Category: Culture

“The idol is the measure of the worshiper.”

James Russell Lowell

With the preoccupation of the news cycle with Michael Jackson apparently large number of Americans continue to live vicariously through people who become embodiments for their individual and collective existence. A person, such as Jackson, becomes abstracted and reified by the image making media with the result that people find large measures of their identity in the identity of the celebrity idol.

This would be bad enough if celebrity and hero were synonymous. They are not. The celebrity, unlike the hero who was known for his character, is known for being known. The celebrity has a skill but is launched into celebrity status for his signature personality or identifying habit. With Michael Jackson the identifying habit was his overall bizarreness. We love the celebrity — and this is the scary part when it comes to Michael Jackson — because in loving the celebrity we are loving ourselves because the celebrity is just us said loudly. Don’t fool yourself. This Jackson funeral isn’t so much an outpouring of love for Jackson as much as it is an outpouring of love for ourselves. In mourning the deceased Michael Jackson people are affirming how much they love themselves.

And what is it that people love about themselves that was embodied by Jackson? Could it be superficiality as exemplified by the lyrics of Jackson’s songs? Could it be the ability to remake ourselves in any image that was exemplified by Jackson’s surgical morphing? Could it be the ability to live beyond norms that was exemplified in Jackson’s life?

The whole funeral then becomes an exercise of self-congratulation. Michael Jackson was worthy of all this maudlin attention because we are worthy of all this maudlin attention. In the end the funeral is all about cultural narcissism.

Next as we look at this funeral what we see is the American Pravda media pushing and much of America apparently swallowing is an abstracted and reified idol, who, in a normal culture, would be considered anything but a hero. Indeed, I have been wondering with the Michael Jackson death marathon if this is more about the media elite pushing a distorted lifestyle then it is about pushing Michael Jackson and his music.

Consider that Michael Jackson in many respects is the perfect poster child for Cultural Marxism. He was not white. He was sexually dysfunctional. He had a non-traditional family. He was not Christian in any historic sense. Are not these descriptors the very thing for which the culturally Marxist elite are angling? So, Michael dies and suddenly cultural Marxism has the opportunity to glorify those very things that the cultural Marxist elites are trying to main stream. With the exalting of the twisted the overthrow of the normal is achieved.

I hope I won’t be misunderstood with this piece. This isn’t about whether or not someone liked or didn’t like Michael Jackson’s music. This is not about not having sympathy for a man obviously hurt and damaged by those things that marched through his life. This is about the meaning surrounding Jackson’s death as defined by the circus surrounding it.

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity.”

President John Adams

“[T]he teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally….impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed.”

President Teddy Roosevelt

“America was born a Christian nation – America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”

President Woodrow Wilson

“American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon . . . [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago.”

President Herbert Hoover

“This is a Christian Nation.”

President Harry Truman

“Let us remember that as a Christian nation . . . we have a charge and a destiny.”

President Richard Nixon

“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”

“One of the greatest strengths of the United States’ is that it does not consider itself ‘a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

President Barack Hussein Obama

In the last post I worked on teasing out what is required in order for a nation to be considered “Christian.” In summary I said that what must be considered in answering that question are both the Dejure considerations and the Defacto considerations. I argued that the founding Dejure covenanting document of these united States (the Constitution) was quite weak in establishing America as a Christian nation.

However, I also argued that in a Defacto sense the evidence is overwhelming that we operated for decades and decades as a Christian nation as can be seen in the countless official documents and pronouncements that have come from America’s civil institutions and from her elected officials.

In this post I want to look at the question as to whether or not we are currently a “Christian nation.” I want to ask if President Obama was correct to say we are no longer a Christian nation.

Before we do that though, I want to briefly make the case that every nation is a nation that belongs to some god and as such is organized as a theocracy. Nations are constructed culturally and as cultures are theologies incarnated it is inevitable that a nation will belong to the God behind the incarnated theology, even when the god of the culture isn’t explicitly named. Even in a so called “secular” nation, that disavows any god is operating on the basis that the god of the culture is the people autonomously considered. They disavow all gods as the god of their nation because they are the god of the nation.

Now as we turn to whether or not we are currently a Christian nation we should pay attention briefly to our Presidents opinion.

