Luke 12:49-59
July 18, 2010
‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’
He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
‘And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? Thus, when you go with your accuser before a magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle the case, or you may be dragged before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.’
Back in 2003 I had an experience in a local church that raised my hackles. In July of that year I took a short sabbatical to write part of my book, Becoming a Blessed Church. As I often do when I’m on vacation, or not at Calvin Church on a Sunday, I’ll visit another church, just to see what others do. That particular Sunday, the Sunday of the 4th of July weekend, I decided to visit a large, non-denominational evangelical church. The service was quite a production, with red, white, and blue everywhere. In the front of the church, which was set up like an auditorium, had a stage with a band, along with two large PowerPoint screens on the right and left of the stage. The screens had film clips of waving American flags, and every once in a while a picture of a bald eagle would replace the clip.
Everyone was welcomed to the service, and then we stood and started singing “America the Beautiful,” with some modifications. After each verse, the band would stop playing and an actor in period costume would walk to the front of the stage and talk to the audience. The first one was an actor dressed as Thomas Jefferson, then next one dressed as Abigail Adams, and a third one dressed as Ben Franklin. Each one pretty much said the same thing, with minor variations. Basically what they said was this, “When I helped found this country, I founded it in faith. I founded it on the words of the Bible. This is the Word I founded the country in. This is the Word I believe in. And this is the word I stake my life on.”
Listening to each person speak made me squirm. I wanted to shout out to all the people, “Listen, people, you aren’t sheep. What they’re telling you isn’t true! They’re manipulating you!” I was irritated. Does it seem somewhat odd and perhaps heretical that I would want to scream this. What’s wrong with what the actors said? Didn’t Jefferson, Adams (well,… John Adams; I’m not sure what role Abigail had), and Franklin found the country on the Christian faith, and wasn’t the Bible central to their lives? The answers? No, they didn’t,… at least not in the way suggested by these actors, and yes it was.
As the well-known U. S. Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” This church was creating their own facts. Unfortunately, too few Americans today understand the faith of our Founding Fathers enough to know the difference between fact and opinion.
The fact is that the faith of the Founding Fathers was very much like that of the original colonists. They did not all share the same faith. In fact, they did not all share the same belief that they were Christian. Some didn’t really consider themselves Christian at all. Others saw themselves as Christians, but others as less than Christian. What makes it even more complicated is that many Founding Fathers adopted a faith that wasn’t completely Christian in the way we consider a faith to be Christian. And the funny thing today is that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, are often considered by modern evangelicals to be Christian, despite the fact that if these three were alive today, they would be considered heretics by those same evangelicals. Why? Because Thomas Jefferson, the Adamses, and Ben Franklin weren’t necessarily Christian. Let me share with you what they believed.
Thomas Jefferson’s Faith:
Jefferson was officially an Anglican, and when he worshiped, he worshiped in an Anglican church, but that doesn’t mean that he accepted Anglican beliefs. In fact, Jefferson’s theology and beliefs were much closer to Deist and Unitarian than to Christian. He did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, God incarnate, or the Messiah. Instead, he believed that Jesus was a great teacher of moral and philosophical truth. He believed that Jesus was the greatest teacher ever, but he did not believe in any of the miracles the gospels report. So Jefferson would not have believed in the virgin birth, the healings, feeding of the 5000, or the resurrection. The foundation of Jefferson’s belief was in the power of reason. He believed that true religion was one of reason rather than of revelation. That’s different from us. We believe that through Christ, and the writers of the Bible, God’s will and truth have been revealed. Jefferson believed that God’s will could only be reasoned out and that scripture was the work of flawed men who probably messed up God’s truth. As a result of his uncertainty about religion and its impact on reason, he founded the University of Virginia to be a college that was intentionally not affiliated with any church. If Jefferson were among us today, would we consider Jefferson to be a Christian?
Looking at how Jefferson treated the Bible, it’s hard to believe so. Jefferson struggled so much with the gospels, he decided to do something about it. He took several copies of the Bible, and using a razor blade, cut out every miracle story or part that he thought improbable. Then he rearranged them all so that they read in chronological order, creating one super-rational version of the Gospel. To get a sense of what this might of have done to the Bible, he took out whole segments, such as half of Mark 4, 6, 7, 8, as well as all of Mark 5 and 9. Is that the act of a Christian? I’m not pointing this out as a way of denigrating Jefferson. I think that he was one of the greatest men to ever live, and I do believe that in his own way he was a man of faith. I just don’t know that he was Christian, and if he wasn’t, can we say that he founded the nation as a Christian nation?
