(A View We Think is in Harmony
with Jesus’ Outlook)
By David Maas
I’m encouraged at last to see a leader from the evangelical
wing of the church state that the United States is not a “Christian nation.” For
several reasons this is a message which needs to be declared clearly and loudly
by genuine believers.
I wrote you some months ago expressing my growing view that
true Christians have no business involving themselves in politics. In my opinion
such activities are incompatible with the kind of discipleship demanded of
believers by Jesus and are detrimental to the cause of the Gospel. The latter
reason is of particular concern. You respectfully expressed your disagreement
with me. I am hoping that your views on such matters are changing. The present
“crisis” in America is only confirming my position in my own mind. I’ve been
quite disappointed in the public pronouncements of several evangelical leaders
calling for brutal retaliation against America’s perceived enemies using tones
that smack of bloodlust. How they square this with the Bible’s admonitions to
believers against retaliation (e.g. Matt. 5 & Rom. 12) is beyond me. The
relevant issue to us is not the political realities with which a secular
state must deal, but what Jesus requires of his disciples in any given
situation. “What Would Jesus Do?” is a question superficially popular with
evangelicals, but one to which it seems most believers give no serious
consideration when it comes to the issue of war.
The New Testament portrays the church, at least as it
should be, as the true people of God, Israel reconstituted in Christ (Gal. 6:16;
Phil. 3:3), the Body of Christ, the assembly of God’s people, a people set apart
to God and His service. It is to be a people without the traditional boundaries
of ethnicity, nationality, gender, social and economic status. We are to be
an international community without borders and with membership defined
simply as being “in Christ.” We are tasked with calling all who will hear to
join this same trans-national community of believers. Hyper-nationalism
and waging war on others cannot promote such an endeavor. They make it
impossible. What are believers in China or Germany to think when “good
Christianity” requires us to be American patriots? Are believers in Cuba living
under a regime hostile to America required by Jesus to be super Cuban patriots?
In the New Testament I find no trace of an agenda concerned with propagating any
particular economic or political theory (except that of the Kingdom of God). The
concern of the NT writers, based largely on their eschatological outlook, was to
call out a people to and for God, not for social, political or economic reform
of present nation-states. We as evangelical believers understand that the Law of
God, which was holy and perfect, completely failed to change the hearts of men.
Do we honestly believe that we can now do so in America via the political
process and the imperfect laws of man? If we understand this, why do we waste
our precious time trying to reform society and “engage the culture?” If we
understand that this world system is doomed, that righteousness will not prevail
until this present evil age is ended and the new one ushered in by Jesus at his
“Parousia” [Second Coming], why do we continue to spend our time working in and
for the world system rather than preaching the gospel to all nations? This is
completely illogical. It defies common sense.
Due generally to the government’s occasional propaganda
needs to invoke the name of “God,” and more particularly to the efforts of far
too many evangelical preachers, Christianity is identified with “western
civilization” and equated with America in the minds of millions around the
globe, a rather strange thought considering that Jesus was a first-century
Palestinian Jew brought up in a largely Semitic society. The Crusades undertaken
“in the name of Christ” have served permanently to close the minds of many to
the Kingdom Gospel of Jesus Christ. The same can be said of the Catholic
Inquisition and the “Christian” religious wars in Europe following the
Reformation. Are we as believers not concerned that by associating the Gospel of
Christ with America, American foreign policy and military interventionism, we
are having a similar effect on the hearts of millions? Is this the way to win
enemies for Christ? Considering the damage the American government frequently
inflicts elsewhere do we really want the rest of the world to equate America (or
any other particular nation) with Christianity? How does this help to open doors
to the Gospel? Today there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Why should they
open their hearts to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ when in their minds
America delivers bombs along with Bibles? Already the threats and pronouncements
of America’s leaders have exacerbated an existing human disaster in Afghanistan.
How does this help the cause of Christ? What will be the result when
indiscriminate bombing by American planes kills thousands of civilians in
Afghanistan or Iraq? Do we really expect a father whose wife or child is killed
by American bombs to love America?
