Lewisvillelife

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be nation gone under.” – Ronald Reagan

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”– John Adams

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”- George Washington

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” John Adams

While there is debate on whether America was truly founded upon the Christian faith it does not take much digging up to find quotes and speeches like this that, at the least, point to the reality that some of our founding fathers and early presidents held to some sort of belief in God, faith, and morality. Many of which explicitly linking those roots in Christianity. Knowing that America, to at least some extent if not great extent, was shaped from Christian principles and standards, where does that leave us as Christians, today? What political party might that put us in? What does this mean for us as another election season approaches? What place do patriotism and nationalism hold in our lives? What kind of America should we be fighting for?

I am in no way equipped to give hard and fast answers to such complex and crucial questions. My hope in this blog is to simply let you in on some of what I continue to wrestle with as an American Christian. An “American Christian” who is seeking to be first a “Christian American”.

These thoughts are what I hope to be both solid and fluid at the same time. Wrought with the sort of conviction and critical thought that ever roots them yet changing with the softness of heart and openness of mind that ever grows them.

Why I fight for a “Christian America”

I think when it comes to laws and regulations those who are not Christians can become annoyed and resistant to Christians who are voting in such a way that “imposes their beliefs on us all.” I get that. It’s a tough balance, not neglecting someone else’s values while voting based off of your own.

In the end though, it seems as if we’re really all claiming that our convictions are what should shape the choices of other fellow citizens. At what point those decisions infringe upon personal freedom is a topic we should give thought to. Because some promotions or prohibitions bring into question rights or equalities or freedoms. But at some level, we are all fighting for our own idea of what is best for society. Derived from somewhere or someone. We are all fighting for the common good, whatever we deem good. Yet in some way or another that good is going to inevitably be at odds with someone else’s definition of good.

It may feel that Christians are just trying to impose onto others a set of regulations based on their own religious rule book that others don’t want play by. But the goal should be something else all together. If Christians believe what God says is genuinely best for not only us but everyone around us too, we must vote and act in a way that is in keeping with that.

We believe that there are general principles established by God, like many laid out in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, that give us rough guidelines for how to live in a way that will “go well” for us. We also believe there are more specific life-changing guidelines, known as commands, that God has laid out that will bring benefits when obeyed and consequences when disobeyed. Lastly, we believe there is a soul-changing gospel that gives us new hearts and is the motivation by which we obey God’s commands and welcome God’s rule in our life and nation.

I believe that the same God who knows how to make a dead heart come alive also knows the way a nation ought to function in order to thrive.

So as a Christian, I will vote as one. Not because of a check mark in a religious affiliation box but because of the deepest convictions that lie in my heart. The ones that have been shaped and informed by God’s Word. Not a Word that creates borders and boundaries for the purpose of withholding and imposing. But a Word that gives life and love for the purpose of protecting and blessing. It is out of both duty and delight I desire a nation that is “under God.”

Therefore we pray in a way that those purposes might be fulfilled and act in a way that those purposes may be accomplished.

While the church I am a part of by no means does this perfectly, I’m thankful that it seeks to do this faithfully in word and deed. One way this is lived out is by my pastor’s weekly prayer. He rotates which government official he is praying for, but there is not a week that goes by that a person placed in office does not get prayed for. It doesn’t matter who they are or what position they hold, he prays that they would realize their authority comes from God alone and that they would act for the good of the American people and not their own selfish gain. The Bible tells us to pray for our political leaders, and so as Christians, we should. And we should be involved in politics in a way that rightly reflects the prayers coming from our pulpits and pews.

Where we got it wrong

The sad reality is that while we trust God’s way is best for us and those around us, somewhere along the way we confused some of our forefathers values that were imparted upon us with God’s promise that was guaranteed to us. We were never promised to live in a comfortable nation, whether here or there, that caters to our Christianity. Maybe we have grown so used to being the majority that we thought anything other than that was a direct violation against our God given rights as Americans.

As an American, I believe it is noble to fight for the country we want to be in. And as a Christian, I believe it is noble to long for the country we know will be.

I think as American Christians we are all too quick to link blessing primarily to freedom of religion and less so to freedom from our sins. One is a beautiful gift we may be given for a time and the other is a powerful promise that can never be taken. We are too quick to seek rest in who we ourselves have seated in congress for a few years rather than who God has seated on the Throne for eternity.

Living life with an “overseas mentality”

If my husband and I moved our family to another country, which we consider doing someday, we would never send our kids to a public school there expecting for them to get a “Christian education.” We would not go with the ultimate aim of seeing a change in the laws of their country but rather to see a change in the hearts of our neighbors.  We would not go expecting for our family to be the majority, in really any sense of the word. We would go in just knowing that our race and our religion would likely not be the norm. The majority. We would be different. And that would be okay. It would be very expected.

Why is it that as Christians we can go overseas with the expectation of religious adversity and opposition, and we might even go there for that very reason; yet we can’t stand living with it when we’re in America.

 

Exiles and sojourners

While the majority of Christians will never experience the expectation that comes along with living overseas and being “foreigners,” is that not who we were told we would be? Even right here in the United States. Were we not told, along with our brothers and sisters around the rest of the world, that we were exiles and foreigners and sojourners? That we were only passing through?

There were many parts that I left out of my pastors weekly prayer mentioned above. One of them, following the request for America’s good as defined by God, is for America’s salvation as found in Jesus. He prays that our nation’s ultimate good would come not primarily by a Christian president enacting Christian laws but rather the Christian church proclaiming the Christian gospel. The gospel that brings hope as we walk through this foreign land and brings peace as we await our heavenly home. The gospel that glorifies the blood on a cross more than it glorifies the blood on a battle field.

America has never been our true home. Our final destination. But maybe part of the problem is that it has felt a little too much like what we thought of home and of heaven, that we have settled in here. That we are no longer pitching our tents on the portion of land that we are passing through but rather building our houses on the lot that we are devoting our lives to. What if we could still fight for justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God by the way we vote as Christians? What if we longed for society around us to get a better taste of what we believe eternity will be, and enacted policies that would promote that? But what if we continue to stand firm in these things while also finally knowing what it feels like to fall under the weight of a nation that is not ultimately our own. That doesn’t cater to us and comfort us in the same ways it used to.

What if we are at a unique, and needed, time in American Christian history where we get to say along with men and women of our faith “for here we have no lasting city, but we seek that city that is to come.” And what if we get to better identify with the man who is our faith who said, “my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom.”

Christian, let us fight for a good America while we long for better Jerusalem.