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American Religion and Compromised Christianity - Power E3
103 Plays1 year ago
What happens to Christianity when it gets blended with another religion that uses violence to solve its problems? Nick and Matt discuss the American civil religion, competing definitions of victory, and how fear drives Christians to compromise.
Resources Referenced: Revelation for the Rest of Us by Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett, Losing Our Religion by Russel Moore, American Legion: Preamble to the Constitution, American Legion: The Definition of Americanism
Interlude Music: The Powers of the Universe by Of Water
Theme Song: Believe by Posthumorous
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Episode Outline:
00:27 Introduction
02:39 America's Identity as a Christian Nation
04:23 The Concept of American Civil Religion
07:10 Values and Ritual Calendars and Holidays
13:24 The Blending of Christianity and American Civil Religion
16:36 The Incompatibility of Christian and American Civil Religion Ethics
19:24 The Clash of Civil and Christian Values
24:45 The Fleetingness of Empires, Even America
28:41 Fear Tactics and the Christian Response
33:20 Identity and Hope in Christianity Beyond National Borders
36:00 Living the Revolutionary Kingdom Way
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Transcript
Introduction: Christianity and American Civil Religion
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Repair Dime Podcast. Today is our third conversation on power, the blending of Christianity with American civil religion.
00:00:24
Speaker
Tertullian wrote, there can be no compatibility between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot serve two masters, God and Caesar. In our last podcast, we talked about this major shift in Christian thinking around the question of how the church interacts with worldly systems of violence and power.
Historical Merge: Church and State Power
00:00:46
Speaker
The early church held to a radical worldview, an exclusive allegiance that separated the church from the state. And then Christianity became merged with these worldly powers. Christianity became a justification for violence in the Roman Empire, in the Crusades, during the Reformation, and even into the origins of the United States through the idea of manifest destiny.
00:01:06
Speaker
Where does this leave us today? How do we Christians here in America today tend to view the relationship between Christianity and the worldly powers, between church and state? I think in at least one way, we've actually made a pretty big correction. We've recognized that the church and the state shouldn't be united.
00:01:24
Speaker
The separation of church and state is a value we hold here. We expect governments to tolerate varying religions. We criticize Islamic countries where they use Sharia law for their lack of religious liberty.
Progress in Church-State Separation
00:01:37
Speaker
Christians losing religious liberties is a major fear for many believers. So we've moved toward the idea that state coercion shouldn't be used to enforce or control religious practice, especially Christian religious practice. And I think this is one place where we've actually done ourselves a favor by moving in the right direction.
00:01:53
Speaker
For sure. And the idea behind that, and it's been effective, is that it is allowed for freedom, for prosperity, for wellness, for physical safety, for all kinds of religions, no matter what they are. You know, whether you're Jewish or Muslim or...
00:02:08
Speaker
Hindu or Buddhist or Sikh or what have you. Ideally with that separation of church and state you have basically a governmental secularism that allows for the diversity of religious expression so long as certain parameters are met like we don't harm each other.
American Civil Religion: Rituals and Symbols
00:02:25
Speaker
And what's interesting, while we have separated the church and the state institutionally, we've not fully separated them conceptually. So while we've separated the governance of our nation from the idea of the church as an institution, we still tend to think of our nation state as a Christian entity. So in fact, the idea that the United States is a Christian nation is an idea that you'll hear a lot.
00:02:47
Speaker
And the reason why people will often say that is because some of the founding fathers were Christians. And then another thing I hear often time from my fellow evangelical Christians is, well, you won't have secularism. You won't have a healthy separation of church and state if you don't have a Christian nation.
00:03:05
Speaker
It's only the Christian ethic that values not coercing someone's beliefs by violence, but rather winning them with your thoughts, winning them with your ideals, which I think is actually completely unjustified and unfair because it is not only the Christian religion that would justify or undergird that ethic. It's maybe a little bit closer to the truth to say something like a theistically based country.
00:03:28
Speaker
So if that aspect of America is not distinctly Christian, that begs the question, what is it that makes America a Christian nation? I actually think people can mean a lot of different things by that. So some people will point to the idea that America was founded by Christians. Some people will point to the idea that a large portion of our population claims Christianity. Maybe our system of governance was based on Christian ethics somehow, right? Like our laws are kind of founded on the ideas that come out of the Ten Commandments.
