Christians, Now Is the Time to Empathize with Those Feeling Fear and Rejection

I am thankful to have this post shared on desiringGod.com today:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/let-s-rise-to-love-those-left-in-fear

This is the heaviest and most urgent thing on my heart this week. I pray all Christians would consider this. Real people - friends - feel singled out and afraid because of specific words aimed at their race, religion, gender, or group by the president-elect or by people jumping on the publicity. This is not about whether you think these thoughts are overreactions or not. We need to empathize, no matter how we voted and no matter how we personally feel about the results. Loving our neighbors as Christ loved us certainly includes having empathy for their fears.

With Christians being credited as heavily supporting president-elect Trump's rise to the presidency, many people are questioning whether these attitudes reflect our hearts too. It's up to us to show our fellow citizens how Christians care for those who are vulnerable and afraid, and to show them the Gospel doesn't have political boundaries.

Spiritual Coffee: Dangers of Nostalgia in Voting - New Film Finishes Chariots of Fire Story of Missionary Eric Liddell - Do Churches Help Solve Social Problems?

I took a short hiatus while I completed a series on recognizing and confronting addictions in the lives of others, but now here's a new installment of Spiritual Coffee with three things to help keep your Christian mind alert and informed. The third link in particular is a very pressing issue for the church, so I took some additional time to comment on it.

(As always, you can look over past installments under the tag Spiritual Coffee.)


Hope in the Ruins: Why Politics Can't Save Our Politics, James K. A. Smith (Comment Magazine)
Rather than dwelling on the present deterioration of ideals and unity in both political parties, take some time to focus on what we want to rebuild and how to get there. One helpful resource for figuring out what that looks like is Smith's review of Yuval Levin's book The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.

"It is hard to imagine a more timely, important, and wise book than Yuval Levin's latest, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism. Levin, a Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and founding editor of National Affairs, is one of our most astute political analysts, eschewing from-the-hip punditry for careful work that is nourished by both historical insight and social-scientific rigour. But more importantly, Levin is that rare combination of heart and mind, intellect and soul, who writes with the philosopher's commitment to big ideas but as someone who knows and loves his neighbours."

Among the important points Smith observes:

1. Both conservatives and liberals are blocked from achieving progress by a misplaced nostalgia for "the way things were." Levin charts out why he believes people on both ideological ends are pursuing a past that cannot be recovered. Each side is trying to return to what they perceive to be their golden years, and yet this is impossible for either side to accomplish. So we get nowhere.
2. One of the reasons this return to the past is impossible is that often the idealized time that each party wants to get back to was a short time of unsustainable success or prosperity. Many of these cherished seasons were the result of complex social and economic forces developing over decades and they often had consequences that had to be worked out over following decades.
3. Therefore: A) they are incredibly dependent on a long sequence of many different events, more than any political party can orchestrate; and B) they were never capable of lasting anyway, even at their best, because by their nature they were temporary conditions that a society could not continue to maintain.

One example:

"For example, we longingly look back on the widespread productivity of the postwar era, yielding gainful employment that could sustain a new era of consumption and almost unparalleled prosperity. We pine for the days when a job at GM could buy a family a house in the suburbs and all of the security and stability that came with that (at least for whites, who benefited from the cartel-like cooperation between corporations and unions). "Play it again, Sam!" our politicians bellow. But when you look at the unique constellation of historical contingencies at play you realize this can't happen. The US economy soared in that era in no small part because we were one of the few developed economies whose infrastructure wasn't decimated by World War II. Once Germany and Japan rebuilt, in the 1970s, the US economy experienced the reality of competition that sent us into the malaise that Jimmy Carter named."

Most importantly, Levin's book displays careful thinking about what can be accomplished now, in our current cultural state. I highly recommend Smith's discussion of how Levin deals with the problems of atomization and individualism, and why Levin sees rebuilding neighborhood/community groups and institutions as an essential part of restoring social stability. (Here's some basic explanation of both atomization and individualism for those not familiar with how these terms are being used.)