Benjamin Franklin’s Faith:
Like Jefferson, Franklin’s faith and belief were much closer to Deist and Unitarian than Christian, although he hid it better. Has raised as a Puritan, but later became an Anglican, despite rejecting most of Christian doctrine and belief, other than a belief in God and God’s providence. His theology and beliefs were much closer to Deist than to Christian, believing that God’s truths can be found entirely through nature and reason. He rarely disclosed his own personal beliefs, but when it came to Jesus he mainly saw him as a great moral teacher whose teachings had been corrupted by centuries of interpretation. He attended worship regularly at Christ Church in Philadelphia, but was reluctant to commit to any one religious view. According to John Adams, Franklin, ever the diplomat, was so good at hiding his own beliefs that Presbyterians thought he was one of them, Anglicans one of them, Congregationalists one of them, and Unitarians one of them. If he were with us today, would we consider Franklin to have been a Christian?
John Adams’ Faith:
Adams was raised as a Congregationalist, but later became Unitarian, rejecting most of Christian doctrine and belief, other than a belief in the essential goodness of God’s creation. His theology and beliefs were a combination of Deist and Unitarian. He tended to characterize it as a belief in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount.
He did not believe that God intervened in life, and he rejected the Trinity, but did believe in life after death. This is very different from what we Christians believe in. We believe that God does intervene in life, which is why we pray for healing and other concerns. And we believe in the Trinity, although I know that many of us struggle with that concept. Again, knowing what we know about Adams, can we say he was a Christian? In his case it’s easy to say that he answer is “no” because he was a Unitarian. Unitarians, while emerging out of the Christian faith, is not Christian faith.
So, getting back to our overall question, if we are going to say we are a Christian nation, are we sure the Founding Fathers were Christian? Certainly many of them were. In fact, a fair number were Presbyterian and Anglican pastors. But looking at the most influential, there’s a real question. Add in George Washington, who refused to take communion in worship, and James Madison (the principle writer of the U.S. constitution) who had strong Deist leanings, can we say that any of the most influential founding fathers were Christian as we define Christianity?
One thing also is clear. If you delve into their beliefs, they were clearly in favor of not making this a Christian nation. Many of the Founding Fathers had a deep, deep suspicion of the State and Church. Why? Because they knew that in Europe pastors were paid by the state when they served in state churches. And each country had a declared state religion. In England it was the Anglican Church. In Scotland the Presbyterian Church. In France, Italy, and Spain the Roman Catholic Church. In Norway and Sweden the Lutheran Church. And in these countries the state paid the salaries of pastors. So the Founding Fathers’ question was whether these pastors served the state or God. Also, they had seen how the establishment of one state religion led to the oppression of others, and they cherished the American colonial experiment of free exercise of religion. They believed in this idea so much that the very first amendment to the U. S. Constitution was a very simple, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” You see what their very first concern was? It was that the government should not establish a religion, or get in the way of people’s freedom of religion.
So, now that I spoke last week about the colonists’ faith and today about the Founding Fathers’ faith, what do I believe? While I am a Christian, and while I believe that life without faith and God becomes increasingly selfish and hollow, I also recognize that a true faith only comes with a choice, not compulsion. To declare our country to be a Christian nation, and to enforce it with some sort of governmental backing, would actually lead away from what we really want. You see, true faith only forms when it is done through free choice. Having the state enforce religion doesn’t lead to free faith chosen by choice. It actually has the effect of pushing people away from religion and faith by pushing them to do what they don’t want to do. For instance, growing up I went to a private elementary school where psalm reading, hymn singing, and prayer were part of our every morning assembly. I hated it. It started the process of turning me off to religion that culminated in my leaving the church at age fifteen. For some reason, going to church as a child didn’t have the same impact. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I knew that it was the appropriate place for prayer.
My point is that when we talk about things like putting prayer into our schools, be careful what we wish for. We are asking the government to enforce what we are called to do. It doesn’t necessarily lead to free choice of religion. One of the things we do at Calvin Church is to teach prayer, scripture, and the practice of faith, but we do it in a way that we hope leads to a mature, free choice when teens become adults. Sometimes it doesn’t, which is sad. But we recognize that people are free to reject what we offer. For good or for bad, we don’t run after people who reject the church, mainly because we want this to be a place of choice, not a place that has to convince people to be here.