00:03:54
Speaker
The Judeo-Christian religion. Yeah, okay, I can see that. Sometimes people will talk about the United States as a Christian nation, and they'll imply some deeper connection, I think, between Christianity and the United States. So perhaps it means that the United States is specially favored by God, or perhaps it means that God specially works through the United States to accomplish his will in the world. Perhaps they mean that America and Christianity have complementary goals, right? Like America promotes Christianity, so Christians should promote America.
00:04:22
Speaker
The salt begs this idea really, well, what is the distinction then between America and the Church? That muddles things up a little bit, where as Americans, me and you, we may have blinders on just as Augustine did in his time in his place, in that we see the realities of our world in a certain way because of where we are born, and then we post hoc try to justify why those realities ought to be that way.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually kind of easy to live out this idea of American Christianity, but then to sit down and actually think, okay, well, how do these two relate? How do they interact is a little more difficult. The United States is a lot more than simply a system of government. So America, the nation state has its own system of values, its own beliefs, its goals and ritual practices. Every effective world power has their own set of these.
Blended Identities: Religion and Nation
00:05:10
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. They serve to unify the people and promote allegiance to that nation state.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, Rome had this, as we've talked about. Yeah. So this idea of all of these things working together to promote allegiance, these make up what's called a civil religion. Calling this a religion may seem a little bit strange, but I think when you actually start to look at what makes the American civil religion tick, this actually starts to make a lot more sense.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, what I think of immediately is that a lot of the same practices that we have in the Christian church, our country also has, we disciple our people to be proud American citizens to identify under the flag. We got like our own creed, essentially, and like the Pledge of Allegiance, our own songs, like the Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America. And so these things are inculcated into our primary and secondary high school education.
00:06:00
Speaker
so that our children are literally brought up with the intent and purpose so that when they are adults, they are patriots. They love the country, they identify with and by it, and they will be allegiant to it. You could substitute all of those examples with like what any religion does to keep its people in that religion. We as Christians do that.
00:06:22
Speaker
We bring up our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. We teach them scriptures. We have them memorize certain creeds, confessions, verses, songs, same thing. We do this throughout primary, secondary, high school education so that by the time they're an adult, they will be a well-rounded, allegiant Christian.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, let me give you a few more ways that our American civil religion does this. So our American civil religion comes with its own version of history. Think about manifest destiny. It was the will of God that we took this land. Think about the way we teach something like the Revolutionary War, right? We teach this as this story of these heroes defeating these evil people, right?
00:06:59
Speaker
We're forming our own version of history, our own identity through this history. We talk about America as God's chosen nation. It's the city on a hill. The American civil religion comes with its own set of key values and beliefs. Individualism. Liberty. Democracy. Capitalism. The four cornerstones of the American civil religion. They have their own ritual days. Think about 4th of July. Memorial Day. Labor Day.
00:07:23
Speaker
A lot of world religions have enshrined holidays. The Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, other Christian Church traditions have also continued to enshrine a religious calendar that their adherents stick to, that they practice within, that liturgies are centered around these calendars.
00:07:41
Speaker
The Protestant Church, at least like the evangelical version, has basically gotten rid of that. We have like Easter and Christmas and I think that's maybe all that we really celebrate very popularly. In any case, my point is religions and world religions, I mean it's Ramadan right now, a lot of world religions have enshrined a religious calendar.
00:08:01
Speaker
that orients them, that orients their liturgy. The Jews had this, obviously. It's funny to hear you say the United States actually does this too. Other countries, I'm sure, are the same thing. What was especially funny to me personally, I don't know, it's a funny observation, I guess, is that the United States has actually done that better and maintained that schedule, that liturgy better than the Evangelical Church has. Because like I said, we've actually gotten rid of our entire religious calendar besides Christmas and Easter.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. And even those days, I think, have largely been taken over by the American civil religion. Oh, they're just commercialized. You're right. Commercialism. We all go to the malls and spend all of the money that we shouldn't be spending and rack up more credit card debt and lust for things that we shouldn't have.