The Story After "Chariots of Fire", Amy Qin (The New York Times)

A fascinating report on the making of a new film telling the story of how Eric Liddell, the Christian Scotsman and Olympic runner of Chariots of Fire, went on to become a missionary to China like his parents. He was captured during the occupation of China by Japan and held in a Japanese prison camp in 1945, where he died. It is especially encouraging to see this movie being made by a Hong Kong filmmaker and distributed in China.

“The Last Race” is "a Hong Kong-Chinese production that opened in more than 50 Chinese cities last Friday. (It does not yet have a North American release date.) Co-directed by the veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Shin and the Canadian Michael Parker, it focuses on the final years of Liddell’s life, when he was held in a Japanese labor camp in the coastal province of Shandong."

"'It means a lot to me to be able to tell this story of an Olympic champion who came to China and sacrificed so much to help others,’ Mr. Shin, who is also a Christian, said in a recent interview."

Do Churches Contribute to Solving Social Problems? - Joe Carter (TGC)

Carter analyzes a recent Pew study that showed many people do not believe the church contributes to solving social problems, or that it doesn't contribute much. These numbers are much higher than eight years ago, and he also notes that they are higher even among Christians - meaning that a number of Christians do not even recognize how the church positively impacts society. This excerpt is especially important, and I posted additional comments below to emphasize why:

"There has been no sign that churches are less charitable or engaged in their communities than they were in 2008. What has changed is the attitude and expectations many Americans have about the role of churches. No matter how many “good works” churches engage in—from feeding the homeless to ministering to sex trafficking victims—it won’t be sufficient to offset our opposition to the increasing sexual permissiveness of society. Our refusal to abandon the Biblical ethic on sexuality makes us, in the eyes of many Americans, a social problem to be solved rather than a partner in solving social problems.

 "Unfortunately, when it comes to religious liberty the church has relied too heavily on society recognizing the benefits we provide. For instance, churches and other religious institutions in American [sic] are almost always exempt from federal, state, and local taxes. The justification for this policy is usually that such institutions provide vital charitable benefits to society. But what happens when this argument is no longer perceived to be true?

 "Losing popularity is no great loss. Losing tax-exempt status, however, is a considerable loss, since it poses a direct threat to the religious liberty of churches and Christian institutions. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the Supreme Court ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 'That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create . . . are propositions not to be denied.' (Unfortunately, even many Christians deny this proposition and are woefully naïve about how taxation would affect—if not outright destroy—many charities and ministries.)"

My Take: Here's why this matters so much. The power to tax is the power to destroy because where the government can tax you, it can control what you do by heavily taxing things it doesn't like and giving deductions and exemptions for things it wants to promote. Chief Justice Marshall recognized in 1819 that it is wholly possible for government to destroy certain institutions and organizations by simply making the taxes on what they do so high that the group must fold. Taxes have always been used to promote certain behavior and discourage other behavior. We allow charitable deductions from taxed income because giving to non-profit organizations is generally good for society, so we encourage that giving by not taxing any part of their income that a person gives away to charity.

But if the government can tax the church, then the government can also choose to tax certain activities of the church more highly than others. For instance, a church that refused to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies might be taxed at a higher level on its property, whereas a church that was "open to everyone" (as the government might say) could get a much lower property tax bill. Taking advantage of the taxing power this way, the government could discourage and even strangle something that it is not allowed to directly outlaw. Even where the courts and the Constitution protect religious groups from having to perform marriage ceremonies against their beliefs, if the government can tax them then it can make living by those beliefs extremely costly.

Likewise, the government could offer tax-exempt status for contributions to churches that do the things the government wants churches to do, and refuse to provide it to churches that hold beliefs and practices that the government doesn't like. This would inevitably reduce giving to churches where contributions were not tax exempt: even people who would still give in spite of not getting a tax exemption would be stuck with the fact that they have less money to give now. Instead of giving that money away and paying no taxes on that part of their income, they would now still pay 20-30% of that amount in taxes - meaning that many would have to give less and use the rest to pay the tax. This is why tax-exempt status for churches matters so much. The government cannot punish churches by law for having beliefs different from what government desires, but it can use the taxing power very freely. Where it would be unconstitutional for the government to try to force a church to stop doing something, if churches are not tax-exempt, the government could instead tax what the church does and grind it down.

