Then I turned to the present. I have been asking a simple question: What happened?
Why have so many voices that once challenged presidents now defend them? Why have leaders who once insisted that character matters decided it suddenly doesn't? Why has the movement become so comfortable with nationalism, partisan identity, and political power?
I don't think there is only one answer. But I do think one answer explains much of the shift. It is the growing embrace of Christian nationalism, a danger we were constantly warned about for the past 50 years. Here are some excerpts from the declarations I posted.
We must resist the temptation to make the nation and its institutions objects of near-religious loyalty.
God has ordained the two co-existing institutions of church and state as distinct and independent of each other with each having its own areas of responsibility (Rom. 13:1-7; Mark 12:13-17; Eph. 4:15-16, 5:23-32).
All too often we have abandoned our Lord’s concern for those in the shadows, the twilight, and the deep darkness of the world, and become cheerleaders for those in power and the naïve sycophants of the powerful and the rich…
…The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right in recent decades, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes “the regime at prayer,” Christians become “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form. Christian beliefs are used as weapons for political interests...
Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith…Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church – and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons...
Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival...
The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. The saying is wise: “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.” The Evangelical soul is not for sale. It has already been bought at an infinite price...
We repent of our failures to condemn and restrain violence by remaining silent, by promoting nationalism, or by unjustly supporting conflicts through deficient theological justification.
We lament that some Christians have looked to the state rather than the gospel as the key means for bringing about God’s intentions for the world. This takes an especially regrettable form when wed to nationalism—here defined as the belief that every state should have a single, national culture and no other—or ethnonationalism—which is the belief that every ethnic group should have its own state. This is a great evil in our world.
We lament that many Christians have been sadly complicit in it, as well as in the claims of ethnic and racial supremacy it fosters. Against this, we assert that no modern state is able to claim or will ever be able to claim to be the special agent of God’s saving rule.
I read Francis Schaeffer back in the 80s and 90s. I taught the How Should We Then Live video class to high schoolers. Though Schaeffer had some unfortunate influences (#rushdoony), he had some good insights that were spreading throughout the evangelical world.
“There is no New Testament basis for a linking of church and state until Christ, the King returns. The whole "Constantine mentality" from the fourth century up to our day was a mistake. Constantine, as the Roman Emperor, in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, the support he gave to the church led by 381 to the enforcing of Christianity, by Theodosius I, as the official state religion.
Making Christianity the official state religion opened the way for confusion up till our own day. There have been times of very good government when this interrelationship of church and state has been present. But through the centuries it has caused great confusion between loyalty to the state and loyalty to Christ, between patriotism and being a Christian.
We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: "We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag.” ― Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto
The late Billy Graham, Christianity Today’s founder, gave us a loud warning in an article he wrote for Parade Magazine in 1981, when he said:
“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”[1]
Historically, evangelicals advocated for a prophetic distance from power, especially wealth and political authority, from which they could freely speak truth and righteousness to those in power. They had a stated suspicion of nationalism and “near-religious loyalty” to the state.[2]
Today, in practice and teaching, it endorses proximity to power[3] and defense of leaders regardless of character, often openly embraces Christian nationalism, and seeks to merge faith with political identity.
Today, in practice and teaching, it endorses proximity to power[3] and defense of leaders regardless of character, often openly embraces Christian nationalism, and seeks to merge faith with political identity.
