The ferocious last gasps of the religion of Christian America

[Pelerin]

I wish I could remember the author or the exact quote, but someone once said that from The Crucible, to The Scarlet Letter, all the way back to the beginning, disavowing it’s Puritan heritage and tracing its problems back to them has always been fashionable in America.

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The argument in the article relies on some slippery sleight of hand. He asserts that Puritans, Presbyterians, and Baptists were all influenced by Calvin, and that “by 1776, when the American nation was born, Calvin’s vision of a social order ruled by his concept of the Christian God informed the majority of the faithful throughout most of the 13 colonies.”

Where to begin? While the population of the South may or may not have been majority Baptist, my understanding is that the elite and the government was Anglican/Episcopalian. Wikipedia helpfully lists the signers of the Declaration of Independence by state and a quick scan of the southern signers bears this out: I wasn't able to find a single Baptist, but nearly all of them indicated that they were Anglicans. Anglicans, of course, being the ones who were so impure that they drove the Puritans to choose that name. The Baptists themselves would be surprised to learn they hope to establish a Calvinist theocracy as they’ve been against established churches from the beginning (it seems to come with adult baptism).

It gets worse in the following paragraph where he asserts that the First Amendment antiestablishment clause represented a radical clash between religious colonists and the generally irreligious Founders. This would again be news to the Baptists and Quakers. The famous phrase, “wall of separation between church and state” that was set up in the amendment comes from the Danbury Baptist letter Thomas Jefferson wrote replying to a Baptist congregation’s concerns about an established church.

Nor did the First Amendment “strip the Christian religion” of anything; there had never been an established church in the United States to strip from it. Furthermore, some of the states had established churches that continued right on being established until at least 1834¹. This isn’t minor quibbling over language either; I understand one impetus for disestablishment was the Second Great Awakening (see, for example, here). And here’s where we find the evangelicals we started the article off with. It turns out the two end of the circle don’t line up so neatly after all.

And that's not even to get into the role Calvinism has played in progressive American politics, for example this and this on Woodrow Wilson.

¹From Wikipedia. The chart says 1877 for New Hampshire, but I decided that didn’t count for my purposes here. Read the footnote there for details.

[Ken]

How would you differentiate between what has been called "Christian Nationalism" and "God & Country"? There are various countries in the world where there is a political party called the "Christian Party". Is this something more like that? If so, I'd say that they won't give up. I wonder the same about the God & Country folks, for whom the two are melded into one cause. I've wondered for years what they would do when the 'country' drifts so far from 'God' (what ever their concept of God is) that they can no longer imagine that they fit together. Well, I guess I know now - they will fight for their concept of 'country', perhaps even using violent means.

God and Country have always been two separate things. One can believe in both. I do. As have I suspect a majority of Americans going back to the founding of the nation. The problem is when they are melded into one single thing in what is being called Christian Nationalism. It distorts and damages both God and Country when they are treated as one. Or when they are treated as inextricably linked.

[Bootstrap]

Is it really that Christian folks want to maintain their power and privilege, or is it their defensive response to perceived encroachment on their core values and their desire to quietly live by those values.

I honestly think it is a bit of both - not that some of us aren't sucked in (see the Axis of Tension discussion), but I suspect we Anabaptists would be less inclined than Calvinists to claim power and privilege in the first place.

A desire to live quietly according to our values is a good thing. But a lot of what we are seeing is in-your-face, aggressive, using political power to exert force over other people, and not closely related to biblical Christianity. And it involves deep allegiances to political movements that are not holy in any sense I know of.

As Christians, the Sermon on the Mount is our Declaration of Independence. I don't know any political party or political movement or country that stands for that. I think that American democracy has traditionally made room for Christians who do stand for that.

[Neto]

How would you differentiate between what has been called "Christian Nationalism" and "God & Country"? There are various countries in the world where there is a political party called the "Christian Party". Is this something more like that? If so, I'd say that they won't give up. I wonder the same about the God & Country folks, for whom the two are melded into one cause. I've wondered for years what they would do when the 'country' drifts so far from 'God' (what ever their concept of God is) that they can no longer imagine that they fit together. Well, I guess I know now - they will fight for their concept of 'country', perhaps even using violent means.

God and Country have always been two separate things. One can believe in both. I do. As have I suspect a majority of Americans going back to the founding of the nation. The problem is when they are melded into one single thing in what is being called Christian Nationalism. It distorts and damages both God and Country when they are treated as one. Or when they are treated as inextricably linked.

I realize that some can & do ascribe some loyalty to both, w/o melding them into one ball of wax. That's why I put the phrase inside quotations. (Maybe I should have used hyphens?)