This is why we should take it seriously when the public and politicians are saying the church doesn't contribute to society or solve social problems, and try to learn how to correct those errors. But more than that, we must persuade our neighbors that freedom to live by your own beliefs is more important for all of us than any particular social cause. For over 225 years this country has lived by the conviction that the government should never have the power to force a person to change his or her beliefs or to prevent that person from living what they believe simply because others don't like it. A tragic consequence of the culture war has been the rise of an attitude that refuses to tolerate the other side's beliefs: a mindset of "us vs. them" that has left us with people thinking there's simply no room for both ways of life. A shocking number of people seem ready to throw out the ideas of freedom of belief and freedom of speech as long as they think they have the upper hand. We must unite against that.

People of all beliefs should agree that having government manipulate what we believe and practice is a much worse evil than having people refuse to agree with your lifestyle. We have to see together that any discussion by politicians and government of taking away tax-exempt status for churches is a direct assault on freedom of religion, with the clear agenda of manipulating religious beliefs and church teachings. If anyone gives the government the power to do that today, the government will have the power to use it against them tomorrow. One of the foundational promises upon which the United States was built was this: there are certain things the government would never have the power to take away from its people. We must remember how precious it is to have a government that has limits on what it can do to you. [The previous paragraphs after the block quote are my own comments. -Anthony]

Spiritual Coffee: Barnabas Piper Leadership Podcasts (Spiritual Disciplines) - Sports Community Replaces Church - Richard John Neuhaus, Liberal and Orthodox?

Catching up on a week of interesting developments. Here are three of the most useful things I've come across to stimulate and sharpen your Christian thinking. As always, prior selections are under Spiritual Coffee.

5 Leadership Questions podcast: Spiritual Disciplines and Leadership, Todd Akins and Barnabas Piper (with Kevin Spratt)
The bonus here is discovering this podcast by Akins and Piper, which has weekly episodes where they "ask five questions of different guests or about different leadership topics. The aim of the podcast is to inform and encourage Christian leaders whether they serve in the pastorate, the business world, non-profits, or on a volunteer basis." This one has a valuable perspective on why we can't take the spiritual disciplines for granted, or get tired of them. Kind of like we shouldn't get tired of breathing or eating. Some things are so basic that you just can't opt out of them if you want life to work.
In addition to a useful concept, Akins and Piper have quotes from each episode posted below the player so you can skim what they talk about.

“Many times the delta between our knowledge and our application is immense.”“Without the fundamentals you don’t have anything to build off of.”
“There are some things that there simply isn’t a newer better way to do.”
“Character is as valuable now as it ever has been, and there aren’t different versions.”
“You can’t really innovate spiritual disciplines.”
“You can’t lead people in a direction you’re not going yourself.”

Check out the episode with Jon Acuff too. Good thoughts on developing yourself for success and staying away from moral failure.

“I try to surround myself with people who have the kind of lives I want to live.”“Hustle is an act of focus, not frenzy.”

Lessons from Cleveland's Religious Devotion to Its Teams, Ed Uszynski (Athletes in Action)
This is a remarkably well-written comparison that identifies the community-bonding and identity-formation aspects of the investment people have in their cities' sports teams. It contrasts how those aspects used to be served primarily by church community. There are some valuable observations here about what may be missing from our churches, as well as what we need to make sure we are getting from church instead of simply from sports and other recreational friendships.

"They actually fill a void previously filled by church attendance and the experience of being a church member. With the decline of institutional religion as an influential reality in communities across America, a key component of human development and one of the primary areas that Christian education used to fill—identity formation—has been taken over by sport culture."

