The American Quandary

I want to think about America in this blog post. I realize that addressing the American experiment, as some have called it, is wading into the swirling whirlpool of topics that include government, religion, and freedom. Yet Christians everywhere are feeling the compulsion to explain what is happening in the land we love. The changes that have been slow and subtle over the last several decades have shifted into high gear. The sheer speed of change is like fast wind in our eyes; we need goggles to deflect the wind and allow us to see what is happening. This post will hopefully make for some clearer vision in this regard, yet there is an even higher goal. I want you to love your church more. Now, I know that seems like a bolt from the blue, a rather disconnected aim in a post about America, but I hope to get you there nonetheless.

The American quandary is what to do about freedom. We all want it, but we don’t want it for the other person. Of course you say you do, but you really don’t. You don’t want your neighbor to have the freedom to steal from you, or abuse you, or kill you. Hence, we want laws. But what do laws do? They limit freedom. So what we actually want is a restricted freedom, but restricted in ways that allow the most freedom possible. The job of government is to enact laws that will bring the most freedoms to the most people, while still protecting its people. So what kind of laws will do that? And that is the most important question. Another way to ask that question is, “How do we manage freedom in a fallen world with fallen people?” Framed that way, we realize we have turned the corner into the immaterial and spiritual realm where morality is defined. A final way to ask this question is, “How do we legislate the spiritual issues of morality?”

This raises one more question. Whose version of morality is going to be legislated? There are lots of options out there. There is biblical morality, Islamic morality, secular humanism morality and more. While all of the options share some overlap, Christians believe that only one option, the biblical option, is consistent, life-giving, and makes for fullest freedom. Any other option will ultimately contradict itself to the degree it deviates from the biblical worldview.

With the above as a foundation, we now begin to wrestle with the American quandary. Christians believe that America was founded on a biblical morality. Certainly not all of the founding fathers were evangelical Christians, but almost all of them operated upon the principles and morality derived from a biblical worldview. That foundation led to further laws also based upon a biblical worldview. What is hard to swallow for many in today’s America is that happened while they simultaneously upheld the Establishment clause, stating there will be no state-sanctioned religion. The founding fathers understood there is no contradiction between establishing biblical morality and not establishing or mandating a state church.

At this point, let’s enthusiastically say that no state-sanctioned church is a good thing. While you can legislate morality, you can’t actually change hearts. That is God’s work, and God operates in the church, through leadership and laity, to shepherd and confront the hearts of people. If a society tries to join the military power of government to the care of souls, one of two things happens. The government will use physical and economic power to force the superficial growth of the church, or the religious arm of the government will become a figurehead that is lifeless and pointless. History gives us examples of both disasters.

Now we are in a place to fully grasp the American quandary. If laws are going to be legitimate and consistent, they need to be based upon a biblical morality. But if there is no state church that makes laws and keeps laws that have a biblical basis, then a free people can begin to legislate from whatever kind of morality they want. So what are you going to do? You need laws that only the Bible provides a foundation for, but you have (wisely) barred yourself from a mechanism to create those specific kinds of laws. The people are free, and if they don’t want biblical-based, consistent laws, then they can create whatever kind they want. As the people go, so goes the nation.

I believe this means that the American experiment will last only as long as there are enough Christians, or at least Christian-influenced people, who will vote in legislators who will make those kind of laws. America had that at the beginning. We don’t have that now. Therefore, we are seeing good laws being undermined. Religious liberty is openly challenged, socialism is on the rise, and immoral practices are celebrated and protected instead of disparaged. There is a new morality in town, and it is writing new laws for a new America. The freedom we have cherished will soon be the freedom through which we commit suicide. What can America do? As Abraham Lincoln said, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

I said at the beginning that my main goal was to make you love your church. Maybe you can see that a little clearer now. There is no fail-proof government. Government in a fallen world is run by fallen people. Government will ignore you through monarch, crush you through dictator, or deal a self-inflicted fatality of the people and by the people. So where else can you turn that has a biblical morality and a mechanism that protects and upholds the freedoms of conscience and heart obedience to God’s laws? The church is that place. To be sure, there is no physical force that the church wields. The church and government cannot unite at this time. Not until Christ the King comes back to earth will that happen. But until then, in the church, the mirror of God’s law is held up before the hearts of people. At the heart level, we have broken all the laws. We need a Savior, and we have one in the ultimate law-keeper, Jesus Christ. Through the gospel we have been given His Spirit and a new heart to obey the laws of love. Where there is disobedience, we are held accountable by the people of God. This is the kind of situation we long for in an earthly government, but you will only find a spiritual version of it in the church.

So what can you do? You can vote, and work your job, and promote justice in your community. You should do all of those. But even better is to go to church and breathe the air of holiness and gospel freedom. Rejoice with God’s people in the new covenant that will one day install King Jesus over all. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations by preaching the gospel in every sphere of your life. And if the church embraces that call, with a humble broken prayer for God’s powerful work, God just might bring forth much fruit and, before we know it, fill our land with Christians once again who start voting good laws back into place.