00:08:46
Speaker
How about this one? Religions will have images or monuments. We have four giant faces carved in the side of a mountain in South Dakota. How about the flag? Think about the way that gets displayed. Or even the apotheosis of Washington, this painting in the Capitol building, showing Washington ascending to sit in the heavens.
00:09:04
Speaker
It's playing on the Son of Man, prophecy in Daniel 7 that's fulfilled by the Messiah, which we Christians affirm is Jesus of Nazareth, ascending to the throne of God and taking rulership over the nations. We have George Washington in that role. That's actually almost offensive. If I was more of an offended type of person, which I'm not, I would be incensed by that in any other context. If another religion or another country did that, I'd probably be more
00:09:32
Speaker
attuned to that and be incensed by that as a Christian. Yeah. Religions come with some sort of a vision for the future. So think about the idea of American exceptionalism or a slogan like make America great again. Sure. This idea of we're moving towards something. We have a progression that we are working towards as part of practicing this civil religion.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if there's been a president in recent memory that hasn't out some time uttered the words, we are a city on a hill. I remember at our current president's inauguration a few years ago, he used that exact slogan. All of these rituals, these habits, these values together, these constitute this American civil religion.
00:10:10
Speaker
All these things together are supposed to form you into a certain type of person. A person who is a legion to the United States, a person who espouses the correct values and beliefs that align with this American ideal. Here's one good example of this. The American Legion is an organization you've probably heard of. Here are a few of their stated purposes for their organization. Their purposes are to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
00:10:36
Speaker
to inculcate a sense of individual obligation to the community, state, and nation, and to foster and perpetuate a 100% Americanism. What is Americanism, you might ask? That was the question I asked. Well, a chairman of the organization defines it this way. He says, True Americanism is an ideology that is continually nurtured within one's soul through individually daily actions, thoughts, and beliefs, in what their responsibilities are to be, blessed to live in one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.
00:11:06
Speaker
Sounds like you're reading an Americanism version of Jonathan Edwards. This sounds like a religious statement. That's exactly what it is. He's describing this religious practice of the American civil religion. Sure. One other quick way to check to see if something is a religion is to see if there's ways to commit blasphemy against it. There is. Absolutely. So if you want to find out what people worship or what they idolize, look to see what gets them really, really mad.
00:11:33
Speaker
Okay, this is going back a few years now, maybe 2007 or something like that. I remember there was an image on the internet of Barack Obama with his left hand over his heart during the national anthem and like the conservative world is going nuts because he hates America. You wouldn't put your left hand. It was like that example. I think it was actually a piece of propaganda because the image was just flipped.
00:11:55
Speaker
mirrored his exact man. I think it was just blatant propaganda. But yeah, I remember there was like some type of outrage about it. But it was people are genuinely offended as if he had committed a bus for me. Well, and think about the way people respond if you even speak negatively of the founding fathers. If you challenge the idea of American exceptionalism, or what happens if you don't stand for the anthem? Think about the way people describe those who would burn the American flag, or somebody who doesn't vote.
00:12:24
Speaker
What about somebody who objects to military action or to military service? The response you get to these people are the kind of response you would expect to blasphemy. Yeah, for sure. So if you go back to this question.
January 6th: A Case Study in Civil Religion
00:12:36
Speaker
Let me continue on that. Yeah, please do. So even like the protesters that went to DC on January 6, 2021,
00:12:42
Speaker
What were they shouting? Amongst other things, obviously not everyone there was saying the same thing, etc. But some of the folks there were shouting like, hang Mike Pence. Well, why? Because they thought he had committed treason, which to them was almost like this religious blasphemy. And for some of them, I guess that was deserving of death.
00:13:02
Speaker
There is an example of blind allegiance to a cause. People so incensed that someone on your view committed blasphemy against it that they need to die even. Yeah, it definitely shows the degree to which you hold something up or the way you've internalized something as part of your own identity. That bothers you so bad that you would harm someone because of it.
