A Christian Nation?

A Christian Mistake

2009-04-10T16:39:02Z

By Jim Wallis

The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement that sought to implement a “Christian agenda” by tying the faithful to one political option—the right-wing of the Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think the role of faith in American public life.

Personally, I am not offended or alarmed by the notion of a post-Christian America. Christianity was originally and, in my view, always meant to be a minority faith with a counter-cultural stance; as opposed to the dominant cultural and political force. Notions of a Christian America quite frankly haven’t turned out very well.

But that doesn’t mean a lack of religious influence--on the contrary. Committed minorities have had a tremendous influence on cultures and even on politics, just look at all the faith-inspired social reform movements animated by people of faith. But Martin Luther King, Jr. did not get the Civil Rights Act passed because he had the most Bible verses on his side but because he entered into the public square with compelling arguments, vision and policy that ultimately won the day. Those faith-inspired movements are disciplined by democracy, meaning they don’t expect to win just because they are “Christian.” They have to win the debates about what is best for the common good by convincing their fellow citizens.

And that is best done by shaping the values narrative, as opposed to converting everyone to their particular brand of religion. Rather, they are always looking for allies around their moral causes, including people of other faiths, or no religion at all. The story of Christianity in America in the coming decades will be defined by a multi-cultural shift as well as a generational one. “New” Evangelicals and Catholics, along with Black, Hispanic, and Asian churches will now shape the agenda. But also included are the millions of American’s who say they are “spiritual but not religious,” finding homes in non-traditional churches, mega-churches that teach that true religion is found in care for “the least of these.” Making a real impact on the values and directions that a democracy will choose is, perhaps, a more exciting kind of influence than relying on the illusory and often disappointing hopes of cultural and political dominance.

The shift that Jon Meacham describes may be the best news in a long time.

Wallis is president of Sojourners and author of "The Great Awakening, Seven Ways to Change The World"

Where is the Cause for Concern?

2009-04-07T23:15:57Z

By The Rev. Chloe Breyer

In this week’s “The End of Christian America” John Meacham offers a faithful (and reasonable) argument that should quell alarmist fears about a “post-Christian” era in America. His Newsweek cover story is the stuff of solid civics classes and sermons alike--in some congregations, that is.

Alarm issues from a narrow corner of the Christian world over increasing numbers of the “unidentified” 2009 American Religious Identification Survey’s. Dr. R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary laments this trend as heralding a “post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.” Citing patriots like Rodger William who founded Rhode Island as a place for religious dissidents, Meacham tries to put these fears to rest: love of freedom rather than matters of doctrine have been the bedrock of many of the best American values.

But there is more. Where, after all, would the Southern Baptist Seminary be today had the signers of the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657 adopted such an inhospitable understanding of American religiosity? When Peter Stuvyesant, Director General of the Dutch Colony of New Netherlands (Queens, New York) banned the practice of all religions outside of the Dutch Reformed Church and jailed William Wickenden, a Baptist Minister for baptizing Christians in Flushing, here is what a group of English citizens—none of them Quakers or Baptists themselves—wrote in protest:

Our desire is not to offend one of his little ones in whatsoever form name or title he appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker, but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them desiring to do unto all men as we desire all men should be done onto us, which is the true law both of church and state . . .

Dr. Mohler’s spiritual predecessors, it turns out, were indebted to this group of faithful people who thought America was big enough for a variety of faith traditions.

There are plenty of Christian reasons that a “post-Christian” America might be good for the soul—and Meacham could make more of them. Most people in the pews will understand that while the privileging of a narrow social agenda (school prayer, abortion, etc.) in the halls of Congress may have diminished in the post-Bush era, this is hardly a source of despair for the faithful. To the contrary: Who is to say that the Texas authority’s recent decision to teach science and Iowa’s State Supreme Court sanctioning of same-sex marriage are not indebted to Biblical understandings of human beings being made in God’s image? Why attribute them exclusively to evidence a creeping ‘muscular secularism”? Meacham’s insight is a bit thin here—it’s as if we were back in 2006 and had never heard of an evangelical who voted democrat. Its old news that young evangelicals are widening the agenda of concern and that Christian moral values have widened from abortion, school prayer, and same-sex marriage to include systemic violence, poverty, and racism.

The Rev. Chloe Breyer is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York and the executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York.

A Question of Conscience

2009-04-07T23:03:24Z

By Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr

The image on the front cover says it all, declaring "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" in type set to form a cross.

The cover story is a serious consideration of the issue Newsweek set as its priority for the week of Easter, and the seriousness of the magazine's approach is evident in the fact that its editor, Mr. Meacham, wrote the cover story himself. The essay, elegant in form and serious in tone, demands attention.

The increasingly secular character of New England, now surpassing even the Pacific Northwest, is a portrait of Christianity in retreat. The course of this retreat has been long.

Still, the region remained under the influence of Christian memory and, for most of the intervening decades, under the influence of the Christian worldview. Now, New England is the most secular region of the nation, representing a model of what I believe is rightly designated post-Christian America.

Mr. Meacham looked at the same data that had caught my attention, the American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS] and the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Study.

What does become clear is that what Newsweek sees as the essence of the issue is political influence. While this is hardly a non-issue, my greater concern is not with political influence and what secularization means for the political sphere, but with what secularization means for the souls of men and women who are now considerably more distant from Christianity -- and perhaps even with any contact with Christianity -- than ever before. My main concern is evangelism, not cultural influence.

The founding generation did not establish the young republic on any religious creed or theological doctrine. Still, there is something missing from this argument, and that is the recognition that freedom, and freedom of conscience in particular, requires some prior understanding of human dignity and the origins of conscience itself. Though the founders included those who rejected the Christian Gospel and Christianity itself, Christianity had provided the necessary underpinnings for the founders' claims.

Mr. Meacham also suggests that this new situation is perhaps healthy for the church. To this extent I agree -- the church gains a necessary knowledge any time the distinction between the church and the world is made more evident. Our first concern is and must be the Gospel. It is good that non-Christians know that they are not Christians and that Christians be reminded of that fact that what sinners need is the Gospel of Christ, not merely the lingering morality of the Christian memory.

This much I know -- Jesus Christ is Lord, and His kingdom is forever. Our proper Christian response to this new challenge is not gloom, but concern. And our first concern must be to see that the Gospel is preached as Good News to the perishing -- including all those in post-Christian America.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr is the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary-the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.

Opening Remarks: Post-Christian America?

2009-04-05T15:21:33Z

By Lisa Miller

In his cover story, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” Jon Meacham argues that the ten-point dip in the number of Americans who call themselves Christian, together with the rise in the number who say they’re “unaffiliated” is a good thing – for politics and for Christianity. Political culture, Meacham writes is “as the American Founders saw…complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.”

The essay is being virulently hashed over in the media, on blogs and talk shows – and repudiated, especially by critics on the right. “The Christian right has certainly stirred up an angry reaction to its attempt to marry religion to political power,” wrote Economist editor John Micklethwait and his colleague Adrian Wooldridge in the Wall Street Journal. “But it would be a mistake to regard this reaction as evidence that America is losing its religion.” Regardless of whether you agree with Meacham, the question of whether America is a Christian nation – and whether Christianity will be continue to be a driving force in our political life is an important one. We’ve asked some of the country’s thought leaders to comment.