by Christianity- has doubtless held on to that heritage to a far greater degree than has Europe, there are signs that we are losing hold on it.
I once heard Fr. Richard John Neuhaus describe the religious situation in America by pointing out that India is the most religious society on earth, and Sweden is probably the least so. America, Fr. Neuhaus said, is a nation of Indians whose cultural elite is Swedish- and the Indians were getting restless. The problem is that those Indians seem to be increasingly at ease with the Swedishness of America's cultural elite. Hence, this remarkable paragraph from Dr. Siemon-Netto's article:
I was thunderstruck when I read in the pre-election “Faith and Life” poll that even among white evangelicals abortion ranks only seventh among issues they considered “very important” in this year’s poll, well behind the price of gasoline. And as for African-Americans, thought to be the most faithful believers in the nation, they terminate pregnancies at almost three times the rate of their white compatriots. They abort with such a vengeance that demographers predict that by the year 2038 the black vote will no longer be of any relevance because much of the black electorate will have their opportunity to live denied as we speak.
As a former ELCA pastor, I am not surprised by Dr. Siemon-Netto's tale of a "Lutheran" doctor excommunicated by his Missouri Synod congregation for working as an abortionist, who was subsequently welcomed with open arms by an ELCA congregation. ELCA congregations have, after all, been undercutting church discipline by congregations from more faithful traditions for decades. The chilling part of Dr. Siemon-Netto's tale is the fact that this "Christian" abortionist fully recognizes the humanity of the fetuses he aborts, even going so far as to personally baptize them!
That is perhaps the ultimate in ethically post-modern acts, a gesture of such cataclysmic moral obscenity as disqualify one from the ranks of the ethically decent, as well as to belie any claim this man may have to membership in the Faith into which he baptizes those he is in the act of murdering in cold blood. That "Lutheran" abortionist, of course, cannot credibly claim to be a subject of God's Kingdom of the Right as long as he continues to self-consciously terminate the lives of what he acknowledges to be human beings, created in the image of God and in need of baptism, at the whim of their mothers. But the point which perhaps needs to be made even more emphatically is that while he may be a citizen of God's Kingdom of the Left Hand- all of us are, regardless of our religious beliefs- he is nevertheless a citizen in rebellion, as are all who facilitate or even condone abortion except in the most extreme circumstances.
His is simply not the behavior of a decent man.
I have always maintained that I can respect a person who is pro-choice because he or she honestly does not believe in the full humanity of the unborn. But I can have nothing but moral contempt for an individual who acknowledges that humanity, but favors abortion on demand anyway.
That a person defiantly and contumaciously guilty of open and unrepented sin cannot by definition be a believer in Christ (however the ELCA and their allies avoid this point) is fundamental to Luther's theology (those with questions about that point should consult the section of this blog's right-hand margin entitled "Martin Luther to the ELCA"). But to be a believer in the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is to recognize that it is no part of God's plan for the government to necessarily be run by believers in Christ.
There are two problems posed by the result of last month's election. Neither has to do with the fact that it displayed a lack of dominance of the process by the Church. Secularists who purport to see a threat to the First Amendment posed by faithful Christians exercising their vocation as decent people in God's Kingdom of the Left by voting to protect the weak from the strong may be excused for confusing sectarian Christianity with an ethical standard which transscends religion. After all, Christians of the Reformed tradition have been confusing them for centuries by speaking and writing as if it were necessary in order for God's purposes for government to be achieved that power be wielded by Christians, rather than simply by decent people.
But the other problem- the one which seems to me to be of the most concern to Dr. Siemon-Netto- is far more worrisome.
Contrary to what many on the left claim, in no sense was last month's election a repudiation of cultural conservatism. The problem is that cultural conservatism really wasn't on the radar- even for Christians. Admittedly, when people have lost their jobs or are otherwise having difficulty making ends meet,economic questions tend to dominate. Barack Obama was elected president because he was the Democratic nominee in an election in which the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression trumped abortion, the war in Iraq, and every other issue.
But it is worrisome in the extreme that abortion was of less concern to the average "Evangelical" voter than the price of gas.
It would be less troubling if it were possible to convince oneself that that average "Evangelical" really didn't believe that a living being of species Homo sapiens is by definition a being created in God's image, whose life is sacred before Him. It would be less troubling to believe that a majority of America's "Evangelicals-" like a majority of America's Catholics- do not really believe the teachings of their religion in this matter, and are simply hypocrites who claim to be something they are not.But there is no evidence to support that view. Rather, it seems that- exactly like that nominally Christian doctor who baptizes his victims before killing them- they just don't care that much.
Apparently, the price of gasoline is simply a more compelling issue to them than the wholesale slaughter of innocent members of our species.
A certain amount of compassion and understanding is due anyone prioritizing the issues in the face of the kind of economic crisis all of us are facing at this particular hour in history. But no amount of rationalization concerning the state of the economy will make the fact that American Christians, as a group, seem to regard the price of gasoline as a more pressing issue than the sanctity of human life a bit less ugly.
The question seems to me to be less how Christian America is, than to what degree American Christians see decency as a foundational part of their identity, either as voters or as Christians. Perhaps some of it is merely another manifestation of that form of mental illness known as "post-modernism," and Christianity has been "deconstructed" in the minds of American Christians to the point where the concept of Christianity has simply lost all inherent meaning.
Perhaps. But my guess is that the explanation is much more prosaic, and even more disturbing.
My guess is that, as a group, American "Evangelicals' have simply sold out, and accepted the culture of death- or at least decided that fighting it isn't that important.
My guess, in other words, is that their salt has simply lost its savor.
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