00:13:25
Speaker
So if we go back to this question of what it means to be a Christian nation, I think part of what makes this so complicated is that for many Christians in America, what they're actually practicing is this blended religion,
Ethical Conflicts: Christianity vs. Civil Religion
00:13:35
Speaker
right? So it's this mixture of Christianity with the American civil religion. We tend to imagine Christianity and our American civil religion as fully compatible, even complementary. So we can come to see the practice of our American civil religion as a form of Christian practice.
00:13:51
Speaker
And you see this in the mixing of language. We've talked about this already. America being described as the city on a hill. Jesus's words, but our presidents use it. The phrase, God bless America, or even just the phrase itself, we're a Christian nation. We're combining these two ideas together. How about in the combination of symbols? How often have you seen a US flag draped over a cross or displayed behind a crown of thorns? How about in practice, in worship services, where churches may sing the national anthem or America the Beautiful at the Fourth of July?
00:14:20
Speaker
celebrations of American militarism in church. What about pledging allegiance to America within a Christian setting? Ultimately, what you end up with is this mixed identity where your Americanism and your Christianity are indistinguishable because they've been just completely blended together into one single religious practice.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, so who knows then if you're thinking clearly about your Christian ethics, about your Christian values? Well, who knows? They're all mixed together with your American values, which is a civil religion. It's another religion you're combining yours with. That's called syncretism. And whenever there's syncretism, what you lose is the purity of the initial religions that were then combined.
00:15:02
Speaker
I think we struggle with this separation of America and Christianity because we don't really have any distinction in the religious practice. We practice the two as a single religion, so it becomes easy to just simply see the two entities as somehow combined.
00:15:17
Speaker
Here's Eisenhower, after adding Under God to the Pledge of Allegiance. He said, From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. In this way, we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future. In this way, we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which will forever be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war.
00:15:47
Speaker
He simply describes Christianity as its country's most powerful weapon. Yeah, a resource for the country's goals. Wow, literally serving the country's needs.
00:16:13
Speaker
This mixture of Christianity and the American civil religion, both in practice and then in the way we think, this becomes Christian nationalism. Sure. So I like Scott McKnight's definition here. He says, Christian nationalism is a cultural framework that blurs distinction between Christian identity and American identity. And an obvious pushback to this might just be, so what? Like, who cares? If Christianity and Americanism go together, they're fully compatible, then what's the problem?
00:16:42
Speaker
If you care about Jesus's words and about the original Christian faith, whatever it was originally, not what it has become, then there is a big problem because the American civil religion demands we do things that Christianity demands we don't do. And therefore you have compromises to make or choices to make. The doctrines are not compatible. The ethics are not compatible, at least in some areas.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah. Just think about what the American civil religion teaches people to do, right? It teaches that you should demand your rights, that you should fight for yourself. You should never let anyone take advantage of you. You should store up wealth for yourself so you can live comfortably, have your best life now. The hero archetype of the American civil religion is like a rugged lone wolf who came from nothing, fought his way up in the world and acquired great power, wealth, and fame, right? A victory in the American civil religion comes through power.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, and a very individualistic framework, too. I've done this for myself. He's done well for himself. He did it by himself, right? He pulled himself up by the bootstraps. Yeah. But now think about Jesus for a minute here. Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemy, turn the other cheek when slapped, to look out for others, and to live in hope of the future restoration of all things.
00:17:59
Speaker
The hero of Christianity is Jesus, the divine word who took on flesh and humbled himself even to death on a cross. And this death on a cross, the death that looked like failure to the world, was actually a great victory. So that's the story of Christianity. It's a very different story from what the American civil religion tells.
00:18:18
Speaker
Tough combination. It really is. One of these aspects of Christianity that gets lost in the blended religion is this Christian understanding of victory.
Victory: Non-Violence vs. Power
00:18:27
Speaker
Jesus and the early church, they worked with this radically different understanding of what sort of battle they were fighting and what it looks like to win. We saw this loud and clear with the earliest Christians who said,
00:18:37
Speaker
When it looks like we're losing, that's when we're actually winning. Because it wasn't about playing the power game, it was about showing the world that the whole violent game was defeated and overcome by Jesus on the cross.