[Edit: I see now that the second time I used the phrase I didn't get the quotation marks in.]

[silentreader]

I don't think this was ever posted here but I think it is relevant to this discussion.

https://www.pastortheologians.com/artic ... ationalism

[Bootstrap]

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought of this prayer time. I use some of those same words and phrases when I pray, but somehow ... this doesn't look like the Jesus I know or the Kingdom of God I know.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

https://youtu.be/270F8s5TEKY?t=495

[Bootstrap]

Last edited by ohio jones on Wed Jan 20, 2021 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Embedded video changed to a link; political content and vulgarity

That was a reasonable thing to do. And the wording kind of makes my point - this kind of prayer, so mixed with political content and vulgarity that it is offensive, is not what I think of as real Christianity. But it's the logical conclusion of where so many things have been heading ...

[temporal1]

Pelerin:
The argument in the article relies on some slippery sleight of hand. ..

Cannot be overstated.
All of media is saturated with it, whether labeled opinion or not.
It’s beyond ghastly.

Possibly the topic invites it, but some of the posts here sure seem to be dragging dead mice (politics) onto the doorstep.

[Judas Maccabeus]

I wish I could remember the author or the exact quote, but someone once said that from The Crucible, to The Scarlet Letter, all the way back to the beginning, disavowing it’s Puritan heritage and tracing its problems back to them has always been fashionable in America.

-------

The argument in the article relies on some slippery sleight of hand. He asserts that Puritans, Presbyterians, and Baptists were all influenced by Calvin, and that “by 1776, when the American nation was born, Calvin’s vision of a social order ruled by his concept of the Christian God informed the majority of the faithful throughout most of the 13 colonies.”

Where to begin? While the population of the South may or may not have been majority Baptist, my understanding is that the elite and the government was Anglican/Episcopalian. Wikipedia helpfully lists the signers of the Declaration of Independence by state and a quick scan of the southern signers bears this out: I wasn't able to find a single Baptist, but nearly all of them indicated that they were Anglicans. Anglicans, of course, being the ones who were so impure that they drove the Puritans to choose that name. The Baptists themselves would be surprised to learn they hope to establish a Calvinist theocracy as they’ve been against established churches from the beginning (it seems to come with adult baptism).

It gets worse in the following paragraph where he asserts that the First Amendment antiestablishment clause represented a radical clash between religious colonists and the generally irreligious Founders. This would again be news to the Baptists and Quakers. The famous phrase, “wall of separation between church and state” that was set up in the amendment comes from the Danbury Baptist letter Thomas Jefferson wrote replying to a Baptist congregation’s concerns about an established church.

Nor did the First Amendment “strip the Christian religion” of anything; there had never been an established church in the United States to strip from it. Furthermore, some of the states had established churches that continued right on being established until at least 1834¹. This isn’t minor quibbling over language either; I understand one impetus for disestablishment was the Second Great Awakening (see, for example, here). And here’s where we find the evangelicals we started the article off with. It turns out the two end of the circle don’t line up so neatly after all.

And that's not even to get into the role Calvinism has played in progressive American politics, for example this and this on Woodrow Wilson.

¹From Wikipedia. The chart says 1877 for New Hampshire, but I decided that didn’t count for my purposes here. Read the footnote there for details.

I would hardly call Wilson a "progressive." The "progressive" in that race was Teddy Roosevelt running as a "Bull Moose."

However, I found this interesting:

"Magee shows that Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion was hugely important to Woodrow Wilson's understanding of his earthly responsibilities and it became his textbook of politics, even to the point that Wilson's political philosophy teetered on the edges of theocracy, or what more recently has been called Reconstructionism."

Actually, it was reconstructionism's predecessor, Postmillinialism. It was actually the dominant eschatology in much of the mainline church prior to WWI. It of course, like it's more modern cousin, posits that the church will improve society so that the church will usher in the millennial kingdom, and Jesus will return after that. As such, it envisions a very large role for the church in society.

There is one key difference, classic postmillinialism does this through social reform, making the world fit for the return of Christ. Reconstructionism sees this as being accomplished through Theonomey, the establishment of God's law in society. The former is accomplished through moral influence, the latter through violence if necessary.

J.M.

[temporal1]

In recent years, i’ve come to believe U.S. founders were wise to include reference and respect to God (our Christian God) without attempting to “micromanage” specific denominations or sects. i know of no reference in gov documents specifically to Jesus, but many references to God. Intriguing.

These were not stupid naive men. They valued forethought.
For them, problems with state churches were not distant memories.

Their intent was not for atheists and others to dominate, as is trending presently, but to be allowed. Turns out, those “allowed” aren’t at all interested in returning the favor.

Christians are their own worst enemy.