Someone recently told me he had always unquestioningly assumed America is a Christian nation (he’d heard it all his life). He recently read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and after experiencing the stories of black Americans who migrated north to escape the Jim Crow South, he’s revising his earlier lifelong view.
Dr. Mark Noll, one of the pre-eminent living evangelical historians (for many years at Wheaton College and now Research Professor of History at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada) has some stories to tell us about the origins of America we may not have heard before.
Here’s how he summarizes today’s topic:
“In light of the conspicuous Christian presence in American history, some believers have even concluded that the story of our land is in some sense an extension of the history of salvation. The Puritans did indeed feel that God had established a special covenant with their New World settlements, and so it must be that the United States continues as a nation in special covenant with God. The United States did indeed win its independence from Great Britain against considerable odds; therefore, some say, God must have providentially intervened in that conflict on the side of “his people,” the Americans.And so, for them, America today must still be an anointed land, set apart by a divine plan for an extraordinary existence as a nation and an extraordinary mission to the world.
With these views, patriotic loyalty to America becomes more than the common affection that all peoples naturally exercise toward their native land. It is a special interpretation of divine providence and a transformation of national allegiance into a statement about the mind of God.” (One Nation Under God? Christian Faith and Political Action in America, p. 7-8)
Is America God’s divinely “Chosen Nation?”
80% of American evangelicals and 40% of all Americans agree: God has granted America a special role in human history (Public Religion Research Institute, 2013). While second nature to many (including until recently the man I mentioned above) let’s look deeper.
1. Old Testament prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit to reveal God working in history; no one since has been so inspired!
As Dr. Noll explains:
“Traditional Christian theology certainly includes a belief in providence—that God is perpetually active in sustaining the world and especially involved in spreading the Christian message.But traditional theology also includes a built-in suspicion of presumptuous claims to fathom providence, to know the mind of God. False prophets claim to speak for God and see the world as God sees it. True prophets point to the divine words of Scripture and the church’s long history of reflection on those words.”
Any of us might claim to know why certain things happened or know God’s purposes in various events, but ultimately we none of us know. Even those in the charismatic/prophetic wing of the church make mistakes.
Witness Jeremiah Johnson, a well-known prophet who incorrectly predicted Donald Trump would win re-election, only to later write on January 7 (the day after the attack on the US Capitol):
“God Himself anointed Donald Trump in 2016 and then removed him from office in 2020 because of his own pride and arrogance. Joe Biden’s becoming the 46th President of the United States is meant to humble not only Donald Trump but all those who worshipped him more than they kept their focus on Jesus Christ.”
Many of his followers did not take kindly to his failed prophecy or the reasons given for God changing his mind. Three days later on January 10, Mr. Johnson wrote in a Facebook post (viewed over 6,000 times) about these reactions:
“Over the last 72 hours, I have received multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry.To my great heartache, I’m convinced parts of the prophetic/charismatic movement are far SICKER than I could have ever dreamed of. I truthfully never realized how absolutely triggered and ballistic thousands and thousands of saints get about Donald Trump. It’s terrifying! It’s full of idolatry!”
2. Only once did God chose a nation as his special people: Old Testament Israel. Israel was chosen as the vehicle of God’s mission to the larger world. Israel was subsequently replaced in this role by the worldwide church of Jesus Christ, God’s new special people “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Wherever followers of Jesus live across the globe, our first loyalty is to this “communion of saints,” not to the piece of geography where we each live.
During the years I lived in Ethiopia, on return trips to the US I was always glad to hear the Customs officer say, “Welcome home.” But with my life deeply engaged with another part of the worldwide Body of Christ, I came to see as never before that, while I truly love my native land, my true home is with a diverse people of all races, colors and nationalities who all follow Jesus.
3. The Puritans were far more nuanced than stories told about them often reveal.
The Puritans did come to American seeking “religious freedom” from a repressive government. However, they then vigorously denied that same freedom to all who disagreed with them, ejecting them from their “Holy Commonwealth” and sometimes even executing them. (They did the same in “old” England after Puritans won the English civil war in the 1640’s.)
The Puritans were so certain that God was on their side, anyone against them must automatically be against God as well; this legacy has metastasized today in frightening ways we see in our news every day.
As one who has extensively studied the Puritans, they (as all Christians) are a mixed witness: many truly admirable aspects of their society exist alongside several deeply disturbing episodes, e.g. their violence toward the Indians.
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Dr. Noll spoke above about “the conspicuous Christian presence in American history.” We do not need to believe America is “divinely chosen” to celebrate many ways Christians have maintained a positive influence on our society, from local communities to national issues. Perhaps foremost among them is how the American church is remaining relatively vital in the face of secularism compared to churches across Europe that are now shadows of their former vitality.
However, we must again admit that the evidence of Christian influence is mixed. Would not most honest observers admit portions of American Christians throughout history are on the “wrong” side of some issues, while others are on the “right” side? Southern Christians fought to keep their slaves just as fiercely as Northern Christians fought to free them. Some Christians defied the Jim Crow terrorism of black Americans even as many other Christians promoted them. As Dr. Noll writes in classic understatement,
“black Americans who still experience the destructive effects of slavery and systematic national discrimination may not come to the same conclusions about God and the nation as their white fellow citizens do.”
And that’s the rub: a majority of those who speak of “Christian America” are implicitly–and today often explicitly–actually speaking of White Christian America. But that’s a topic for a different day.
What is your next step?
Lent is easy to ignore because self-examination is hard. Step 4 of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous requires: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” It takes real courage.
What might we confess? Israel often warped their calling as God’s people into an “God is on our side, so anything goes” mentality. Some Christian nationalists use the same thinking to justify their actions today (as some did who attacked our Congress on January 6). If we equate God’s will with our political vision, we engage in idolatry. We trust our party, our leader, our righteous issues, to save us. Only God saves. Only God is worthy of our trust and worship.
A Christian’s ultimate Lord is Jesus Christ. A Christian’s primary loyalty is to the church of which Jesus is the Head. Anything else is idolatry.
What hope might we claim? Even when Israel often failed in their calling to represent God to the larger world, the Lord sent prophets with the promise of renewal: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)
It is at the cross where “the iniquity of us all” is laid on Jesus, including our temptations to substitute nation, party or political leader for God. At the cross Jesus absorbed the evil consequences of all idolatries, whenever and wherever humans worship themselves or their own creations (nations, political parties, politicians).
As a Presbyterian, my spiritual ancestor John Calvin believed that idolatry is the primary human sin; Satan’s seduction in the Garden was “you too can be like God.” If idolatry seems more attractive and powerful today, the power of Jesus’ resurrection confirms that it, too, shall be swallowed up in victorious new life.
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Between now and that final victory, we do well to remember Abraham Lincoln’s answer when asked to join in prayer that God might favor the North in the Civil War. Lincoln answered that, while Northerners might want to pray that God was on their side, it was far more important to pray they would be on God’s side.
May we each find grace to courageously and humbly discern the difference between my side and God’s side.
