[OBW]

Prepare for one of my entirely too long posts. And for me to step on some toes.

Here goes.


So America was blessed because:

• They mentioned God in the first inaugural address.
• There was prayer a few times recorded.

So America was blessed when:

• Its capital was burned in 1812.
• It destroyed more of its own lives over economic interests and slavery than have been lost in any war before or since. And if you think that war cured the problems surrounding slaves, then why MLKJr and Malcom X?
• It declared that it had "manifest destiny" and killed everything and everyone to the west to claim the land.

The fact is that societies and governments have risen and fallen over the centuries. Many of them enjoyed times of prosperity and peace for varying reasons. America enjoyed peace for many years because it was hard to send an invading force across vast oceans. So we could declare other countries in the Western Hemisphere off-limits to European forces because it was closer to home for us but not for them.

As I and others have said, we all need to pray and repent. But there is no Christian Nation with blessings to restore. That does not mean we need to repent less. But it is people who need to repent. Christians need to repent for denying justice in the name of their God. For carrying on in ways so un-Christian.

Those who are not Christian need to repent. They need to be saved. But the fact that they exist does not change the nature of the nation. It is a kingdom of the world, not the Kingdom of God.

This will get me in hot water, but I am mostly embarrassed to lay claim to the Christian faith when so many of my brothers and sisters rail against the nation (which is comprised of people, most of whom are not Christian) for not being pure enough to gain God's blessing on the nation. The way that so many of the spokespersons for the cause of Christian morality, any kind of so-called Christian nation, or those who try to legislate the lives of the nation according to Christian principles carry on is a shame to the gospel and to the God that they claim to represent.

Now, to go to the premise concerning some kind of view that the creation of America can be compared to the creation and continuation of the nation of Israel from the return from Egypt through the destruction of Jerusalem in about 72 AD.

Before Israel came to be, God made a covenant with Abraham to make a nation out of him, and beyond that, to bless the world through that nation. Who did God woo to leave their people to move the promised land and be made into a nation according to God’s promise? I can’t see even a huge stretch of the available facts getting to that comparison.

Abram was probably a happy man, living in Ur when God came to him. The Pilgrims, or whichever group you want to speak of concerning the creation of America, were out to beat the prophecy that we would be treated worse than our Master, Jesus. And even if you think you want to start with the Pilgrims, by the time of the 1770s where were they? The population of the area near to where they originally settled was populated mostly by others. Heavily a world of commerce, not of religion.

Not suggesting that Israel did not have commerce. But before there was an exodus; before there was Moses, Joshua, or Caleb; before the first or last of the judges; before Samuel; and before the first of the kings, God had made a covenant.

Israel did not become blessed because they decided to consecrate to God. They were blessed because God chose them as a people. And while it is correct to say that God is still choosing people, he is not choosing entire nations of people. The people of God are part of a “shadow nation.” A people who should be in, but not of the political nation in which they reside.

We chose to do our covenant in reverse. We decide that we would single-out bits of history, specific individuals, and even recast a few more, to patch together a declaration concerning the country that was not even hinted at during the day.

And among the founding fathers is one that is popular to read about with recent biographies available (John and Abigail Adams) we find a declaration that the country is not a Christian nation. In speaking/writing in the context of the conflict with the Barbary Pirates, John was explicit to state that the nation was not simply Christian. When I last read that account (a couple of years ago) I recall that it represented, to me, one of the most Christian responses in that it was righteous without being specifically Christian or favoring the Christian over the Muslim or followers of another god.

I will grant that some of the leaders did honor God in their statements. But no matter how many of such statements were made, what causes them to constitute a covenant with God that was endowed with God’s blessing? Even if we could accurately assert that they all intended to make such a covenant, remember that the pattern is God coming to Abram with a covenant. God gave Abram/Abraham and his offspring the land that the nation ultimately inhabited.

It might be easy to compare the battles required to evict the existing inhabitants of the “good land,” but just because there was such a series of battles does not make our continuing land grab comparable. Just because you can see an aspect of similarity does not make it comparable.

Last, even though I agree that all Christians do need to be in repentance, the first question that comes to mind is “since when did we not need to repent?” What makes being in America require it more than in France, Greece, Indonesia or Serbia? Maybe the real problem is that within the evangelical community out of which most of the “Christian Nation” rhetoric comes, we are too enamored with “victory,” “joy,” “glory,” improved spirituality, and much less with the constant realization of our need for grace and repentance. Yes, we speak of it, but we join together in worship to focus on ourselves and what God is doing for us rather than focusing on God and what we are doing to follow Him.

And most importantly, it is a misguided focus. It distracts from the real gospel of Christ. We are busy extracting ourselves from subtle errors buried in seemingly good theology, but too often trading one set of errors for new ones. Turning from a craving for “the ground” and “Christ and the church,” and replacing it with “Christian Nation.” In other words, get rid of one emphasis not actually found in scripture and replace it with another no more fundamental to the meaning and thrust of scripture. If the thrust is off, no matter how sound some parts of the call may be — praying and repenting — it is subservient to a misdirection of allegiance.

Consecrated to His purposes? America was forever consecrated to its own purposes. They set about to be more tolerant and righteous with all of their inhabitants, unlike the places they left which required allegiance to one sect of religion over all others. But their purpose was to be freer to pursue their dreams without government interference.

When he says that we still invoke his name, but it becomes hollow, how is it that we think it was ever more solid? Just because we want it to be so?

I was right. We do need to repent. We Christians. It is irrelevant that we are Americans. Nothing has changed. Christians continue to need to repent. Pointing to some special status of the nation is just a distraction. It is most definitely not “scriptural.”

By the way. We didn’t ban God from the public square. From its schools. The collection of people who are the nation, and who are not, in majority, Christian, did it. The nation was never more than a relatively just kingdom of the world.

I let the thing run some in the background for a while. I got to about 14 minutes. That is enough. This stuff is completely un-Christian. It is appealing to trite, man-centric thinking.

And guess what. We all learned how to be man-centric in the LRC. We may have left that place. We may even curse its existence. But we still declare that we are the center of the universe. We have now exchanged the LRC as the core of that center for America. Both are false. Both are idols.

And as I recall, there was a huge blow-up here some years back due to calling virtually everything an idol. And if there is an idol on display in this “house,” it is the “Christian Nation.” Some God-blessed overlay on the status of a political enterprise run by a majority of unbelievers.

If there was ever an argument for taking Bibles out of the hands of the average Christian, this is one of the best. “Me and my Bible” is one of the worst things to happen to the spiritual condition of good Christians everywhere.

I am not saying that we should not read our Bibles. But we need to have a focus that is not based on whatever crazy teacher comes along selling something. Ground, a me-centric religion, a me-centric nation, or whatever. Read the gospels and the epistles again and tell me that you really think that the transition from the Israel-centered religion to one of inclusion of all people somehow turns into a “Christian Nation.” It just isn’t there. The only way to find that kind of theology is to join those guys from a few years ago that declared that if they wrote it, it was scripture.