Think of your own faith. What have you believed because it was forced on you? I’m not just talking about religious beliefs. I’m talking about political or any other kinds of beliefs. Do you believe what you believe because someone, especially the government, said that you must do or believe this? Again, this is my problem with both the topics of school prayer and Ten Commandments in courthouses. I believe that if we are asking the government to step in and intervene on our behalf, we’ve become lazy. I am very much like the Founding Fathers. I don’t want the state enforcing my faith. I’m wary of it because I don’t think they’d do a good job of it. I think we’re better at it.
Also, if schools did enforce school prayer, who would be leading it? What kind of Christian prayer would it be? Would it be an evangelical one emphasizing who is saved and who isn’t? A Roman Catholic one, praying for the pope and the area bishops? Would it be a Pentecostal one, asking God to give everyone the gift of tongues? Would it be a Presbyterian one? Would it be a Mormon one? Or would it be a Deist, Unitarian one? Not all Christianity is alike, so which Christian prayer would it be?
Also, when I hear people say that we are a Christian nation I get nervous because I know historically what happens when governments establish and support particular religions. I look at the state of religion in Europe, and it is abysmal. Something like 30% of all Americans go to church on Sunday mornings. Not a great percentage, until you compare it to Europe, where between 3% and 5% go to church on Sunday mornings. That’s the impact of state religions. Back in 1996 Diane and I visited Scotland. While sitting in a pub attached to the inn we were staying in, I had a conversation with a man stopping by for a drink after work. Eventually he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a Presbyterian pastor. He pushed back slowly and cocked his head. Then said, “I don’t think I’ve ever met a pastor before. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve met anyone who’s gone to church before.” Surprised, I asked him, “Don’t people go to church here?” He said, “I’m not sure, but I don’t know of anyone. I’ve only seen the insides of churches on television, myself. I’ve never been in one.”
I believe that the U.S. is the most religious nation in the world because of our freedom. But take away that freedom and would we be that religious?
With all this said, I don’t want to leave the impression that I therefore believe that religion and faith should be kept out of politics and government. While I don’t believe that the state should establish religion, I do believe that religious thought should absolutely be part of our political establishment. This is the second half of the First Amendment. I don’t want the state to establish religion, but I do absolutely want the free exercise of religion (including atheism, which is a religion, since it is a practice regarding the place of God and religion in life) in all spheres of American life, including politics. This is very much in keeping with the Founding Fathers’ beliefs. They may not all have been Christian, but they were all religious, and they brought their beliefs, practices, and faith into the public sphere. Jefferson may have been a Deist, but those Deist beliefs shaped the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and his presidency. Who knows what Washington was, but he brought his faith into his command of the American Army. Madison was officially an Anglican, who was trained under the Presbyterian John Witherspoon at Princeton. You may not know this, but part of the model for the U. S. government is based on the Presbyterian system of checks and balances. We always balance laity and clergy in our church, both locally and at higher levels. We have equal levels of clergy and elders at higher levels of government of our church, and in times of dispute all clergy (and elders, when applicable) are guaranteed a fair jury trial. In the U.S. government the president is checked and balanced by Congress and the judiciary in much the same way.
Ultimately, I believe that we are not a Christian nation, but we are a nation of Christians, living in a country that was founded on Christian ideals. This country is richer when our Christian faith is brought into our governing, and poorer when people try to bring government into our faith. I am very much like the Founding Fathers.
Each of us is free to believe that we are a Christian nation, but I think we have to be careful about getting what we wish for; because the Christianity we might get in our nation may not be the Christianity we believe in.
Amen.
Are We Really a Christian Nation? Part 1: The Colonists' Faith
Luke 8:4-15
When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that “looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.”
‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.
So,… are we a Christian nation or not? Over the past year I’ve had two conversations on the topic with two people with very strong opinions. The first person was an evangelical Christian who attends a large, non-denominational church. He was very adamant that the United States is a Christian nation. He stated emphatically that this country was settled by Christian colonists, practicing a Christian faith, with Christian beliefs guiding their government, and therefore the government should promote the Christian faith since we are a Christian nation. I think it surprised him when I told him that I completely disagreed with him, and that I believed we were not founded as a Christian nation. It surprised him because in his mind (and maybe yours) Christian pastors are supposed to believe and teach that this is a Christian nation.
