I had a high school history teacher who, while teaching us about the Bill of Rights, said, “State religion is good for the state, but bad for the religion.” Her point was that religion can give a lot of power to the state, to a government, to political leaders, or in fact, to any leader seeking to motivate the masses. But in the process, the religion is always corrupted.
Unfortunately, I believe that’s what’s happened to Christianity. Over the weekend, between 87,000 and 500,000 people rallied in front of the Lincoln Memorial to hear Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin claim that America is ready to return to its traditional conservative and Christian values. “Something that is beyond man is happening,” he said. “America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness.”
Beck claimed that the rally has “nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with God, turning our faith back to the values and principles that made us great.” But that, of course, is ridiculous. In the months leading up to this rally, Beck has been hard at work, on TV and on his website, making the claim that his conservative political ideology is inherent to the principles on which our country was founded, and that both are derived from the Bible and our founders’ Christian faith. In other words, it’s a package deal.
This isn’t new, it’s just the culmination of a merger between conservative politics and Christianity that has been under way since the abortion issue gave them common cause. The problem isn’t that religion has influenced politics. It’s the other way ‘round. For many Christians on the Right, believing in Jesus now means believing in small government, low taxes, free trade, free markets, gun rights, and military might; it means being against social programs, social justice, and anything that could be misrepresented as socialism; it means being a my-country-right-or-wrong patriot.
The problem is, this kind of Christianity doesn’t have much to do with the Bible, or Christ.
It’s possible to base traditional family values on Old Testament principles, as long as you read selectively and ignore the parts about stoning. But the Old Testament is no help to conservatism on the economic front: Loaning money to those in need was required, and every seven years, un-repaid debts were forgiven. Charging interest for loans was forbidden. The only lawful real estate transaction was a lease, as every 50 years, all land reverted to the families that first owned it (see Exodus 22, Leviticus 25, and Deuteronomy 15 and 23). Not exactly a market economy.
The New Testament is even less helpful to the cause. Jesus lived at a time when the Jewish nation was under the oppression of Rome, arguably a greater tyranny than the tea taxes of King George, or the health care reform of Barack Obama. Yet Jesus refused to be drawn into the politics of his day. Instead he preached the arrival of a new, other-worldly kingdom marked by mercy and generosity: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth.” “Give to everyone who asks you.” “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” (see Matthew 6, Luke 6, and Luke 12)
My point isn’t about the merits of conservatism vs. liberalism, or small government vs. social programs. My point is that if the conservatives who claim to be Christians were really following Christ, they would spend a little less time fighting liberalism, worrying about gay marriage, and going to Glenn Beck rallies, and a lot more time finding ways to help the less fortunate. And then maybe we wouldn’t need the social programs they hate so much.
What do you think?
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The last US combat brigade leaves Iraq today (