Chapter 9: Coffee, yes, Christian Nation, no

The next morning Anthony arrived right at 8:30am to the smell of fresh coffee and piping hot cinnamon rolls. It was a Saturday morning tradition, Kimberly explained. Their 3 sons [15, 11, 9] were wolfing down cinnamon rolls like it was an Olympic sport. Meanwhile, Ryan was just sauntering out of bed, hungover from the nuclear hot wings and Twinkies he put down the night before. Cinnamon rolls were the last thing on his mind but he wasn’t going to forsake his coffee. Anthony, on the other hand, swore off coffee since college, but was definitely into the rolls.

As the boys scattered throughout the house, one to the computer room, one to the TV room and the oldest one sprawled out on the couch with his IPOD, Ryan, with a little help from Anthony, tried to bring Kimberly up to speed on their conversation the night before. Kimberly asked a few clarifying questions, but was content not knowing all of the details. She certainly wanted to hear more, but didn’t want to be a burden on their precious time. Ryan got right back to where they started the night before.

RW: This whole conversation got kick-started by a snide comment I made about Obama and then you came out of the closet—your acknowledgment that you are a card-carrying pacifist! As I lay in bed last night feeling the Twinkies and wings swirl around my stomach, I was thinking about how your position just seems so un-American. How could we simply abandon this Christian nation to those terrorist wolves?
AT: First of all, I take issue with the notion that the United States was or is a ‘Christian nation.’ Was it founded by Christians? Some of them were. Have our Presidents been Christians? All of them have claimed the title. But do our practices collectively reflect the character of God? I would say, ‘Not at all.’
RW: Here we go with the practices again.
AT: Yes. America can’t be labeled a Christian nation simply because a majority of its people subscribe to certain beliefs like ‘God created the world’ or ‘Jesus was God’ or ‘Eternal salvation is acquired through faith in Christ alone.’ And America can’t be labeled a Christian nation because we have ‘In God we trust’ on our coinage or because all of our good little children pledge allegiance to ‘One Nation Under God’ every morning. The God of the Bible established a people for himself [called Israel] and blessed it in order to bless the world. It is a community for the nations. The heritage of Abraham is passed on to little Jew-and-Gentile communities, empowered by the Spirit of the risen Christ, who live out God’s will for humanity in the days and years after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. These churches have a politics of their own that reflect the radical demand of the New Testament and, here’s the key, it is a world-wide people, crossing all sorts of borders. So can the United States be the center of God’s activity in the world? No. Is the United States a ‘new Israel’ or ‘the city on a hill’ that American leaders from George Winthrop to Ronald Reagan have claimed? No. The Body of Christ is represented in little, gathered clusters of people committed to following the way of Jesus, actually practicing this lifestyle. When people say ‘God bless America’ and they mean that God has unleashed his favor on us, this is not what is represented in Scripture. When the New Testament refers to the imperative of ‘blessing,’ it centers on one thing: our call in the Sermon on the Mount to bless [and pray for] our enemies. So, for instance, our so-called ‘Christian’ response to 9/11 should have been quite different than the response actually taken by our Christian President and mostly Christian Congress. In our day and age, it is vital that churches shift the focus back to who the people of God actually are and what that demands of them. It demands that we take these practices seriously: sharing our possessions, loving and caring for those brothers and sisters in Christ of different ethnicities, conflict resolution through gentle, restorative dialogue, loving our enemies, telling the truth, giving voice to those who have been marginalized, etc. And it means that the people of God, those who have been blessed in order to be a blessing to the world, is a voluntary community. Only those who choose to commit their lives to the cause are a part of it. Membership is fully voluntary, non-coercive. Kingdom practices cannot be forced upon people.
RW: OK, but what happens when these practices result in policies that have the result of hurting the United States as a whole.
AT: So be it. Reconfiguring JFK’s classic quote, Yoder wrote, ‘Ask not what God can do for America; ask what America owes humankind.’ If we follow the servant-king, then we too become servants ourselves. We should challenge America to a much more demanding lifestyle, especially if most of our leaders claim the title ‘Christian.’ Yoder goes as far as saying that the meaning of history is not about how the state successfully orders society, but instead, it is boiled down to what God’s people, churches all over the world, do in regards to evangelism and what he calls ‘the leavening process,’ the slow growth of morality that seeps into society through Christian example and the education of children who haven’t themselves chosen radical Christianity. In this way ‘the whole moral tone of non-Christian society is changed for the better.’ This requires slow growth and takes a lot of Christian patience.
RW: But that seems like Christians are just supposed to ghettoize themselves. Shouldn’t we care about legislation and leaders at every level—local, state and federal? Shouldn’t we care about making laws that protect the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage?
Kimberly: I need to protect the sanctity of my mind. I had no idea you two were getting so philosophical. Let me propose a time-out so we can start getting ready for the beach. Laguna is going to perfect today. Anthony, you are coming to the beach with us, aren’t you?
AT: Only if Ryan promises not to wear that speedo.
RW: You’ve got a deal. Let’s table this discussion until we get down to the sand.