About a month later I had a similar conversation with an atheist. She said emphatically that we are not a Christian nation, that this country was founded by people who had a problem with Christianity and wanted religion left out of politics. She then said that she believed that there should be freedom of religion, but that all religion should be kept out of the public sphere. She was telling me this because she saw me as an “enlightened” Christian, one whom she believed would agree with her. I said to her that I completely disagreed with her, and that I believed that Christian faith is part-and-parcel of our nations’ make-up. To leave Christianity out of the public sphere would go completely against what the founders believed.
So right now you’re wondering if I’m some sort of strange waffler. Most wafflers agree with whoever is speaking to them. I seem strange because I was disagreeing with both. Why? The answer is that I’ve spent a lot of time studying American Christian history, and I know that both of them were misrepresenting it. Most of us have studied American history, and we’ve learned certain facts, such as that this country was settled by people escaping religious persecution, and that in this country we believe in a wall separating church and state. But these facts only scratch the surface of what really took place. And some of them are wrong.
I disagreed with both because both were holding onto simplistic understandings of the settling and founding of this country, and I refused to be simplistic. Unfortunately, we modern Americans don’t seem to be able to hold onto any ideas that don’t fit onto a bumper sticker, and it is easier to say we either are or are not a Christian nation than to dig into the truth. The result is that we say that we either are or are not a Christian nation, when the reality is that what we are is more complex than this. So, this morning I want to give you a very Presbyterian sermon on the whole question of whether or not we are a Christian nation.
What does that mean, that it will be Presbyterian? I saw a recent promotion for the Presbyterian Church that said, “I’m proud to be a Presbyterian because we don’t have to check our heads at the door.” I’m not sure that will be a catchy enough phrase to get people to join our churches, but I think it’s true. We Presbyterians believe in thinking our way through faith, and so this morning I want you to think. I’m going to talk about the colonization of this country and its impact on us as a nation, but at the end I’m not going to tell you how to think. I’m simply going to invite you to think. And the question I’m going to ask at the end is this: “Knowing what you know now, are we really a Christian nation?”
To help you think through this I want to take you through the colonization of America and see if you know it as well as many of us think we do. For instance, answer this question: We are a nation founded by people trying to escape religious persecution—true or false? Whichever way you answered, you were only 50% right. If you understand the role of religion in the colonization of America you’ll see why. I want to look at the four great migrations into America, and talk about how they influenced our nation, and especially our thinking about whether or not we are a Christian nation. I’m basing my talk on David Hackett Fischer’s incredible book, Albion’s Seed. I don’t expect you to read it, unless you are really interested in history. He is known at the foremost expert on American colonization. His book is over 1000 pages long, but it is fascinating. He says that there were four main migrations that influenced American thought. There were other migrations, to be sure, but they didn’t have a foundational impact.
To understand the role of religion among the colonists, you have to start with understanding England itself in the 1600s. It was not a very peaceful place. Most Americans know that we had a civil war in the 1860s, but most don’t know that England went through a civil war in the early 1600s. The power kept passing between Anglicans (those who cherished the king and followed the Church of England), Catholics (those who cherished the king but followed the Roman Catholic Church), and Congregationalists (those who had little use for the king nor the Anglican or Catholic churches, and followed a Calvinist form of religion). Whichever group was in power typically oppressed the other two. This is the context that led to the first big migration to America, which was the Puritan migration into the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Puritans were from a soil-poor area of England called East Anglia. It was comprised of Norfolk and Suffolk counties, mainly, along with several other counties. It was on the eastern coast of England, and the people who lived there were very independent and communal. They were Calvinists, following the religious reforms of the Swiss Reformation of the 1500s. They were a thorn in the king’s side, as well as the Anglicans and the Catholics. They did manage to secure power in England for a decade or more under Oliver Cromwell, but their rule was austere and violent. Why did the king allow the Puritans to set up a colony in Massachusetts? Because he wanted to get rid of them, and they wanted to escape their religious persecution in England.
The Puritans set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was comprised of what is today Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, with the hope that it would become a model Christian society. John Winthrop, in delivering a sermon to Puritan colonists in 1630 as they prepared to disembark in Salem bay, said that he hoped Massachusetts would become a “city set upon a hill” (based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5) that would become a model to the world. Since then, many Americans have declared that our whole country was founded as this city on a hill.
