Another Post by Canaan Suitt: It should be noted that this post is directed fairly heavily at our Christian Readers, though we certainly hope that other readers might enjoy it as well.
The only thing more maddening than seeing Christianity attacked with innocuous arguments that people regard as lethal is seeing Christianity defended with feeble arguments that people regard as impregnable. Such is the case with the whole Christian Nation issue. It causes people on both sides of the controversy to become highly defensive, to occasionally utter profoundly illogical statements, and, if the subject comes up over dinner, to have severe indigestion. It seems to me that for the term “Christian Nation” to have any validity whatsoever, it would have to be so altered and redefined as to destroy its usefulness. It is a term that has become connected with a slew of false conceptions. As commonly used, “Christian Nation” is the idea that the Founding Fathers were Christians devoted to founding a country wherein Christianity would forever be the cherished religion of the nation. It is presumed that America is the special beneficiary of God’s blessings, that America’s greatness is derived from this Christian heritage, and that for America to return to greatness, it must go back to its Christian roots. As Alexander Hamilton once said, “Of all chimerical claims, this is most chimerical.”
Francis Schaeffer in his book How Should We Then Live? touches on the only true meaning that “Christian Nation” could remotely convey. He distinguishes between two senses of the word Christianity. The primary sense is of a person who has come to God through the work of Christ. The secondary sense of the word denotes the idea of an intellectual tradition that, although based on ideas derived from the Bible and applicable to the sphere of politics, is disconnected from the regenerative source of Christianity. It is in this sense–that of a prevailing worldview with biblically inspired elements–that “Christian Nation” could mean anything actually corresponding to reality.
Schaeffer also notes that many of the founding fathers were deists, a point that has been made many other times. Deism is the rational acceptance of a Supreme Being that created the universe and who does not intervene in its ongoing process, a tenet which leaves no place for an incarnate, personal God. Be that as it may, analyzing the religious beliefs of the founding fathers really doesn’t answer the question at all. Assuming that the founders were Christians one and all, it doesn’t logically follow that they sought to make America a Christian Nation in the common sense. Writings they left us (personal papers and correspondences as well as public documents) demonstrate that the intention wasn’t to found a nation that would stand as a sanctuary for Christianity per se, but that would be a place where the liberty of all men–including Christians of every denomination–to freely worship and practice their religion would be a basic right. As Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, “Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
In the same Statute for Religious Freedom, Jefferson says that “Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself…she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.” Now I, as a Christian, believe the doctrines of Christianity are Truth and that, in the protected plane of free speech (“free argument and debate”) and freedom of religion, such as our Constitution provides, Christianity will prevail.
I must now qualify that last statement–“Christianity will prevail.” First of all, the word “prevail,” connected here with Christianity, may connote an idea that I deeply disagree with, namely, that Christianity will triumph over other systems of belief through political power and preeminence. This is simply not true. Christianity will not spread via politics or political leaders, but through individual Christians and communities of Christians living in obedience to their Lord and Savior as light to a dark world (Acts 13:47). As the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (XV. The Christian and the Social Order) says, “Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.” Secondly, Christianity will spread if Christians, living authentic Christian lives, spread it. What avail is a protected plane of free speech and religious practice if the citizens who live on that plane make no use of it? It seems to me that most Christians become irate when the prevailing secular culture bashes Christianity or makes a mockery of it (a phenomenon which is only to be expected from a secular culture), and fling themselves headlong into all sorts of distempers and irrational fears when certain (mostly benign) political measures are enacted, and yet in daily life they make no use of their civic liberty to either practice or proclaim Christianity. I don’t think the law or the culture is responsible for this silence, but rather lack of belief.
It is common for humans to read something with which they disagree and to construe it in the utmost extreme sense of the author’s actual meaning. So, let me be clear. In the preceding paragraph, I did not mean that Christians, as citizens, shouldn’t take a stand for their civic rights when they are demonstrably infringed. Yet because these rights are indivisible, as President John F. Kennedy said when defending his religious beliefs, Christians should approach the issue with a concern, not only for their own rights, but also for the rights of all people. Nor does it mean that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics or go into politics. As theologian Tullian Tchividjian wrote in his book Unfashionable, Christians should be involved in all arenas of secular life, bringing light to the darkness. We must remember, however, that we will not fulfill the calling of bringing to earth the Kingdom of God through politics alone. Men are saved, and society comes under the direction of Christianity, by salvation in Christ alone.
I want to leave you with a quote from Carl Trueman, a professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is the author of Republocrat–Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, a brilliant, polemical little book that is as entertaining as it is thought provoking. He said, “You can talk theonomy, theocracy, or Christian nation if you wish, but in the real world of the here and now, Christians have to cast their vote in terms of the situation, as we currently know it… Christians are to be good citizens, and to respect the civil magistrates appointed over us. We also need to acknowledge that the world is a lot more complicated than the pundits of Fox News (or MSNBC) tell us… We need to read and watch more widely… and seek to be good stewards of the world and of the opportunities therein that God has given us.”
Citation: Schaeffer, Francis A. How Should We Then Live?–The Rise and Decline of
Western Thought and Culture. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books 2005. 109-110.
Citation: Tchividjian, Tullian. Unfashionable–Making a Difference in the World by
Being Different. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Multnomah Books 2009.
Citation: Trueman, Carl R. Republocrat–Confessions of a Liberal Conservative.
Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing Company 2010. 107-9.
Broken Mirrors 
Well Done, Canaan! Too bad this isn’t getting greater readership, but these ideas will resonate in ten years as much as they do now. Hang on to them, you will use them again.
Actually, we’re getting about 20,000 hits a month now, and still growing. Of course, not all of those hits are people actually reading the blog, but it’s still a decent number.