Individual Entry: The Myth of a Christian Nation
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July 11, 2008

Faith : The Myth of a Christian Nation

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

by Gregory A. Boyd

I seem to have reached a rich strata in my to-be-read bookshelf. There have been an unusual number of books in the last couple of month that have been added to my "keeper" list (and in some cases prompted me to buy a second copy to lend out) – Books like: "Blue Like Jazz", "The Rest of the Gospel", "Looking for God Knows What", and now "The Myth of a Christian Nation"

I have long been a believer in the separation of church and politics. I have blogged before about my concern about how some segments of the church in America are trying to use the United States government as a means to achieve religious goals. I believe these attempts are at best a waste of resources and at worst harmful to The Church. Last August I saw a piece on CNN about a pastor (Gregory Boyd) who had a significant part of his congregation leave when he expressed the same views from the pulpit. Needless to say I was interested, and bought Boyd's book on the subject.

"The Myth of a Christian Nation" is a well written and argued presentation of the scriptural, theological, and historical reasons why The Church as an institution should stay completely separate from politics, whether "liberal" or "conservative". Boyd makes the case that "kingdoms of the world" and "the kingdom of God" are fundamentally different things and that trying to connect them will always and inevitably do harm to God's cause. He argues that while God supports the existence human governments to keep the peace, protect their citizens, and punish wrong-doers (and acknowledges that some human governments do that better than others), the means by which all human government do their job is by exercising "power over" people – using force or the threat of force (the metaphorical "sword") to compel submission.

Boyd then argues that the Kingdom of God which Christianity is meant to promote is based on a very different mechanism – the application of what he calls exercising "power under" people, expressed through sacrificial love as represented by the cross. It is therefore never possible to succeed in achieving success for God's Kingdom by using human governments because the means of "power over" via the sword can never accomplish that which can only be done by "power under" via the cross. Boyd further argues that whenever we attempt to so this we corrupt God's church, making it no longer a holy thing.

Fundamentally, God is not interested in seeing better governments; he is interested in seeing people be transformed by a relationship with Him regardless of what government exists. The best possible human government that we could create still does nothing to change the human heart. Given that, Boyd says that while Christians should certainly vote as individuals in whatever way they feel will yield a "better government", The Church as an institution should not invest any of it energies in trying to promote laws (conservative or liberal) that they feel are "Christian" since doing so represents a fundamental contradiction of The Church's charter. I agree completely with this stance.

What is more, putting aside the political issues discussed in the book, I like the vision of Christianity Boyd presents. The Church is meant to be the Body of Christ – Jesus' incarnation in the world today. Therefore as a group we are to act like Jesus did – helping those in need, caring for the unloved and outcasts, befriending people regardless of their sins, sacrificing ourselves to help others. He gives a few examples in the book of how real people have responded to issues like gay marriage, abortion, etc. in ways that reflect the Kingdom of God and not an attempt to use a Kingdom of Man to make a country more "godly". The book is well worth reading for its presentation of the faith even if you are uninterested in the church/state issues which are its focus.

Posted by Steven at July 11, 2008 05:00 AM

Comments

For a long time I've mainly concerned myself with how to be a Christian, but lately have had some sense of obligation to think through how to vote in order to have a better government. It's been difficult though because it does seem that Jesus really did not speak much about politics so it's hard to really think through a political philosophy.

Posted by: Tina [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 1, 2009 10:19 AM

Tina - I do STRONGLY recommend the book. There is a reason "Jesus really did not speak much about politics". That's not to say you shouldn't develop a political philosophy (there's a whole separate thread on this blog where I discuss my struggles with that).

Posted by: Steven at December 1, 2009 11:46 AM

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