Welcoming God: Part 2

The second in a two-part series looking at how God is welcomed by the world:

As a child, I dressed up, along with my classmates, as a pilgrim or Native American while our class learned about the desire for religious freedom of our nation’s founders.  The Pilgrims became icons for religious liberty, but this view, although popular, is not historical.  The Pilgrims disagreed with the established Church of England.  However, their goal was not freedom of religion, but a desire to establish their own context where they could, like the Church of England, enforce adherence to their own doctrines by the community.  Thus, in the early years of this nation, the reality was that a legal relationship existed between church and state in the individual colonies, which were soon to become independent states.  It wasn’t long before states became indentified by faith as well as commerce.  From Episcopalian Virginia to Congregationalist New England, Roman Catholic Maryland to Baptist Rhode Island and Delaware, states were identified by the particular faith practices of their citizens.  Pennsylvania was itself divided by eastern Quakers, mid-state Anabaptists and Western Presbyterians, while New York City was a hotbed for the Reformed Church.  In the midst of the diversity of doctrine of these states, they would find a common ground that ultimately led to the American Revolution.  Professor and author Hunter Baker noted, “Unlike the French Catholic church, the American church was a major force in the revolution, rather than a target of it.”

Predominantly Protestant, the early framers of the Constitution were influenced by Christian worldviews.  The belief in the depravity of the human condition is credited in having influenced the checking, limiting and balancing of power.  The idea that humans are created in the image of God influenced the idea that human beings have “inalienable” rights that are guaranteed not by human institutions but by “their Creator.”  While certainly not perfect, with the institutionalized discrimination of women and slaves, these doctrinal positions welcomed God’s authority in every facet of human interaction.  The Bible, as both a cultural force and an accepted revelation of God’s will for personal conduct, organization of families and communal laws functioned as the foundation for both criminal and civil law.  The Bible was understood as the great equalizer.  With Scripture in hand, the stable boy could stand in the presence of a monarch and discern together as equals since, before God, one was no more important than the other.  Such is not the case with all religions where cast systems separate rulers from untouchables, as in Hinduism, or where one group works while the other only prays, as in Buddhism.

In its original understanding, secularism was an idea that though government is influenced by religious worldviews, its application of particular viewpoints by the government must be neutral.  This was first introduced to our nation by the Baptists of Rhode Island.  Unfortunately, secularism has changed throughout the years.  The foremost research center on secularism is housed at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.  In a recent study of secularism, the center concluded that today’s definition of secularism is the total absence of religious influence in the organization of not only government, but culture. Unfortunately, we are all influenced by something. What is the end of a people who no longer welcome God? We shall soon see.

Welcoming God by the world: Part 1

The first in a two-part series looking at how God is welcomed by the world:

This past week, I took some time to reorganize my home library.  I’m not sure how many books I actually have in my library, but it is enough to organize them in order of topics.  I rediscovered a volume on the failure of one of world’s first experiments with democracy, the Roman Republic.  Historians debate the actually length of the empire, as it evolved from a Republic to an authoritarian Empire and then divided into a western experiment led by the Roman Church while the eastern Byzantine Empire was abandoned both politically and culturally to the Islamic-influenced Ottoman Empire.

The French experiment at democracy is nestled in these years of Roman evolution, and it is the French, not Roman, experiment that ultimately led to the founding of the United States of America. In the French experiment, the Church found itself on the wrong side of the Revolution.  French intellectuals, like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, affluent themselves, argued that both the crown and the church should be dissolved.  Diderot announced his desire to see “the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest.”  The efforts of these intellectuals to first garner the support of the church gave way to animosity when the church refused to support the revolution and was, rightfully so, viewed as an enabler of oppression. Noted author and professor Dr. Hunter Baker writes that the French Revolution was, “designed not merely to overturn the throne, but also break the power of the altar.”  Baker argues that the battle cry of the French Revolution was freedom, democracy and secularism.

However, this secularism was not just an idea of freedom of thought, but a freedom from Christianity and its declarations of ultimate truth.  Of course, the aftermath of the Revolution was far from spotless.  The gruesome and public execution of King Louis XVI by the guillotine fed a public frenzy for the blood of priests and bishops.

In France, a new empire of the fatherland was envisioned.  In this post-revolution era, opportunity for power hungry leaders like Napoleon to rise to power became the heritage of the French experiment in democracy.  The capstone of such despots was ultimately realized with the rise of Adolph Hitler, who fancied himself greater than Napoleon and the emperor of a new Rome.  Even in the course of these human events, the church, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, found itself in the middle of international change.  Many leaders welcomed the idea of a national church while others rejected faith wholesale and persecuted the church vehemently.  At its best, the church moderated the will of power hungry monarchs. At its worst, the Church became a partner in oppression. The call of the Church of Jesus Christ is to announce the reign of God.  This will generally put us at odds with both political sides and even the entire world.

Next week: A Secular Nation?

Little Disciples Toddler Time

Little Disciples Toddler Time at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Ashland, Kentucky