The Liberalism of Richard John Neuhaus, Matthew Rose (National Affairs)
Neuhaus was founder and editor of the Christian magazine First Things, a commentary on religion and public life, up until his death. He is probably one of the most well-known voices addressing the absence of religion in the public square and civil government. He coined the phrase "the Naked Public Square" with his book in the 1980s, describing what had happened to social and civic discussions by the exclusion of 'religion' as an accepted aspect of those discussions. He was a great champion for the importance and appropriateness of religious thought being applied in society, politics, law, and education, but also a very wise and reasonable thinker who didn't suffer from the extremes that some Christians do in trying to 'put the Bible back in school.' He is a man well worth studying and knowing. It's only fair that I include a link to the reminiscences of First Things writers about Neuhaus as well. This article is by no means the definitive portrait of Neuhaus, but it is a great picture nonetheless.

"At the time of his death in 2009, Richard John Neuhaus had been a public figure for nearly four decades. To admirers and friends, he was arguably the most influential American Christian intellectual since Reinhold Niebuhr or John Courtney Murray. The New York Times described him as a 'theologian who transformed himself from a liberal Lutheran leader of the civil rights and anti-war struggles in the 1960s to a Roman Catholic beacon of the neoconservative movement of today.' It was a conventional biographical arc — Neuhaus's life was defined by exchanging the ideals of liberalism for the dogmas of religious traditionalism."

"But that story is misleading, if not worse, since it distorts the convictions of a man wholly defined by his convictions. Neuhaus spent his life contending for the soul of the liberal tradition. Conversions great and small marked his career, and he often quoted Cardinal Newman, saying that 'to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.' But his commitment to political liberalism, far from being a youthful error he later repudiated, was one of his life's few consistent threads. The other was his orthodox Christian faith."

Spiritual Coffee: When One Spouse Leaves the Church - Keeping a Tender Heart Toward the Hard-Hearted - Understanding Little Sisters of the Poor

Today’s three links to the best things I've come across in the past few days to feed a Christian mind and heart. Click on Spiritual Coffee for prior roundups to sharpen and equip your Christian thinking.

Blessed Are the Agnostics, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook (her•meneutics, Christianity Today)

Her husband gave up on the church; she stayed. Too often we act like we don’t see people struggling through things like this because we don’t know what to say or do. Listen to how she wrestled with her doubts, her husband’s soul, divided worldviews in parenting, and what she needs from the church. Candid and earnest. These are people we need to listen to and learn to welcome.

Not Hardening Our Hearts Against the Hard-Hearted, David Schrock (davidschrock.com)

Insightful and helpful reflections for understanding the blindness and self-deception in friends and church members who are caught up in sin. How to seek their hearts while guarding your own against becoming jaded or discouraged.

n.b. The quote from 2 Timothy 2:22-25 seems to be missing from the end, right before the prayer in italics. But it’s a perfect complement to the post, so read it alongside.

"When they harden themselves against us, we must pray. In love, our response must not be passivity but wise, repeated strategic appeals to that member of Christ’s body. Matthew 18 is not a quick pitstop that enables churches to get rid of unwanted sinners; it is a long, arduous pathway to restore those who have been and are being deceived by sin."

"Sin is irrational and causes the sinner to make statements and take actions that are mystifying. These words and actions are not “out of character,” as many like to put it. They are tragically “in character,” as indwelling sin comes to the surface. Hebrews 3 reminds us, every believer has blindspots and chambers in their heart which, when released, exude poison.""Often these well-versed believers will make these steps quoting Scripture on their way. We are a twisted bunch and none of us are immune from deception."

"Left unchecked, sin will always go further than we first intended."

"Sin is not innocent or accidental, it is the self-willed desire to go our own way and to persist on the road to destruction. Immediately, hardness of heart—anger in speech, isolation in action, unwillingness to listen, self-justification, and personal advocacy—occur. And more than occur, they increase. Like yeast, sin leavens the whole heart. And thus it needs to be opposed—both internally by the Spirit-filled individual but also externally by the church, when that individual is a beloved member of the church."