1.) Note that Obama subtly concedes that we were at one time a Christian nation when he says, “Whatever we once were…”

2.) When Obama invokes the idea that we are a people who are bound by ideals and a set of values he begs the questions of our religious orientation since it is religion that produces ideals and sets of values. Obviously we are a people who are bound by ideals and a set of values but then all peoples, along with other factors, are bound by ideals and sets of values. The question that has to be asked is what theology or religion is serving as the fount out of which our ideals and values bubble up.

3.) According to our President we are a people of many gods and no gods. This is a admission that we are a people and a Nation who are polytheistic in our cultural orientation.

The problem with this is that no culture can cohesively function that is genuinely polytheistic. This is due to the fact that in a genuinely polytheistic culture there would be unremitting conflict since the various demands of the competing gods would forever put the followers of those gods at each others throats. In a truly polytheistic culture, there would be continuous culture wars.

As such wherever polytheistic cultures exist they can only function if there is some entity that is in charge of the competing gods setting limits as to how far the claims of the competing gods can be taken. For example, when the will of Allah teaches that women must cover themselves in public comes into conflict with the will of the feminist god who says that women can be topless in the public square some god has to step in to adjudicate the public square conflict between the gods.

This god of the gods in polytheistic cultures becomes the state. The state becomes the policeman of the gods. The state determines how far the gods can and can’t go in the public square. The state tells the adherents of the various gods how seriously they are allowed to take the commands and will of their respective gods.

The ironic consequence of this is that polytheism creates a monotheistic culture. Because polytheism has so many gods, some god must be badged to police the gods. The state then is the monotheistic entity that creates the common bonds that creates a common culture and all gods are welcome as long as all gods are willing to serve the god of the state.

Having said all that I would agree with President Obama that we are a polytheistic nation. The evidence that gives this reality is how the defacto arrangement in this country has gone from implicitly Christian to implicitly humanism. One only has to look at the recent decisions regarding homosexual marriage. Whereas once upon a time the Supreme Court could make rulings about the unacceptability of polygamous marriages saying,

“Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries.”

And in another case, the Court similarly explained:

“The organization of a community for the spread and practice of polygamy is . . . . contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western world.

now the courts are making rulings about the acceptability of homosexual marriage saying,

“We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”

“Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring that government avoids them.”

“This approach does not disrespect or denigrate the religious views of many Iowans who may strongly believe in marriage as a dual-gender union, but considers, as we must, only the constitutional rights of all people, as expressed by the promise of equal protection for all.”

Say what you will about these decisions, and a multitude of other examples could be produced, some of which are in the opening quotes of this post, but obviously some kind of worldview shift has moved these united States from organizing themselves as a Christian nation to organizing themselves as a polytheistic nation.

Now certainly Christianity continues to contend, along with all the other competitors, for pride of place in our polytheistic nation but what is important to note is that the state is increasingly becoming that entity that polices the gods in the public square and so is in all essence the god of the gods.

All of this is to say that when Independence Day of 2009 roles around we must admit that if we remain a Christian nation it is only marginally so and that there continues an attempt, through the pursuit of multiculturalism, to polytheize us.

We are now in a flux stage where the Defacto sense of who we are as a nation is rapidly shifting and the result of this pursuit of polytheism will be that the eventuality that the one entity that will give us the capacity to function as a cohesive culture is the state taking on the prerogatives of god.

“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”

“One of the greatest strengths of the United States’ is that it does not consider itself ‘a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

President Barack Hussein Obama

On Independence Day 2009 I would like to explore whether or not we can say that we are a “Christian nation.” In order to do so I am going to examine the components we might expect to find in a Christian nation. I hope to show that when it comes to the issue of whether or not these united States are a Christian nation the conclusions suggest that we are a mixed bag.

Exploring the issue of whether or not a nation is a Christian country is a bit more complex then exploring the issue of whether or not a person is a Christian. If we were to look at a individual we would look to see if they were Baptized and if they were members in good standing with a credible profession of faith in a true Church. However one can’t baptize a nation and a nation can’t be a member of good standing in a true church.

Setting parameters require us to admit that a Christian nation is not nor ever has been a nation where all the citizens are genuine Christians, nor is a Christian nation one where every single public official is a genuine Christian. Just as in a Christian church there will be tares among the wheat so in a Christian nation there will be tares.

So what should we look for when asking whether or not a nation is Christian?