For the Puritans, their faith was everything. They saw no disconnect between faith and the rest of life. We often think of them as being very austere and rigid, although this wasn’t quite true. It is true that they dressed in a very reserved and modest way, wearing simple linen and wool clothing. Women always had their heads covered, and their dresses revealed no wrists, legs, or chest. The men were dark clothing that similarly covered their whole bodies. There was no showiness about their dress. Also, they believed in hard work, but that the produce of their work should be shared. It is also true that to be a Puritan meant to conform. Everyone dressed the same, spoke the same, and shared virtually the same beliefs. There was little tolerance for dispute. Also, to become fully part of the community, whether church or village, a person had to be born-again. It wasn’t enough, though, to say that you had had a born-again experience. You had to have your experience in public in a way that others could witness to.
Still, it’s not as though everything about them was rigid and austere. Community and family was everything for them. They were known as very loving and devoted parents. And they were known for offering a very free and inclusive democratic government. For example, they were the original creators of the town hall meeting, in which everyone in the community could have a voice. Their community emphasis was also demonstrated in the fact that there were very few poor among them. The community always looked out for the poor. If you were poor in a Puritan community, you would be invited to live with a family, for as long as the rest of your life. Widows and widowers were taken in by local families, and children whose parents died were quickly adopted by family or neighbors. The wealthy among them saw it as their duty to share their wealth, and held very little of it for themselves. You can see this tradition still in Massachusetts in its nickname, “Taxachusetts.” The willingness of people to pay higher taxes to care for the community was natural outgrowth of Puritan culture. To sum up the basic sense of Puritan culture, we can say that:
• They were very salvation oriented (who’s saved and who isn’t), with each person expected to live a pure (Puritan), godly life, adhere to Calvinist doctrine, and have a publicly demonstrated conversion experience. They were extremely intolerant of different Christian ideas, and especially denominations. They did not consider Christians of other faiths to be Christian. They were an abomination. In fact, if you were found to be practicing another faith in the colony—being a Quaker, Anglican, or Presbyterian—you were often forced to walk to another colony, while your head and arms were locked in a stock. As you walked from village to village, you would be spat on, garbage would be thrown on you, and children would hit you with sticks. On rare occasions, you would be hanged.
• They were very community and family oriented, with an emphasis on conformity of dress, belief, and behavior.
• They believed in using force and social pressure to enforce religious belief.
• They believed in the equality of all people, and that what distinguishes people is the nature of their work, not their rank in society. There was little social hierarchy, with each person’s voice being considered important.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Puritans?
The next major migration to American was night-and-day when compared to the Puritans. These were the Anglican Cavaliers who settled into Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They were not looking to escape religious persecution because, for the most part, they were in the religious majority. The Cavaliers were the second, third, fourth, and fifth sons of wealthy noblemen from the south of England. Their fathers owned large estates, estates that would be willed to the eldest son upon their deaths. The other sons were given money to make their way in the world. Many came to the colonies to create their own estates and plantations to rival their father’s.
The cavaliers dress was very different from Puritan dress. They dressed in fine silks and cottons. Their hear was long, and they wore swords by their sides. They were Anglican in their faith, and while the church was important to most of them, their faith was consigned mostly to Sunday mornings. The rest of the week they lived and did as they pleased. In many ways their religion was the accumulation of wealth. They were not in the colonies seeking religious freedom. They were seeking economic opportunity, with a goal of becoming rich. To summarize Anglican Cavalier life, we can say that:
• They believed that the universe was created with a natural hierarchy, of which we all are a part and have a natural rank. They believed that this ranking was ordained by God. So in the church there would be God, the king, the archbishop, the bishop, the priests, and then the laity. In secular society there was the king, the nobility, middle-class, servants, and then slaves. To them, all people have a duty to conform to their rank, and to not desire to rise above it. Understanding their view of community, and the Puritan one, you can see why slavery thrived in the south, but never took on in Massachusetts. The Puritans saw Africans as equal, but the Anglican Cavaliers saw them as naturally inferior, and put on this earth to be slaves. As a result, it’s easy to understand why people in the South couldn’t understand what the problem with slavery was, and some today still look down on African-Americans.
• They believed in the use of force, especially to enforce their hierarchy. As a result, they were highly intolerant of any other denomination and forced Puritan and Quaker settlements out of the colony. They weren’t as violent in doing so as the Puritans, but the tolerated no other beliefs and denominations.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Anglican Cavaliers?