Little Sisters of the Poor – Thoughts on the Decision in the Contraception Mandate Case, Mark Movsesian (First Things)

Christians should understand the United States Supreme Court's decision in Zubik v. Burwell, the case involving Little Sisters of the Poor and the HHS Mandate that would have forced them to pay for contraceptives against their religious beliefs. This is a good summary. Some overall high points (from several sources):

• The Little Sisters asked to be exempt from being required to pay for health care plans that would include providing contraceptives to people, because their religious beliefs prohibit using contraception (additionally, many forms of contraception can act as abortifacients that can trigger rejection of a live embryo by the body after conception).
• The Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") mandated under the Affordable Care Act (commonly called Obamacare) that the Sisters must pay for the plans and ensure free contraception. No religious exemption was granted.
• The decision did not settle what kind of accommodation the Little Sisters should receive, but it is nevertheless basically a win for two reasons: 1) the Supreme Court did not say the Sisters can't have an exemption for religious beliefs, but actually sent the case back to the district court with instructions to have the Obama Administration find an accommodation that would fit the Sisters beliefs - which means the Court believes one is possible and that one should be made; and 2) the Sisters had been charged with very heavy fines in district court because they were not cooperating with the HHS Mandate to provide health insurance with free contraception, and the Supreme Court vacated all those decisions, effectively wiping out all the fines and penalties.
• The decision was unanimous. There was no disagreement indicated among the eight justices.
• Remarkably, President Obama came out the day after the decision with a statement applauding the decision as a victory for religious freedom, and the President said that there is no need for the Sisters and other religious groups to be required to pay for plans with free contraception, because employees can get free contraception in other ways.
• As Movsesian notes, it is odd that the President should take that position after his HHS has insisted for five years of litigation that employees have no other options for affordable contraception and that making the Sisters pay for it is necessary. It almost looks as if the administration's objective all along was not ensuring free contraception (which they now admit is already available in other ways) but overpowering religious objections to being forced to participate - a test of whether the government can get away with compelling religious groups to act against their beliefs if it wants to. Thankfully, the answer again is no.

Christians Must Have the Courage to Lose this Election (if Necessary)

This election year has put Christian souls in more danger than just about any other I remember. The desperation to have the winning candidate for President, which people assume will save the country and turn things in the right direction, is all-consuming. I am stunned at how many Christians are saying things like: “It doesn’t matter who the Republican nominee is; we have to beat Hillary no matter what. No matter how bad Trump is, we can’t afford to lose.” Or there’s this: “I can’t stand Trump, but it looks like he’s going to be the nominee, so we have to join up and support him. Otherwise we might not win the election.” The same echoes can be heard on the Democrat side too. It seems that no matter how outrageous or shameful some candidates become, there is actually no point at which we’ll stop supporting them, as long as we think they will win.

Nobody likes to lose. When you feel like you are losing a fight for something important, the temptation to do whatever it takes to turn the tide and win the fight is powerful. It creates a desperation that clouds your judgment, making you too distracted to think about other consequences, even to your soul. Questions like “Am I honoring God by acting this way?” and “Can I really approve of that and call myself a Christian?” give way to “How do we get those final votes so we have enough?” We see things in our country at risk, and instead of trusting God, we go running to try to “save” the situation.

This is exactly what destroyed Saul as the first king of Israel. He was the Lord’s Anointed, handpicked by God to be king. He had God’s support in battle and in leadership. God’s prophet Samuel was supporting him, and had promised to come and offer sacrifices to God for Saul. But Samuel didn’t appear. Saul was nervous he was going to lose his protection in the coming battle unless he did something now. So he did not wait for Samuel, but dishonored God by offering up sacrifices without regarding God’s commands about worship:

He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” 1 Samuel 13:8-14

Instead of gaining the advantage he wanted, Saul brought the opposite upon himself: God rejected him as king and took his favor away from Saul because of Saul’s irreverence and compromise. Because Saul stopped listening to God in response to events that made him afraid, God ceased to hear Saul. That is far more terrifying and heartbreaking than losing any battle or election.