I would submit the first thing to look for is whether or not a nation (a people) is Christian is whether or not the nation’s founding public documents recognize the sovereignty of God. This idea of a people covenanting with God is found throughout Scripture. The whole book of Deuteronomy is a document where the nation covenant with God before entering into the promised land. Another example we find is in II Kings 23 where King Josiah, recognizing how Israel had violated covenant, renews covenant with God as part of Israel’s repentance.

This kind of thinking sounds strange to our ears today but we need to recognize that this idea of covenanting with God was not strange to early America. As early as the Mayflower compact stretching through the Royal colonial charters and embracing the early colonial constitutions we have documents that explicitly, in one form or another, recognize the rule of the God of the Bible.

Here are but a few examples, (more examples can be accessed easily through google.)

Delaware Oath For Public Office

“I, _________, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”

NORTH CAROLINA, 1776:

ARTICLE 32. That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.”

“CONSTITUTION OF VERMONT — July 8, 1777

SECTION 9…And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz.

“I ____ do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and Punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the Protestant religion.”

By means of these official public documents these were clearly constituted as Christian nations.

In stark contrast to these explicit colonial statements the constitution of these united States is a document were the elements of Biblical covenanting are completely absent.

1.) In the US constitution there is no directly conscious and meaningful mention of the sovereign authority of God. Instead what we find is that the sovereign authority is lodged in “We the people.” It is as if “We the people,” are serving as both parties in the covenant. “We the people,” are both the sovereign authority and those submitting to the sovereign authority.

2.) In the US constitution it is expressly said that, “No religious test shall ever be required for any office of public trust under these United States….” This statement is a poison pill against the idea of covenanting and so weighs heavily against the idea that, in a DeJure sense, these united State was constituted as a Christian nation.

In my estimation eliminating the need for a religious test itself became a kind of subversive humanist religious test as the deletion of a overtly religious test created and reinforced the mindset that man could operate autonomously apart from God.

3.) In the US constitution there is no reference to God’s law as the standard by which men would be ruled.

This stands in contrast to such governing documents such as “Abstract Of The Laws Of New England.” What we find in the constitution instead of laws anchored in Scripture is the statement, “This Constitution and the laws of the the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land…” As in the previous two examples it is as if some form of humanism is the reigning religion.

So, when we consider the US Constitution we must conclude that while it is a covenant document the covenant parties are “We the people,” with “We the people.” This is completely subjective and it is a form of humanism and such a document would hardly, in a Dejure sense, constitute a people as Christian.

This lack in the US constitution of acknowledging the Sovereignty of God and His Christ was not lost on people who lived during that time.

The attention of Washington was called to this omission. After he was inaugurated, in 1789, as the first President under the Constitution, the Presbytery Eastward, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, sent a Christian address to Washington, in which they say, “We should not have been alone in rejoicing to have seen some explicit acknowledgment of the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He
has sent, inserted somewhere in the Magna Charta of our country.”

Now to be fair we must admit there are a couple incidental references to Christianity and the God of the Bible in the US Constitution.

1.) The US constitution was signed “In the year of our Lord.”

Now this isn’t insignificant when one considers that in the French revolution there was an attempt to create a completely new calendar. The fact that the Constitution recognizes God in this fashion is a small indicator that these were a Christian people.

2.) The Sabbath exception clause.

Some argue that as the constitution exempts the Lord’s Day in counting as a day to be included in the count of days before a President was required to sign legislation indicates that the constitution is a Christian document.

These two examples, in my estimation, prove only that the context in which the constitution was written and signed was Christian. It doesn’t prove, in a Dejure sense, that our covenant document is Christian or that we were established as a Christian nation.

Now, having conceded that we must realize that the nation and government that was formed by the constitution was a government that was extraordinarily restricted. The issues of social order, and religious identity were to be left to the new states — which is why the Federal government was not allowed to establish a religion. Questions of religious supremacy were to be handled by the individual states.

Still, in retrospect it must be said that the US constitution made an egregious error by not explicitly invoking the sovereignty of God. So when we consider the Dejure aspect of whether or not we were established as a Christian nation we would have to say that looking at our founding document does not give us a great deal of hope on the issue.

We have been emphasizing the Dejure sense as it concerns our being founded as a Christian nation. Now, I want to change gears to the Defacto sense of the issue. Dejure is a Latin phrase that means “concerning law”, as contrasted with de facto, which means “concerning fact”.