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah, the whole violent game was of the devil. It was of death and hell itself. Exactly. So now today, when we look out at the problems of the world, which understanding of victory do we take? Are we going to seek to leverage the violent powers of this world for our gain? Or do we look for ways to proclaim the victory of Jesus over the violent power system?
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, do we roll with Jesus or do we play the hell game? Exactly. Are we ultimately going to win through political power and violence? Or do we win when we show the world that violent systems have no power over us?
00:19:23
Speaker
And that is where we are just at an impasse if we're trying to combine our civil religion with our Christian faith. Because our civil religion demands that we defend the nation at the cost of non-citizens' lives all the time. What else is warfare? Well, when push comes to shove by our civil religion, we are called to have a hierarchical view of human beings and that those that aren't American are more disposable.
00:19:53
Speaker
our civil religion demands that. Either we are winning or some other nation is winning. If we go to war or we don't call it war, okay, whatever. So we, you know, we will advantage our citizens at the expense, even with the lifeblood of non-citizens, which is a Christian, you're not allowed to think that way in that tribalistic way. In the Judeo-Christian religion that has inherited the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, you are not allowed to make distinctions
00:20:22
Speaker
between human beings based on their race or their nation they happened to be born and brought up in. You're not allowed to. That's against the rules. That's against the religion. On the civil religion, you are required to.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, Christianity and the American civil religion have completely contrary understandings of victory. So when you push them together, the unfortunate reality is that often what ends up happening is that we just cut this whole Christian notion of victory out of the system. We leave it behind. We can't fit them together. We got to cut corners somewhere. We end up with a sort of religion that looks kind of like Christianity in a lot of its ethical standards, but then seeks to defend itself and enforce those ethical standards using very non-Christian methods.
00:21:06
Speaker
using violence. Definitely. So how does this work itself out within American politics? The American civil religion is going to say, yeah, use violence, get power. That's how we're going to win. And this lends itself to violent rhetoric. Here's Pastor Mark Burns in a speech supporting Donald Trump at a reawaken America tour. He said, you've got to get to the point where you realize that when they smack you in the face, you smack them back two times harder. Quite the opposite of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Russell Moore, in his book Losing Our Religion, he actually describes that this is getting to be more common. So he talks about pastors who are receiving negative feedback from people in their church when they preach Jesus' sermon on the Mount, specifically the idea of turning the other cheek. The response that they get from people in their churches, that these words of Jesus sound like liberal talking points.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, those kind of sound woke, kind of effeminate. Yeah. What, is he some type of hippie or something? Yeah, seriously. Love your enemy, turn the other cheek. These are actually the key central teachings of Jesus that the early church lived as a distinguishing feature, but today they're not real compatible with this American civil religion. Perhaps in these churches, whoever they are, their people have been more effectively discipled by the civil religion than they have by any form of historic Christianity.
00:22:24
Speaker
Definitely. I think that's where it's pretty clear that they've taken on the definition of victory that's coming from the American civil religion rather than the definition of victory that the early church held to. They've defined themselves as people of hell rather than people of heaven, and they've used heavenly language to mask it all.
00:22:42
Speaker
So how about in broader affairs of the world, the American civil religion is going to teach America first, right? That we need to look to America's military strength as a source of security and safety. Evangelicalism is actually well known for its support of military intervention. So when hybridized with Christianity, this can turn into viewing war as being some sort of a war on God's behalf. We've effectively borrowed the Cairo from Constantine, and now we're putting it on our own weapons.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, you could almost see us put like a cross on bombs as we drop them. Pastor televangelist Jerry Falwell, he said, but you've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world if it takes 10 years, blow them away in the name of the Lord.
00:23:36
Speaker
If it's the name of the Lord, not Allah, then it's okay. I don't know how to try to defend what he's saying here. So here's a potential pushback that we might get at this point. Somebody could say, you naive fools, there's no better option. There's a war going on in the world. And if you don't pick one of these sides and stand with them, you're going to lose.
00:23:55
Speaker
You're not going to have any opportunities to protect yourself. You're not going to be able to have any influence. So even if you don't think our side is perfect, you're a fool if you're not going to get behind us because we're better than the other side.