No matter how saddened or shocked you are by the changes in our country, you must see an election as a small thing compared with your relationship with God. God is not in peril. He is not shaken or reeling from events in our nation. The purpose of the Lord stands firm, and He cannot be moved. But we can be foolish enough to move away from Him in our anxiety to make things the way we think they ought to be. So many Christians right now seem to be completely consumed by the idea that this nation must look a certain way, no matter who we give power to in order to get us there. They are ready to stand publicly and approve and praise politicians who dishonor God and swim in immorality as long as they’ll vote the right way on some major issues. But one of the basic qualities of a true Christian is being willing to lose rather than risk dishonoring God. There is actually a time to say, “I can’t join in this and still be completely faithful to the Word of God.” What really proves you’re a Christian is that you’re willing to stand firmly beside God even if it means you lose the world.

Do you have the integrity to choose to vote for a candidate who acts rightly and shows respect for what is good, even if he can’t win? Is the name of Christ important enough to you that you will refuse to publicly support or defend a candidate who says and does things offensive to God, even if it means you don’t get to be part of the winning team? Do you have the courage to stay true to God even if it means you have no influence at a convention? If you decide you have to vote for “the lesser of two evils,” will you have the courage to cast your vote in private but refuse to call the “lesser evil” good, or try to make excuses for it? Or will you do whatever it takes to win, because this election is just too important?

Nothing other than Christ can be “too important to lose.” Every time you are forced to choose, the answer must be the same: Christ or nothing. If I have anything else in addition to Christ, it can only be mine if it doesn’t diminish my whole-hearted devotion to Christ. Your citizenship must always submit to your Christian faith. Your political platform must always give way before your Christian faith. A person who sacrifices his grip on Christ in order to avoid losing hold of a culture or a country or a majority has cut off his own legs. He has sawn off the tree limb he was sitting on, and without the trunk it will not matter one bit that he has a firm grip on the limb when he hits the ground.

The Lord disdains and rejects those who try to proclaim allegiance to Him and at the same time put limits on their obedience in order to make peace with other gods or with men. (Zeph. 1:4-5; 2 Kings 17:41; Mark 7:6-13; Rev. 2:12-16). When you let go of Christ in order to grab hold of something floating away from you, you have just lost hold of the only life preserver in the middle of a raging ocean, all so you can save your wallet or car keys. Imagine how well your wallet will hold your head above water as you cling to it. No matter how precious or important a thing may be, it is never necessary or vital enough to be worth losing hold of Christ. Christ will bear you up even if you lose everything. Nothing else will.

The only way to honor God is to show that He is so precious to us that we won’t trade any part of our relationship with Him for any political advantage. If the expectation for our participation in a successful campaign is that we laugh off what is sinful or make excuses for what is cruel or dishonest, Christians cannot agree to participate. If people looking at what we support cannot recognize the character of Jesus Christ in it, we are in the wrong place. We can compromise political platforms and positions on legislation or policy in order to bring people together and make progress. But we will not compromise faithfulness to God.

What will that prove? If we lose, doesn't that make us irrelevant, and thus make what we stood for in Christ irrelevant too? No, because it is the fact that we remain faithful to Him that God judges and accepts. Success, if it comes, is a gift of God, not something we offer up to God to prove our value. And to the world, when we show that we would rather lose than compromise our love for Christ even once, we show we can't be bought or bargained away from what we believe. Further, we prove Christ's worth. Christ must be so precious to us that when others don’t take Him too seriously, we insist upon doing so. Lord, grant us the courage to be outsiders if that’s what is needed to remain true to you.

Independence from the State Day - What Christians Should Know About Their Religious Freedom

Among the responses I have seen in Christian journals and websites in the past week, one of the most encouraging has been the open admission and acceptance that Christians can no longer pretend the United States of America is our home. This actually has very little to do with a Supreme Court decision; we should have remembered this all along. But amidst the cries of despair and the cries of outrage, and the debates over how to fight back or whether to accept and move on, Christians are being reminded that the health of the Church is not synonymous with the health of the State. As Thomas Kidd wrote: "Perhaps the best thing that can come out of the gay marriage decision is for the church to make a final break between our faith and our nation."