I am convinced that while the Dejure sense of our being founded as a Christian nation is in doubt there can be no doubt that in a defacto sense that we have been for most of our existence a Christian nation.

The evidence for this is overwhelming and as been exhaustively and thoroughly documented in Robert Morris’ “The Christian Life and Character Of The Civil Institutions Of The United States.” Also one should access Christianity & The Constitution,” by Eidsmoe.

Here are but a few examples,

“The people of the colonies … are, therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. Their governments are popular in a high degree. If any thing were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, Religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion—always a principle of energy in this new people—is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants, and of that kind which is most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion, sir, not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. The dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern colonies is a refinement on the spirit of the principle of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the Northern Provinces. The colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the migrants was highest of all; and even the stream of foreigners which has been constantly flowing into these colonies has, for the greater part, been composed of dissenters of their own countries, and have brought with them a temper and a character far from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed. A fierce spirit of liberty has grown up; it has grown up with the growth of your people, and increased with the increase of their population and wealth—a spirit that, unhappily, meeting with an excess of power in England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any idea of liberty, much less with theirs, has
kindled this flame which is ready to consume us.”

Edmund Burke
Speech in British Parliament

Congress, the day before Washington was inaugurated, passed the following—

Resolved, That, after the oath shall be administered to the President, the Vice-President, and members of the Senate, the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives, will accompany him to St. Paul’s Chapel, to hear divine service performed by the Chaplains.

The first session of the first Congress was not suffered to pass without a solemn act of legislation recognizing the Christian religion. It was a national thanksgiving, proclaimed by the authority of Congress.

The Journals of Congress present the following record.

Sept. 25, 1789

Day of Thanksgiving

Mr. Boudinot said he could not think of letting the session pass without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them. With this view he would move the following resolution—

Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a constitution of government for their safety and happiness.

Mr. Sherman justified the practice of thanksgiving on any signal event, not only as a laudable one in itself, but as warranted by precedents in Holy Writ: for instance, the solemn thanksgiving
and rejoicing which took place in the time of Solomon after the building of the temple was a case in point. This example he thought worthy of imitation on the present occasion.

Countless more examples of this kind of thing can be found at,

http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=23909

All of this data indicates that there can be no doubt that in a defacto sense these united State were a Christian nation.

Part II — Are We A Christian Nation Today?

Dawson now pursues some questions for the Christian in light of living under a totalitarian state.

1.) What then is the position of the religious man and the religious society under these new political circumstances?

2.) How far does this new political development threaten the spiritual liberty which is essential to religion?

3.) Ought the Church condemn the totalitarian state in itself and prepare itself for resistance to the secular power and for persecution?

4.)Should the Church ally itself with the political and social forces that are hostile to the new state?

5.) Should the Church limit its resistance to cases of state interference in ecclesiastical matters on in theological questions?

6.) Are the new forms of authority and political organization reconcilable in principle with Christian ideas and are the issues that divide Church and State accidental and temporary ones which are extraneous to the essential nature of the new political development?

Dawson offers a few principles to answers these questions.

1.) We must distinguish between Spiritual freedom and political and economic freedom.

Dawson insists that it is possible to be spiritually free but politically and economically enslaved while at the same time he insists that it is also possible to be politically and economically free but spiritually free.

We must agree with this. There are many Christians around the world who live in political and economic oppression but who are free because they are in Christ. Similarly there are countries which were shaped by the categories of a fading Christendom who still know something of political and economic freedom though a large segment of their population is spiritually dead.

We would qualify our agreement with Dawson by insisting that whenever a large minority in any given social order really knows what it means to be spiritually free there soon will follow a movement for political and economic freedom. Similarly we would add that wherever a social order knows economic and political freedom without a substantial minority of citizens knowing spiritual freedom that social order’s freedoms as in peril of collapsing.

So, while we concede that spiritual freedom and economic freedom do not always exist together we would insist that there is a relationship between these freedoms.

Dawson finishes this section by citing how aspects of parliamentary democracy and economic individualism were opposed to Christian principles yet managed to survive together.

2.) Distinctions must be made between different types of totalitarianism.

Communistic totalitarianism has an obvious and apparently irreducible opposition to Christianity. This is due to the philosophy that lies behind communism which amounts to a religion that is in competition to Christianity. Dawson cites a communist poster that read,

“Jesus promised the people Paradise after death, but Lenin promised them Paradise on earth.”