For years I have found it disturbing that whenever
evangelical preachers rail against America’s “moral decline” they invariably
bring up adultery, homosexuality, pornography and the like. Yes, these are
egregious sins. But why do I hear not even a peep of protest from them about the
hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed in other countries directly and
indirectly by the actions of the American government? Certainly such preachers
decry the horrific crime of abortion in America, but why no concern over the
deaths of foreign children? Is it only murder when a child is killed inside
the womb, or do we just not care about foreign children? Is God more upset over
the less than 2% of Americans who practice homosexuality or the estimated
million or so Iraqi men, women and children who have died over the last ten
years as a result of a US-enforced economic blockade? Is God more angered by
sexual sins or the shedding of innocent blood?
I am not arguing for anti-Americanism or some alternative
political agenda (though I find I cannot turn a blind eye to the many horrific
acts committed by America over the last century). I’m attempting to demonstrate
that something is seriously wrong in the thinking of far too many American
evangelicals. I’m arguing for nonparticipation in politics and war, which is the
political process taken to its ultimate extreme. I am advocating this first for
the practical reason that such activities do damage to the gospel; they serve to
close minds to the truth. Obviously dropping bombs on someone will not engender
positive sentiments in response. Similarly politics creates as many enemies as
friends. As practiced in western democracies politics is a game whereby
competing groups work to benefit themselves at the expense of others. A farm
subsidy may help the farmer but how does the taxpayer compelled to pay for it
feel? When evangelical leaders ally the cause of Christ with the Republican
Party, does that help acceptance of the gospel by those who perceive that
Republican policies are detrimental to their own interests? Frankly many of the
policies championed by Republicans and our current President will be harmful to
my own family when implemented. I’m not afraid of others taking offense at my
Christianity but should we offend them when there is no need? And by voting for
politicians do we not incur some culpability in any evil deeds they subsequently
do “on our behalf”?
I also oppose political participation and war for
reasons of biblical principle. We find it convenient to use modern ideas of
distinctions between the “secular and the spiritual” and individual and
collective action to help us tone down the commands of Scripture. Hence
“personal” retaliation is sinful and forbidden whereas “collective” revenge
carried out through the secular state is perfectly acceptable. But such
distinctions do not appear in Scripture, which presents Jesus’ Lordship as a
sovereignty extending over all things, whether above, on or below the earth. The
kind of obedience and loyalty demanded of Christ’s true and willing subjects is
so total that it is incompatible with the kind of absolute loyalty so frequently
demanded by secular states. Is this not borne out by history? Do we not
understand that totalitarian governments persecute Christians not due to
theological differences but because true Christians answer to an authority much
higher than the state, an attitude the state simply cannot tolerate? Properly
understood the teachings of Jesus will inevitably be viewed by society and
government as so “radical” as to be subversive. That’s why they killed Jesus.
I read yesterday the words of one prominent columnist
referring to the “freedom we worship” in America. I like freedom as well as the
next man, but “worship” it? Does not the love of country, flag and all things
military so prominent in American evangelicalism border on idolatry? Do we
identify ourselves first and foremost as “Christian” or “American”? We like to
think that if we had lived under a regime like Hitler’s we would
never have supported or participated in the government and policies of Nazi
Germany. The behavior of the churches and Christians of Germany at the time
argues otherwise. How many American Christians protested the incarceration of
Japanese-Americans or Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War 2? Were any voices
raised in protest against the deliberate firebombing of purely civilian targets
in Germany and Japan by American forces in 1944 and 1945? We rightly condemned
the German Luftwaffe for the London blitz but cheered on our own boys when they
reduced places like Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo to smoldering rubble. Is it not
blasphemous when Christians advocate killing other human beings for whom Christ
also died?
I write this in the hope that you and others will begin to
teach believers correct perspectives on such matters and, over the long run,
perhaps help to disassociate Christianity and the gospel of Christ from the
American body politic. Again, my reasons are not political and I am not
advocating anti-Americanism. But should we not look at things from the biblical
perspective? America like all other nations is part of the present world order;
it is a product of this present evil age. As a national unit it will not survive
the return of Christ. My point is that we as believers need to spend our lives,
energies and talents preaching the gospel to all nations. Anything that impedes
that mission must be avoided, and equating the policies of the United States,
“democracy” and the like with Christianity only serves to create more
impediments to the gospel. I fear that we have only begun to see the enormous
damage done to the cause of Christ by equating it with America and “western
civilization.”