The United State has been a good host country for Christians in many ways. We have been given a great deal of freedom that Christians in other countries have not received. In many ways, the United States has set an example for the rest of the world of what true religious freedom should look like. In fact, the United States was arguably the first nation on earth to practice genuine religious freedom, envisioned primarily by James Madison, George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson (discussed halfway through this interview with historian and professor Daniel Dreisbach). Before the founding of the United States, other countries, at the best of times, had only exhibited a kind of "religious tolerance" that permitted those who were not of the official state religion to practice their beliefs without being forced to convert.

But the United States set a standard in two important ways: 1) in insisting that there would be no official state religion or church, requiring no one to be part of any particular religion to be eligible for government office; and 2) even more importantly, putting forward and practicing the conviction that every human has an inalienable and basic right to freely practice his religious beliefs - a right that is so central to human existence and identity that the state may not interfere with it. In other words, we established the conviction that a person's worship and obedience to God was so important and natural that the state had no authority to even govern or regulate it. The conscience and private convictions of the individual were above the authority of the state. This represented a sphere of human thought and conscience that the state had no legitimate right to invade. The claim of God upon the conscience of an individual overrules the right of the state to claim authority over the individual.

This idea of religious liberty, as an aspect of human existence immune from government interference by natural right, is described here by law professor Michael Paulsen:

So understood, it is not a right that human authorities confer on those whom they rule – a dispensation. That would be, subtly and ironically, inconsistent with the very liberty the State purports to confer. It would be an assertion, at some level, of the priority and supremacy of the State and not God: the State, in its beneficence, grants the exercise of religion – the strivings of individuals and groups to discern and fulfill their duties to God, in good faith, as they understand them – a certain amount of leeway. But the nature and extent of such freedom is, on such a view, ultimately for the State to judge.

The state-conferred-dispensation view, which I think is the dominant view today, is not really religious liberty, in the sense of freedom of religious exercise from ultimate State control. It is a cipher, or shadow, or parody of religious liberty. At bottom, what justifies religious liberty – the only thing that makes it at all sensible as a liberty distinct from other liberties – is some shared sense that true religious obligation is more important than civil obligation and that, consequently, civil society must recognize this truth. Religious liberty is the legal duty of civil society to defer to the plausibly true free exercise of genuine religious faith.

That is the only conception that can fully justify the idea of constitutional protection of “free exercise” of religion – protection of freedom of religious conduct in opposition to the State's typical commands. The same premises support a related aspect of religious freedom (embodied in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment): Because God's commands, rightly perceived, trump the State's commands, it makes no sense to say that the State can determine what God's commands are and whether an individual or group has rightly perceived them. The State may not in this respect, or any other, set itself up as the arbiter of religious truth and enforce its determinations as law. The State is presumptively incompetent authoritatively to determine what God does or does not command. At least, that must be the operating premise if the right of religious freedom is not to be a chimera.

Christians, this is the concept of religious freedom that we believe in and have been fighting to protect. As things unfold in the months and years to come, let us remember that this is where we want to be in a democratic nation. Paulsen notes that this pure idea of religious freedom - of the superiority of God's claims upon the conscience to any claims made by the state - is not the dominant view today. Yet it is still a strong view that has powerful legal support. Only three years ago, every justice of the Supreme Court - the same justices now sitting - voted unanimously to uphold this view that the state has no authority or competence to judge the sincerity and validity of religious belief. (PDF here)

So there is no reason whatsoever to give up on the ideal of religious freedom in the United States. The voices that have been raised lately, even in major news publications, to call for increased restriction of Christian belief and practice are a bit hysterical and unrealistic. They do not represent the settled convictions of many justices and judges, let alone the citizens of the nation. We have every reason to stand firm in insisting on true religious freedom. But as people push back against us and rattle their sabers, let's not let that heritage and privilege become our security and resting place. We don't need religious freedom to be secure in Christ. No change to the laws of this country can take away our home or our identity.