00:24:07
Speaker
You said something key there. You're gonna lose. Then the question is, lose at what game? What are we trying to win here? And I think that's exactly the response we should have. Because Christianity doesn't rely upon the powers of the world to be effective. The Christian victory is about declaring Jesus victory over the powers of the world. It's not about gaining power through them.
00:24:28
Speaker
in the internal political battles of our nation, right? Christianity doesn't have to align itself with the left or with the right in order to be effective. On the world stage, Christian victory doesn't rely upon any form of worldly power like a nation-state to survive or to accomplish its goal in the world. News flash, Christianity existed long before America, and Christianity is going to exist long after the United States is gone.
00:24:52
Speaker
News slash most Christians in the world are not American, nor are they Western, to be honest with you. Your average Christian does not look like a Westerner anymore. Yeah. In the full story of Christianity, America is just a blip on the radar. I don't know how much longer America is going to be around. It looks like the United States has probably passed its peak of influence and power. I don't know. Maybe this country, as we know it, has centuries left. Maybe it's going to end in my lifetime.
00:25:18
Speaker
Perhaps America won't even remain supportive of Christianity. Perhaps we get to a spot where Christian teachings become considered problematic to Americanism and get banned. Maybe Christians will be persecuted for teaching Christianity in America.
00:25:31
Speaker
None of those events would threaten Christianity. None of those events would threaten Jesus' authority or his victory over death. No, that's par for the course for a ton of Christians throughout church history and still today, just not in our country. Yeah, none of that breaks the resurrection hope that Jesus established.
00:25:50
Speaker
And none of that would change the mission of the church, which is declaring Jesus' victory and authority to the world. The early church started and grew in an environment where they had no political influence. They were not able to go vote for the Roman party that best aligned itself with Christian ethics.
00:26:06
Speaker
They had no political influence or protection on a world stage either, and yet Christianity grew. It was precisely in a situation where they had and wielded no power in the eyes of the world that they were able to proclaim the true authority of Jesus. They held to not only a Christian set of ideas, but a very distinctly Christian approach to interacting with the violent powers
00:26:27
Speaker
Yeah, that quote from John Chrysostom, the early Christian, the waves of empire power break when it hits the rocks on the shore that are the Christians taking the beating. Christianity does not need any political influence to win. It need not wield the sword, be the wave trying to crash on things using force, using power, using violence, using fear of death. Yeah, it's specifically not participating in those systems that lends itself to Christian victory.
00:26:54
Speaker
That ethic should be so shocking that the world is turned upside down one person at a time who sees it. Absolutely. This unique devotion to a Jesus approach to the world is obviously a lot easier said than done. The powers of this world have been honing their techniques for swaying and influencing people for thousands of years. And it's actually really difficult to assess the specific problems in our own culture. It's actually a lot easier, I think, to see these techniques at work in history.
00:27:21
Speaker
remove ourselves a little bit because we have cultural blinders on. So I think for most of us, if we look back at the Crusades or the post-Reformation Wars, even the church under Nazi Germany, it's so easy to look at their situation and see clearly, oh, you guys missed key elements of Christianity. Yeah, you compromised here. You didn't say no here. You were co-opted by the state here. Exactly. It's easy to ask. So how were these Christians persuaded to believe and act the way they did?
00:27:50
Speaker
The answer is actually kind of simple. It's that they were persuaded through fear, which is interesting because it's precisely the force that the New Testament declares Jesus has overcome. The Hebrews 2 passage talks about we are no longer imprisoned by the fear of death, and yet we see fear continuing to be an effective tool in causing Christians to compromise with powers of the world.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, the love of God for us makes us not fear empire. Yeah, it makes us not fear other groups of people that are painted as our enemies.
Fear as a Political Tool
00:28:22
Speaker
Sure, not fear anything. Because the love of God for us is ultimately enshrined in the resurrection hope that was embodied by Jesus, the first one to be resurrected.
00:28:33
Speaker
Absolutely. So one thing we'll experience today, especially in the American political realm, is that the people who are trying to sway voters will try to use fear. Oh yeah, all the time. You almost have to like laugh at it. Like you guys are so silly and small. There's actually, I think, two most common types of fear that they'll try to use. The first one is the idea of fear of enemies. The story that our enemies are these horrible evil people who want to destroy you and your way of life.