The next migration was radically different from the other two. This was the Quaker migration that settled into New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The Quakers were a religiously persecuted people from central England. Their faith was very different from Puritans and Anglicans. They were very anti-institutional, believing that everyone could go to God directly without the help of pastor or priest. They also believed in peace and unity, equality, and the validity of other faiths (even if they saw their own as being preeminent).
The Quakers in the colonies, led by William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania (which originally included Delaware and parts of what is now New Jersey), wanted to create a land of religious liberty. And so he not only invited Quakers to come to Pennsylvania, but also Anglicans and Presbyterians, Lutherans and German Reformed, Mennonites and Amish, Harmonites (who settled in our town of Harmony), the Scotch-Irish (whom we’ll talk about later), Jews, and even Muslims. Penn believed he was creating a grand Christian experiment, one that was diametrically opposed to the Puritan one. He was creating a colony on a hill, but one that included all who followed the Christian faith or a religion. He might have seen the Quakers as foremost among all Christians, but he saw all Christians as basically equivalent. This was far from how the Puritans and Anglicans saw things. They each saw themselves as true Christians, and all other faiths as false. The Quakers of Pennsylvania wanted to create a colony that would reflect their religious beliefs:
• The equality of everyone;
• Always seeking peace and unity in society;
• Pursuing religious freedom and social pluralism;
• Being community-oriented, but with a strong sense of personal expressions.
In many ways I see myself as a product of Pennsylvania. I believe in these same values, but I know that I live among many Christians who see only themselves as true Christians, and all others as false. Knowing all this about Penn, the Quakers, and the founding of Pennsylvania, it’s no accident that the signing of the Declaration of Independence took place in Philadelphia. That document would have a hard time finding the same kind of communal support in either the New England or Southern colonies. It’s also no accident that Pennsylvania had the most signers of the Declaration of Independence than any other colony.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Quakers?
The final major migration to shape American thought was the Scotch-Irish settlement first into Pennsylvania (the only colony that would invite and have them), and then down the spine of the Appalachians. It’s a bit of a misnomer to call them Scotch-Irish because many of them really weren’t Scottish. They really should have been called borderlanders. They came from the borderlands between Scotland and England. These were people who owed allegiance neither to Scotland and England. For centuries they were caught in a vice. When England would attack Scotland, they would demand allegiance from these people, but if they lost the battle, the Scottish would come onto their lands and kill the people there for supporting the English. If the Scottish attacked the English, they would demand the support of the borderlanders. If they lost, the English would then come and kill them. They were caught in a perpetual vice, so they created their own clan system of familial connection and support. When either the Scottish or the English would demand allegiance, these families would gather together and tell each army that not only would they not align with them, but whenever the army passed they would attack them from the rear. These were a fiercely independent and violent people who learned to be self-reliant and to take care of self and family first.
Many of these borderland folk were sent to Northern Ireland when Scotland and England joined to create Great Britain. Despite the peace between Scotland and Ireland, these folks remained violent and disruptive, so it made sense to exile them. From there they moved to the colonies in America. These people were unlike any other to come to America. They were built for the frontier, not the cities. They were uncultivated, and had their own ways that were extremely different from the educated Anglicans, Puritans, and Quakers. They cursed, they got drunk, they spat, and they fought. The women’s dresses revealed ankles and wrists, and sometimes even cleavage. Even the tolerant Quakers were uncomfortable with them, and encouraged them to move to frontier to places like,… Western Pennsylvania.
The legacy of the Scotch-Irish is still with us. These people were not seeking religious freedom. They already felt they had it. In the independence of the borderlands they had formed their own Christian churches. It is said that they often went into the frontier armed with a Bible and an axe. They felt no allegiance to any church, and if they disagreed among their own churches, they were quick to split. I’m convinced that what’s at the root of all our arguing in the Presbyterian Church is our Scotch-Irish roots. We’ve been arguing and splitting for centuries. In each new era we find new things to fight and split about, but it’s in our DNA, it seems, to fight. If you really want to understand the Scotch-Irish temperament, look to the Hatfield-McCoy feud of the 19th century. Do you know what they were fighting about? Neither do I, nor does anyone else. They were feuding because they were Scotch-Irish.
