As a clergy member of the American Presbyterian/Reformed branch of the Christian Church, I am troubled by any program to impose some form of Christianity upon all 330+ million Americans. Our denomination has honored the constitutional and historical separation of church and state. For most Presbyterian Americans I know, a “wall” between church and state describes how the two institutions should relate to each other.
Recently, while I was thinking about church and state, an African American spiritual came to mind: “Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.” And I found myself following that expression of desire with what I do not desire: “but I don’t want to live in a Christian nation.”
Questions about faith are intensely personal, especially for adolescents. They were as close to me as my beating teen-aged heart when I sang that spiritual around church camp fires decades ago. In my life-long search for answers, I found encouragement from friends who wanted to become more loving, holy, and Jesus-like Christians. Mine was a personal search carried out in a community of searchers and finders, a worldwide community called “the Church of Jesus Christ.”
I never considered that my search for my heart’s desire could be addressed by political powers or forces. I never felt the slightest inclination to ask the help of any branch of government at any level to help me figure out who I was, religiously or otherwise.
I still want to be a Christian, a faithful follower of Jesus. But I can only honestly pursue this desire in a religiously neutral and free nation where I can make my religious choices and carry out my religious commitments independent of, and at times in tension with, state influence.
I would not want our free nation to become a Christian nation—even if its Christianity were the sort of Christianity I espouse. Even if it were dominated by Christians governing according to the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) instead of according to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), I would not want it.
I oppose posting the Beatitudes in public schools with as much vigor as I oppose displaying the Commandments in them. Whether a religion of law or a religion of blessedness, it should not be promoted even indirectly, and certainly not in public educations’ classrooms. No particular religious faith should be supported in any way by the state or by the state’s tax dollars.
Remember how horrified we were when the mullahs took control of Iran? Those who want some so-called Christian equivalent to prevail in the USA will become our home-grown mullahs, wielding political power to make everyone conform to their lifestyles and values. They will visit oppression, hatred, recrimination, and punishment upon those who do not meet their standards.
Of course, there is a relationship between ethics and justice derived from religious convictions and political activity. We can bring our religious passion for the good to the public square for consideration by the people. But the people decide, via our system of government, what is best for us all as a nation. Such decision-making should not be forced upon us by the political power of religious organizations or by presumed revelations of divine will.
We Americans are not perfect, but the best of us have wanted us to be a welcoming homeland for all, without regard to religious persuasion or lack thereof. To abandon that ideal is to tear at the heart of who we are.
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