00:29:02
Speaker
The 100% of the time, they're called. The very generic they. Yeah. And somehow this group of they are both powerful and terrifying, but somehow they are also like subhuman in value. This last week, Donald Trump, I think he was talking about gang members or something from Central America, whatever he was off on. And he said, I don't consider them humans. He's like, the left will get mad at me about that because you're not supposed to say stuff like that.
00:29:27
Speaker
But I was like, oh, Christians should be mad about that too. We definitely don't want to reduce human beings to animals. There's nothing more anti-Christian than that, to be honest with you. Where's the outrage, Christians? Yeah. Well, at an election rally, he said, we pledged to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. An old quote, man. That's a long time ago.
00:29:51
Speaker
But it illustrates the point. Yeah, it's a lot easier to compromise your ethics if you're focused on someone that you view as an enemy rather than focusing on your own actions. Right. This response. Well, you don't get it. We're in a fight for our own way of life. Right. If we don't win here and now, the Catholics will win or the communists will win. The Marxist will win. The anti-American woke agenda will win. Right. They they are coming for us. So we need to fight.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, or on the left, like the MAGA people will win. I remember Hillary Clinton infamous now calling MAGA supporters the deplorables. That is actually kind of the same type of dehumanizing rhetoric. To stoke fear of these people, the J6 insurrectionists, the MAGA people, and then the right does it the same way. To your point, the leftists, the wokes.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, here's one of the other ways that fear will get used. So they'll paint the current situation as a crisis of such proportions that some amount of compromise is just absolutely necessary. Right? Most important election. Yes. Have you ever been in an election and not heard that it was the most important election? Definitely never not heard that it was the most important election.
00:31:03
Speaker
How about, oh, I know this isn't a perfect policy, but without it, we're going to lose our way of life. Or, well, I know he's not a great candidate, but if we lose this election, our way of life as we know it is going to end. This moment is so critical that if we lose this, then we lose everything. And at bottom, that is a fear, which we're not to live in, of losing one's rights, which we're not to fight for.
00:31:28
Speaker
None of these tactics have any influence on you if you've got a real Christian idea of victory. But if you've already bought into this worldly idea of victory, then all of a sudden, these things can seem very scary. They can be very coercive, or they can be very influential in the way that you think.
00:31:45
Speaker
I want to preserve my rights minimum my life maximum at all costs or a great cost at least, which is just that base animal desire inside of myself. Nobody wants to be harmed or persecuted or lose their way of life. Obviously, that's natural.
00:32:03
Speaker
But it's almost a selling out to that natural desire instead of considering maybe we don't have to live by our animal instincts and maybe Christianity and the Jewish Christian story. Honestly, the Hebrew Bible calls us to what true humanity is, not just base animality.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes, like I said, looking back in history, we can see where these fear tactics were effective in really bad ways. And hopefully that can help us to see the same ways that those fear tactics are being used on us today. These same tools are being wielded very effectively by worldly powers in America today.
00:32:39
Speaker
that seek to sway and maintain compromised Christian idolatry and support for politicians, policies, and actions that look nothing like following Jesus. So when politicians or news organizations, even sometimes religious leaders, direct your attention towards enemies, they talk about the need to act decisively given whatever the crisis of the hour is. Whenever you see people using fear to try to drive you to something that doesn't look like Jesus,
00:33:07
Speaker
Just take a second and recognize what's going on, because it's dangerous.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, it tips you off that that's a tactic in the hell game, as I like to call it. Not a tactic in the kingdom of God game, in the heaven game. So I hope that we as Christians can step back and take a deep breath here and recognize a couple things that I think help reorient us. The first is the fact that we have an eternal identity in Christ. The New Testament declares that Jesus has all authority. He has King of Kings and Lord of Lords over everyone and everything.
00:33:37
Speaker
So whatever identity I may have in America or whatever nation state, that identity is in a temporary and passing power.
Christian Identity vs. National Identity
00:33:45
Speaker
Yep, it's incidental to who you are and to what you are to be about. Doesn't mean you need to hate it or loathe it or anything like that, but it's incidental.
