The End of Christian America: A Commentary

If you haven’t read the post from last evening, The End of Christian America, I hope you will take the time to do so. Not just the portions of the Newsweek article (the link to the entire article is included) but the comments left under it.

Today, after seeing that many news org and secular websites/blogs and boards had also posted portions of it for discussion, I spent time reading through many comments left elsewhere (many from the lost), and posted a few of them also.

Below is a commentary written concerning the Newsweek article by Kato Mivule. I hope you’ll read this too..

Newsweek: The End of Christian America; A Commentary

Jon Meacham published a scorching yet realistic article in Newsweek about the decline of Christianity in America, but to some Christians who have been involved in the Apologetic and Discernment ministry, this is not new information…

For some years now, many sincere Christians in America have foretold of a collapse of American Evangelical Christianity and how spiritually unsustainable its political ambition is.

The advent of George W Bush and the use of Evangelical Christians in voting him into office to legislate morality, raised the eyebrows of some discerning Christians during the past eight years concerning how political Christianity, in fact, cemented the fall of Evangelical America as we know it.

Yes, the article is ‘scorching’ to anyone who still believes in the notion of a ‘Christian Nation’, the Political Christianity Ideology of “Taking Back America”, and legislation of Morality in America.

For sure the Glen Beck and Sean Hannity crowd will not like the article, but  any true and sincere Christian will not fail to see that the marriage between Evangelical America and Politics was a disaster, and not a good testimony for Jesus Christ among the unchristian world.

Jon Meacham’s main observation, as to the reasons for the End of Christian America, is mainly the marriage between Political America and the Evangelical Rise of the Religious Right.

The Author rightly notes how Evangelicals were sidetracked into believing that they could turn America into a Christian Nation and enforce Laws based on the Christian Bible – Hebrew and New Testament. In other words obedience to Christ Jesus was supposed to be the Law of the land.

“What, then, does it mean to talk of “Christian America”? Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles. If the church believes drinking to be a sin, for instance, then the laws of the state should ban the consumption of alcohol. If the church believes the theory of evolution conflicts with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, then the public schools should tailor their lessons accordingly. If the church believes abortion should be outlawed, then the legislatures and courts of the land should follow suit. The intensity of feeling about how Christian the nation should be has ebbed and flowed since Jamestown; there is, as the Bible says, no thing new under the sun. For more than 40 years, the debate that began with the Supreme Court’s decision to end mandatory school prayer in 1962 (and accelerated with the Roe v. Wade ruling 11 years later) may not have been novel, but it has been ferocious. Fearing the coming of a Europe-like secular state, the right longed to engineer a return to what it believed was a Christian America of yore.” – (Newsweek: Jon Meacham: The End of Christian America, April 4th , 2009)

The Author does not dwell much on Mainstream Christianity in America but focuses on Political Evangelical America, which had become the face of Christianity in America around the globe.

American Evangelical Christianity had turned into a political machine and was used by politicians for their own gains. Christians in America have been viewed as warmongers, fear mongers, haters, supporters of corrupt politicians, etc. The Name of The Lord has been blasphemed among unchristian world because of this adulterous relationship between church and state.

Romans 2:24
(24)  For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

The truth is, we were deceived by those who claimed to be leaders of the Westernized Christian Movement. We were deceived into believing in a Christian Utopia in which Christianity would rule the ‘Great United States of America’ and thus usher in an Era of Christian Morality in the USA and around the World.

“And they have learned that politics does not hold all the answers—a lesson that, along with a certain relief from the anxieties of the cultural upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s, has tended to curb religiously inspired political zeal. “The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics over the last 30 years has been an incredible naiveté about politics and politicians and parties,” says Mohler. “They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are transpolitical issues and problems. If we were in a situation that were more European, where the parties differed mostly on traditional political issues rather than moral ones, or if there were more parties, then we would probably have a very different picture. But when abortion and a moral understanding of the human good became associated with one party, Christians had few options politically.” – (Newsweek: Jon Meacham: The End of Christian America, April 4th , 2009)

We were deceived by Western Evangelical Leaders that by America going to war in Iraq and using her military might, the gospel could come to the Muslim world. We were deceived into believing that the military might of America and her going to war was a missionary Endeavour.

Yet even most disturbing is the fact that some evangelicals, especially in the Evangelical blogsphere, are still pushing hard to build a Christian Utopia in America.

The Author of the article – Jon Meacham was spot-on in highlighting some of these pitfalls. Just take a look at your inbox and note all the emails still coming out of Evangelical America, this time with a Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh Flavor.

When that party failed to deliver—and it did fail—some in the movement responded by retreating into radicalism, convinced of the wickedness and venality of the political universe that dealt them defeat after defeat. (The same thing happened to many liberals after 1968: infuriated by the conservative mood of the country, the left reacted angrily and moved ever leftward.) – (Newsweek: Jon Meacham: The End of Christian America, April 4th , 2009)

However, this is no reason to despair. This is in no way the ‘End of Christianity’ in America…it is the End of Political Evangelical Christianity in America.

Evangelical Christianity will no longer have a seat in American power structures in legislating Christian Morality.

It is a good thing: those who truly love Jesus Christ will continue to do so and now also preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, out of a heart with no political strings attached.

Christianity flourished under the Roman rule, with Christians being heavily persecuted yet they never sought to overthrow Caesar through political maneuvers and establish a Christian Empire.

Christianity has flourished best when under political leaders who seek to destroy it. Christians have flourished in China yet their freedoms have been suppressed by various Chinese rulers.

Christians in Africa and Asia have been tested under suppressing regimes but have remained faithful, yet American Christians thought they were an exception.

This was an illusion, a mirage, a deception.

It is time to come back to reality and take the words of Jesus Christ seriously which state you will be hated… That time has come; and we better be prepared to know how to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and declare His Truth, in an increasingly antagonistic world.

Though the Newsweek article by Jon Meacham exposes the bankruptcy and inadequacy of Political Evangelical America, it points to an increasingly Secular Humanistic world coupled with love and a good works as a solution to the ‘Faith Free Market’ of America.

“The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less…If we apply an Augustinian test of nationhood to ourselves, we find that liberty, not religion, is what holds us together. In “The City of God,” Augustine —converted sinner and bishop of Hippo—said that a nation should be defined as “a multitude of rational beings in common agreement as to the objects of their love.” What we value most highly—what we collectively love most—is thus the central test of the social contract.” – (Newsweek: Jon Meacham: The End of Christian America, April 4th , 2009)

However, this ‘Good Works Religious Secular Humanistic’ society is a utopia in itself and the greatest threat to Evangelical America, yet many Evangelicals think that it is Muslims who are the greatest threat to Christianity – another distraction to evangelical America.

Nevertheless, even under such secular humanistic societies like Europe, Christianity has not been stamped out but flourished underground.

The American Religious landscape will be much more like Europe – Secular. Yet even with such ‘adversity’, Christianity and True Christians have flourished when detached from the Political.  A little persecution will do American Evangelical Christians some good.

The time for the great humbling in Evangelical America is now; and we had better humble ourselves before God, before we are forced to.

The painful truth is that Evangelical Christianity in America was hijacked by some clever politicians and used for political gains. Our Evangelical leaders were sidetracked and deceived and some, to this day, are still drunk with ‘Political Christianity’ –  but we are pilgrims passing through this world and our focus is on that City built without human hands.

Hebrews 11:10
(10)  For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

In Christ Jesus
Kato Mivule