The most important thing we can do today as a Church is to pay attention to fixing our identity in our citizenship in the Church. The United States will never be, even at its best and most noble, more than a convenient host country where the Lord has placed us to serve as ambassadors. We should strive to be the best kind of citizens and to seek the good of this country that hosts us, but we don't seek its identity. We remember that we "desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Therefore, we acknowledge and embrace joyfully that we will always be "strangers and exiles on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13-16). Don't forget where home is.

Rod Dreher sums this up well, acknowledging the resistance and hostility we are going to have to fight through: "Conditions are about to get much worse for us. We must reflect soberly on this fact, and act wisely, but decisively. Just over a decade ago, Robert Louis Wilken, writing in First Things, said that the greatest danger facing the Church is forgetfulness. That is, in our post-Christian culture, we are rapidly losing memory of what it means to be a faithful Christian. 'Nothing is more needful today than the survival of Christian culture, because in recent generations this culture has become dangerously thin,' he wrote. 'At this moment in the Church's history in this country (and in the West more generally) it is less urgent to convince the alternative culture in which we live of the truth of Christ than it is for the Church to tell itself its own story and to nurture its own life.'"

Take courage, dear friends, and first and foremost, seek the good and the strengthening of our true kingdom.

This Is What the Government Wants from Christians in the U.S.

Pastor Louie Giglio, founder of the Passion conferences, was invited to pray at the Inauguration of President Obama because of his sincere and compassionate dedication to ending sex slavery and human trafficking (www.enditmovement.com), something the President also supports. Now the White House has decided it doesn't want him because he has religious beliefs grounded in the Christian Scriptures that offend homosexual activists. Essentially, activists dug up a sermon he preached 15-20 years ago in which he states plainly what the Bible says about homosexual behavior: the Scriptures call it a sin, and like any other sin it needs to be resisted and turned away from. He also said that change can be very difficult, but it is possible, as it is for all of us who are willing to seek God's help to turn away from sin. The Obama Administration has reacted by indicating that Pastor Giglio's words "don't reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country", and Giglio has withdrawn, which one presumes he was asked to do.

Dr. Russell Moore brilliantly captured in this post the nature of what's going on here and why it should be considered disturbing. Some citizens don't agree with Giglio's religious beliefs, but the government itself is supposed to be neutral as to what its citizens believe. The very bedrock of the Bill of Rights is freedom of speech and freedom of religious belief, and the Constitution itself forbids any religious test for public office. These principles were established by men who had seen what it was like to live under a government that favored people of one religion (the Church of England) and disfavored those of any other religion. The new republic, committed to democracy and freedom, was founded with a firm commitment to prevent a man from having his government be against him regarding his religious beliefs. The Founders agreed that matters of religious belief were so important to a person's conscience and freedom that it was a grave evil to coerce someone to abandon or change his beliefs under pressure from the government.

It should deeply disturb all of us that the elected government of the United States now applies a political litmus test to decide whether a pastor can pray at a public event. Essentially, for the millions of Christians in the United States who are convinced of the truth of the Bible and submit to what it states about homosexual behavior, our government has indicated that we aren't welcome to participate publicly in events of national significance. The government has decided that only views which legitimize homosexual behavior are acceptable.

This has become so pervasive in our government now that this move isn't really a surprise. It's just proof of how far we have abandoned the value of freedom of religious belief and practice. A person who has to suffer loss of public participation or loss of access to elected office unless he discards his religious convictions is not really "free" to believe as his mind and heart dictate - certainly not in the way those who fought and labored to establish a free republic intended. They intended that a person be able to live by whatever beliefs he is most convinced are true and good, without being subject to the pressure and coercion of losing significant access to participation in the democratic process of government if he believes one thing instead of another. We need to be honest as a nation about the fact that many people influencing our government don't want to have that kind of republic anymore, and we need to consider what kind of country that is changing the United States into.