00:33:54
Speaker
The end of America is not going to change my identity because my identity is founded in Jesus. I'm not an American Christian or even a Christian American. I think trying to compare those two aspects is kind of ridiculous. I'm a follower of Jesus who currently resides in America. I'm grateful to reside here, but those two aspects of identity should not be comparable.
00:34:16
Speaker
Sure. That's a good way to look at it to you. And this whole conversation could go for anybody's national identity or wherever they're born and raised into. They would have their own set of issues with their own civil religion that they would have to talk about. And obviously that's not for me and you to critique. However, those Brits need to watch and vouchsafe the kingdom of God and the ethic of Jesus against their civil religion. Me and you are talking from our context here.
00:34:40
Speaker
But yeah, anybody who has a happy life and healthy kids can be thankful that they were born into that country at that time in that place and can even be thankful for the opportunities that that country has afforded to them. Like I said, there's no reason to loathe this incidental identity that you happen to be an American.
00:34:56
Speaker
I'm very grateful to be an American. It's just not comparable to my true identity. So here's the second thing, resurrection hope. Jesus will return to restore all things, reuniting heaven and earth, resurrecting the dead. He won the victory over death on the cross, and he's going to return one day to culminate his victory over everything. So we do not need to live in fear of those things that feel like they threaten our way of life, because we know that they're going to pass away.
00:35:21
Speaker
Jesus' victory doesn't depend on the US military might or America's influence in the world. Our resurrection hope frees us from the cycle of violence and death, so we seek to live in compliance with Jesus' plan, even in situations where it seems like violence is necessary.
00:35:38
Speaker
We should trust that Jesus' way is ultimately right, even when we don't understand how it works, or when it might be costly to follow Him. The world might look at Jesus' followers and call our way of life naive or foolish, and that's okay. The early church got called a lot worse than that. Here's my last encouragement for Christians.
00:35:58
Speaker
expect not to fit in. Jesus showed that the revolutionary kingdom way of life, he announced, was inevitably going to run into friction with the powers that be. So when the world's powers seek to push conformity and allegiance, the response of the early church was a peaceful and resolute, no, we worship and follow Jesus. So whether they were in conflict with the Jewish leaders of the Roman Empire, they were committed firmly to proclaiming the authority of Jesus by living out his vision
00:36:26
Speaker
for humanity in a really bold way. I think we need to expect that Christianity lived the same way today is still going to be in conflict with the powers and the cultural expectations all around us. If we're unwilling to clip and compromise Christianity because we're really committed to Jesus' vision above everything else, there's going to be conflict with the American civil religion.
00:36:50
Speaker
I don't think this should scare or dissuade us. The early church saw that it was precisely the areas of disagreement, the areas where Christianity just doesn't quite fit the cultural mold, that those are the areas where Christians have the greatest opportunity to witness to Jesus' victory and to demonstrate to the world what a community founded on a resurrection hope looks like. Just some midnight thoughts I had as we've been preparing for this series of conversations.
00:37:20
Speaker
May we never be frightening to our neighbors, who may see us as a threat to their livelihood and their loved ones, who may think we want to control them and their freedom to self-determine, who believe we wish them ill, not good. Hell, not the kingdom.
00:37:37
Speaker
May we be only frightening to our civil religion who would desire our allegiance to country at all costs but will not have it, who would see our equal love of non-Americans as a national security risk, who would balk at our refusal to live by any other ethic than that of the nonviolent, self-giving love of Jesus our King.
00:37:59
Speaker
May we march to the beat of a different drum, the drum of a different kingdom, the drum of a different power.
00:38:50
Speaker
you
00:38:57
Speaker
We know these last few conversations have been heavy and we understand the minority position that we've expressed here in the United States context. We urge our listeners to have discernment and to consider where we American evangelicals have gone wrong and how we've dragged King Jesus' reputation through the mud in many cases.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:39:19
Speaker
We invite feedback and conversation, so reach out to us.
00:39:23
Speaker
The next few episodes will be interviews with guests who've thought very critically about these things, and we hope they edify. We hope they encourage. We'll talk to you next time on the Re-Paradigm podcast.