Monday, November 2, 2009
In his song “With God on our Side”, a disillusioned Bob Dylan wrestles with America’s past identity as a Christian nation, questioning whether God was using America or if America was using God. In doing so, he underscores a theme of the American mythos as old as the nation itself.
The relationship between faith and politics in America has long been contentious. Presidents have invoked God to justify policies. Religion, particularly evangelicalism, has invoked America to broaden influence, while the cry for separation between the two has never been louder.
If the debate about church and state seems perennial in today’s public forum, a historical look at the Christian church might explain why.
At its outset, Christianity was not only separate from the state, it was illegal. On the fringes of the Roman Empire, adherents gathered in secrecy to avoid persecution or worse.
Yet, under such marginalization, the faith thrived, growing vastly in numbers and in aid to the poor. Unlike evangelicals today, adherents never sought influence through political means. Early followers were even pacifists, protesting Roman military drafts of the day. To them, holy war seemed an oxymoron.
Then in the fourth century, Emperor Theodosius I adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. For the first time, the church was in bed with the state. Christianity was plunged to the forefront of government affairs and the Western world changed forever.
This intertwining of sacred and state altered the church’s stance on many issues, including pacifism. Crosses were plastered on the front of shields and wars were first waged for a prince of peace. Religious faith became not an active personal decision, but a passive collective assumption.
Rome, like America after it, appeared to have God on its side.
Historian David L. Holmes concludes that none of America’s first five presidents were Christian in any conventional sense. Yet a Christian America has remained prevalent in the minds of many throughout history, perhaps with more fingerprints of Rome than they would care to admit.
In his book “Myth of a Christian Nation,” Dr. Gregory Boyd notes history’s effect on the American mythos.
“We have tended to believe that God’s will was manifested in the conquest and founding of our country,” he writes. “The truth is that the concept of America as a Christian nation is losing its grip on the collective psyche.”
If Boyd’s assertion is true, and if history is any teacher, perhaps it’s reason for Americans both sacred and secular to rejoice.
Though the constitution nowhere mentions “separation of church and state,” it does promise a government free of religious bias. The more pluralistic America Boyd foresees would more accurately reflect the diversity of worldviews in American society, as well as the constitutional framers’ intent.
As for the church, perhaps finally shedding the stigma of a Christian nation — and the shadow of Rome — would set communities of faith free, enabling them to reach out and focus where they always have best: along the margins of society. Indeed, it is there that Mother Teresa visited far more lepers than politicians.
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