Should Christians Take over America & make it a Christian Nation?

Last week I wrote a column titled One Nation Under God where I noted that Islamic Fundamentalists have taken over government and established official Moslem nations. These nations, including Iraq’s under American leadership, have written the Koran’s authority right into their constitution and made their religious leaders major power brokers in their “One nation under Allah.” While I meant to raise the question of a potential alliance between Islamic and Christian fundamentalists to achieve similar social goals, the discussion ran far more toward should Christians try to make America a Christian Nation.

So, this week I’m offering a lot of reading on that subject for your enjoyment in case you too have time to read while I am on spring break. I did the hard reading and writing—if you are really interested in the question of Christians and culture read on with delight. If you have already made up your mind or don’t care, take a week off from reading this long article!

So, what is the relation of the church and culture? "In the world yet not of it?" Salt? Light? Yeast? Are we to simply be the church, or to change to world? The issue emerges periodically as a hot topic of discussion -- especially during times when our thinking is shifting on the subject. Perhaps a short glance at the last 50 years of the 20^th century among evangelicals might help us hammer out the position we will take in the 21^st century.

I plan to attempt three objectives in this extended column:

I. Give a short summary of each decade of the last half of the 20^th century.

II. Review the seminal book on this issue— Richard Neibuhr's 1951 book, Christ and Culture

III. Review eight books written right at the close of the 20^th century which I believe were precursors to the two major views seen in response to last week’s column.

Again, I should fairly warn you, if you are not interested in studying this matter more deeply this is a long column and those interested in blog-lite should probably click on to other blogs this week.

I. A short review of Church & Culture issues—1950-2000

1950’s

The 1950's Christians had a moral consensus in this nation. Sure, there was plenty of private, dirty linen but the public consensus generally supported Judeo-Christians values. Dwight Eisenhower, popular military commander of World War II, maintained a stable Presidency from 1952 to 1959, though the racial tensions in the South were a harbinger of the 60's to come. As for Christians, the main line church was in command. Their pastors hungrily consumed H. Richard Neibuhr's new book, Christ and Culture in 1951. He had set up the equation so that the "right answer" was number five: reform the culture. His book soon became sort of Magna Carta for a Christian liberalism bent on developing a "Great Society" based on Christian values -- a culture where people would not be judged by the "color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Main line denominational executives rallied their members to transform culture so that it might come to reflect kingdom values. What were the particular values they wanted to introduce into the culture and the political agenda? "Peace and justice."

Where were the evangelicals? Hiding in the hills! While "liberal Christians" opted for approach number five (transform-the-culture), most evangelicals functioned like they had picked number one (Christ-against-Culture separatism). Evangelicals went about their religion quietly, reaching people as they advertised (not in the newspaper but by word of mouth) their belief in a personal "born again experience." It was something the "formal church" or "liturgical church" didn't teach, they said. As for changing the culture, evangelicals (who seldom called themselves that in the 50's but rather preferred a denominational moniker) worried little about affecting "the world." They were too little. Too powerless. A minority. And they knew it. Many evangelicals even shrugged off their duty to vote except to keep divorced candidate Adlai Stevenson out of the Presidency. (It would be several decades before a divorced candidate would be elected –Ronald Reagan—with the whole-hearted support of evangelicals.

1960’s

Everything changed in the 1960's. John Kennedy was elected in 1960 in spite of opposition from most Protestants who thought he would "take orders from the pope." Kennedy was assassinated in the fall of 1963 and Lyndon Johnson followed him and began to enact the "Great Society" legislation which intended to establish the "Peace and Justice" society the transform-the-culture main-liners had called for since the 1950's.

Well, the justice part at least. The peace part was another story. Many mainline Protestant church leaders opposed the war in Vietnam and attempted to persuade their members to follow suit. Some did. Many did not. By the end of the 1960's JFK and Robert Kennedy had been killed, LBJ had been driven out of the race, Nixon was president, and the streets and college campuses were full of anti-war activism, hippies, free love, and about one in ten people who claimed to be there actually went to Woodstock in 1969.

Where were the Christians? Divided. A few took their transform-the-world activism into the streets to march against the war (peace) or for civil rights (justice) but most quietly sat back and watched the culture's "Christian consensus" unravel with the younger generation. The world-changers in the 60's were the radical young and their liberal leaders. The rest of the church stood by and watched things crumble. Main line church members had greater sympathies with some evangelicals than their own liberal leaders and they were especially angered at any denominational money diverted into something like the "Angela Davis defense Fund." In the 1960's evangelicals started calling themselves that: "Evangelicals" in public. Their unifying flag became the increasingly popular "fortnightly magazine” Christianity Today, introduced by Billy Graham in 1956, and the NAE was rising in influence. The evangelicals locally were quietly winning people to their churches and developing an evangelical unity… which later leaders would harness for political purposes.