Analysis — Dawson begins well with this observation but he fails by not applying this observation all across the line. All totalitarian governments offer the people its totalitarian arrangement as a religion and all totalitarian governments offer the Kingdom of man in lieu of the Kingdom of God. Dawson suggests that Fascism, unlike Communism, has not always been overtly hostile to religion. Dawson seems to realize though that while Communism sought to crush Christianity through overt opposition, Fascism has sought to crush Christianity through co-opting it through a process whereby the Fascist State re-defines Christianity in the Fascist totalitarian direction.

In a paragraph worthy of being proclaimed a spot on analysis in 2009 in America, Dawson commented on what he saw of the future in 1934 saying,

“What attitude will such a (Fascist) state adopt towards Christianity and the Christian churches? I do not believe that it will be anti-Christian in the Russian sense, or that it will be inspired by any conscious hostility to religion…. The new (Fascist) state will will be universal and omni-competent. It will mold the mind and guide the life of its citizens from the cradle to the grave. It will not tolerate any interference with its education functions by any sectarian organization, even though the latter is based on religious convictions. And this is the more serious, since the introduction of psychology into education has made the schoolmaster a spiritual guide as well as a trainer of the mind. In fact it seems to as though the school of the future must increasingly usurp the functions that the Church exercised in the past, and that the teaching profession will take the place of the clergy as the spiritual power of the future.

Dawson goes on to say,

“Nor will the state confine its education activities to the training of the young. It will more and more tend to control public opinion in general by its organs of instruction and propaganda in this country….It is obvious that a Totalitarian State … cannot afford to leave so great a power of influencing public opinion in the private hands, and the fact that the control of the popular press and of the film industry is often in unworthy hands gives the state a legitimate excuse to intervene. The whole tendency of modern civilization is to concentrate the control of opinion in a few hands.”

Dawson goes on to say that here is where the danger to Christianity lies. The danger to Christianity lies not in the possibility of violent persecution but rather the danger to Christianity lies in the possibility of such a pervasive and subtle control of the state crushing historic Christianity from modern life by the sheer weight of state inspired and controlled public opinion and by the mass organization of society on a basis that is not in the least Christian.

Dawson quotes Julian Huxley who noted that the coming conflict is not one between religion and secular civilization but rather ‘between the God religious and the social religious’ — in other words between the worship of God and the cult of the state or of the race or of humanity.

Analysis — Dawson writing in 1934 has described where we have come to today. The church has been subtly put off her game and has, for the most part, become a pale reflection of the culture created by the Fascist state. Christian who now rail against the state are now in the position of having to rail against the church as well.

Dawson insists that Christians cannot combat this reality through politics. Dawson insists that Christians must combat this via a spiritual strength. Dawson suggests that the totalitarian state will only be brought down as Christians realize that their attack on the social order created by the totalitarian state must be indirect. Christians must understand the problems created by the totalitarian state can only be solved by reorienting men religiously. The Church’s essential duty towards the State and the world is to bear witness to the truth that is in her.

Analysis — The totalitarian state can only be brought to its end by introducing a King who has superior claims over men then the state does and who is sovereign over the state. One ripple effect of the Gospel successfully going forward is when men give all their allegiance to Christ as they understand that Christ has provided a full salvation that the state can only promise. Preaching the Gospel is what it means to indirectly attack the totalitarian state. If the Holy Spirit frees men from their spiritual bondage and slavery men will desire the physical shackles and slavery to the state come to an end.

A biblical evangelism then is the answer to the totalitarian state. However, it must be an evangelism that identifies the false gods and calls people to give up the false gods for the one true God. The largest idol (false god) in our age is the totalitarian state. The totalitarian state is a reified, magnified, and idealized version of the individual and when as such when people comply with the totalitarian state they are in essence worshiping themselves. Only Christ can cause the idols to fall.

Dawson ends by saying,

“A secularist culture can only exist, so to speak, in the dark. It is a prison in which the human spirit confines itself when it is shut out of the wider world of reality. But as soon as the light comes, all the elaborate mechanism that has been constructed for living in the dark becomes useless. The recovery of spiritual vision gives man back his spiritual freedom. And hence the freedom of the Church is in the faith of the Church and the freedom of man is in the knowledge of God.”