There is an unwavering assertion coming from the Christian Right, arguing that the U.S. should "go back to its Christian roots." A YouTube video came by my inbox today that depicts a Christian tour guide enumerating various religious acts performed by early U.S. presidents. I can't debate the historical veracity of the claims in the video, but I think they completely miss the point.
Many of the actions cited by the tour guide in fact do appear to be clear violations of the First Amendment. To pick one example, a president held church services in the Capitol rotunda, using the Marine Corps Band as worship leaders. Just because it's the president's executive order, and not a law passed by Congress, does that make it legal? A president violated the Constitution (admittedly in a way that didn't seem offend anybody at the time), and just because he was Christian, we Christians are supposed to aspire to that "ideal"?
I think not. Like it or not, the U.S. is not, and never was, a Christian nation. Yes, the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian. I buy that - though they still held some shockingly different beliefs than their Christian Right boosters of today. Yes, Christian morality and ideals are pervasive in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. I buy that - though they are by no means completely reflected (never forget the need for the 13th amendment, fixing a gross violation of the ideal that "all men are created equal").
But thank God that the founding fathers also saw the need for religious pluralism, even in a day when the competing religions in America were all basically Christian. They had much clearer memories of the many gross acts of violence that Christians had done to each other when the government did establish Christianity as its religion. (Note that the last of those links describes persecution performed against other Christians by those favorite American Christian ancestors of ours, the Puritans.)
So it is that arguments by folks in the Christian Right that our government should return to its glorious Christian roots always smell to me like "historical snobbery" (one of my favorite C.S. Lewis-isms). History has shown Christian after Christian in power committing acts similarly heinous to those committed by those of any other religious leaning. Who do these people in the Religious Right think they are that they're better Christians than those that have gone down that road before?
Does this mean that Christians shouldn't be in government? Certainly not. But it does mean that we'd be foolish to expect Christians in positions of political power (Bush and Obama) to be any more perfect than anyone else. Does this mean that Christians shouldn't vote as their faith convicts them? Certainly not. But I strongly believe that it does mean that Christians should never seek the establishment of their religion in any government in this fallen world.
God's approved governmental structure is clearly theocracy. He demands unwavering devotion from (and lavishes scandalous grace on) those who choose to be his disciples. And yet he doesn't force himself on us. He woos us, by his truth and goodness that is so fundamental to this world around us. He draws us by the shocking goodness of his own sacrificial exposé of the vulgar baseness of our own human religiosity (yes, we need to identify ourselves with the religious establishment of Jesus' time). Shouldn't we worry more about loving God above all else (including our money, our entertainment, our jobs, and "our America") and loving our neighbor (including the ones on the opposite site of the globe)? Those are the roots that Jesus told us to get back to. I've a lot of work to do myself.
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