1970’s

The 1970's started out with evangelicals focusing on evangelism. Bill Bright launched the first giant youth convention in Dallas, Explo '72 where 80,000 were trained in the use of Bright's "Four Spiritual Laws." The following year the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) launched a related interdenominational effort at evangelism dubbed "Key 73." Evangelicals were focused on evangelism.

By the middle of the 1970's evangelicals started to lose interest in evangelism—at about the time of Campus Crusade's "Here's Life America" and the "I found it!" campaigns were winding down,. Now they took a new interest in the potential of reforming the culture. Evangelicals were no longer on the side lines or located across the tracks. The "great churches" in the country were no longer the mainline downtown cathedrals – increasingly they were evangelical churches. Christian TV rose to power and opinion magnates like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson wielded more power than the main line church executives on "Riverside Drive" in New York. Increasingly mainline members identified with these "Evangelical Popes" on TV. Nixon had used the term "Silent Majority" and now the evangelicals founded the sound-alike "Moral Majority on the notion that the country was full of people agreeing with these preachers -- if they could just be organized to make a difference at the ballot box. When the 1976 Democrat Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter claimed to be "born again" the country did not screw up its face and wonder if he’d been talking to aliens—convicted Watergate criminal Charles Colson had already written a best selling book by that title explaining how he had himself been converted.

But evangelicals soon put evangelism on hold as political action took increasing attention. They were heady days; Newsweek magazine declared 1976 to be "The Year of the Evangelical." Evangelicals saw a chance to affect the world through the political process. We could reverse abortion rights, suppress the drive for gay rights, defeat attempts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment. We got access. Gained power. Elected Presidents. Had Senators.

Evangelicals and mainliners had switched positions. As evangelicals charged into the battle to reform the world, they passed the mainliners withdrawing. The 1989 book Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon outlined the main line alternative view to transforming-the-culture. They called the main line church to be the church -- as an alternative culture to the world. This book caused some change, but more likly it merely reflected the change already taking place -- main liners were withdrawing from the culture wars -- progressively discontent with the strident tones of the evangelical generals in the battle (and maybe even uneasy with the focus which was less about justice or peace and increasingly about legislating morality on unbelievers). Evangelicals were entering the war to re-make culture. They used their mammoth mailing lists to gather together a great "Moral Majority" into a “Christian Coalition” to “bring America back to its roots.”

1980’s

It's no wonder evangelicals believed they could do it. In 1980 they were the chief factor for the election of Ronald Reagan. At least they claimed so. There must really be a "moral majority;" this was the proof. Evangelical's hope was high. They'd soon see a return to Christian values. Soon this nonsense about women getting an "equal rights amendment" would be gone. Soon there'd be no more talk about "gay marriages." Not too far into the distant future we'd see prayer reintroduced into the public schools, maybe even by amending the constitution. It wouldn't be long until we'd see abortion totally outlawed -- after all with just a few more Supreme Court seats… And, if anybody could do it, Ronald Reagan could.

But evangelical were disappointed. Not in Ronald Reagan, for he was pronounced to have "done his best." But while Reagan had been an excellent cheerleader for the evangelical agenda, his administration just didn't pull off substantive changes. Like the Democrats use minorities to get elected, and then largely forget their agenda for the next four years, Republicans had functionally abandoned evangelicals. At best evangelicals could say, "Without Reagan it would have been worse." Tapping this newfound evangelical power in 1988, evangelical preacher Pat Robertson tried a run for the Republican nomination for President and couldn't get anywhere against George Bush. Evangelicals weren't that excited about Bush, but at least he was better than the opposition—and he had claimed that his favorite “philosopher” was Jesus Christ.

1990’s

The 1990's started off with sociologist James Davison Hunter's provocative book Culture Wars (1991). National newsmagazines started portraying a "culture war" under way with evangelicals (the "religious right") on one side and "progressives" or liberals” on the other. The war was increasingly just that -- a war. War language was employed and militant strategies against abortion and gay rights were adopted. Onward Christian Soldiers was not sung so much as lived. Churches became political action outlets, something the American black church had always been. Chain-of-life organizers used the church. People blocked abortion clinics. Boycotts were organized. And, though evangelicals were never Geroge Bush (I) lovers, they quickly lined up behind him and fought against a Bill Clinton they did not trust, often passing around made-up gossip and circulating jokes of sex