So how did these folk influence the faith of our country? They were the first libertarians. They believed in their own independence, their own freedom, and their right to do what they wanted. They didn’t want to pay taxes, and they didn’t want the government interfering in their lives. From a political perspective, these are the forebears of the NRA, the Libertarians, and even the Tea Party. Their influence on American faith is that they were the first to be spiritual but not religious. They may have gone to church, but often not together. Each individual person or family saw themselves as the real Christians, and all others as pale imitations. And they justified whatever they did on those grounds. They could find biblical justification for anything. Does that sound familiar today?
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Scotch-Irish?
The problem with calling ourselves a Christian nation is that if we look at our roots, there was no consistent Christianity to say what was universally Christian. If we are a Christian nation, which version are we? We can’t be all because they aren’t all compatible with each other. The independence of the Scotch-Irish conflicts with the communal focus of the Puritans. The intolerance of the Puritans and Anglicans conflicts with the tolerance of the Quakers. So which Christianity are we as a nation?
Next week I want to look at the faith of the founding fathers, because it was just as complex and varied as that of the colonists. Until then I want you to reflect on this question: knowing what you know now, would you say that we are a Christian nation?
Amen.
When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that “looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.”
‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.
So,… are we a Christian nation or not? Over the past year I’ve had two conversations on the topic with two people with very strong opinions. The first person was an evangelical Christian who attends a large, non-denominational church. He was very adamant that the United States is a Christian nation. He stated emphatically that this country was settled by Christian colonists, practicing a Christian faith, with Christian beliefs guiding their government, and therefore the government should promote the Christian faith since we are a Christian nation. I think it surprised him when I told him that I completely disagreed with him, and that I believed we were not founded as a Christian nation. It surprised him because in his mind (and maybe yours) Christian pastors are supposed to believe and teach that this is a Christian nation.
About a month later I had a similar conversation with an atheist. She said emphatically that we are not a Christian nation, that this country was founded by people who had a problem with Christianity and wanted religion left out of politics. She then said that she believed that there should be freedom of religion, but that all religion should be kept out of the public sphere. She was telling me this because she saw me as an “enlightened” Christian, one whom she believed would agree with her. I said to her that I completely disagreed with her, and that I believed that Christian faith is part-and-parcel of our nations’ make-up. To leave Christianity out of the public sphere would go completely against what the founders believed.
So right now you’re wondering if I’m some sort of strange waffler. Most wafflers agree with whoever is speaking to them. I seem strange because I was disagreeing with both. Why? The answer is that I’ve spent a lot of time studying American Christian history, and I know that both of them were misrepresenting it. Most of us have studied American history, and we’ve learned certain facts, such as that this country was settled by people escaping religious persecution, and that in this country we believe in a wall separating church and state. But these facts only scratch the surface of what really took place. And some of them are wrong.
I disagreed with both because both were holding onto simplistic understandings of the settling and founding of this country, and I refused to be simplistic. Unfortunately, we modern Americans don’t seem to be able to hold onto any ideas that don’t fit onto a bumper sticker, and it is easier to say we either are or are not a Christian nation than to dig into the truth. The result is that we say that we either are or are not a Christian nation, when the reality is that what we are is more complex than this. So, this morning I want to give you a very Presbyterian sermon on the whole question of whether or not we are a Christian nation.
What does that mean, that it will be Presbyterian? I saw a recent promotion for the Presbyterian Church that said, “I’m proud to be a Presbyterian because we don’t have to check our heads at the door.” I’m not sure that will be a catchy enough phrase to get people to join our churches, but I think it’s true. We Presbyterians believe in thinking our way through faith, and so this morning I want you to think. I’m going to talk about the colonization of this country and its impact on us as a nation, but at the end I’m not going to tell you how to think. I’m simply going to invite you to think. And the question I’m going to ask at the end is this: “Knowing what you know now, are we really a Christian nation?”
To help you think through this I want to take you through the colonization of America and see if you know it as well as many of us think we do. For instance, answer this question: We are a nation founded by people trying to escape religious persecution—true or false? Whichever way you answered, you were only 50% right. If you understand the role of religion in the colonization of America you’ll see why. I want to look at the four great migrations into America, and talk about how they influenced our nation, and especially our thinking about whether or not we are a Christian nation. I’m basing my talk on David Hackett Fischer’s incredible book, Albion’s Seed. I don’t expect you to read it, unless you are really interested in history. He is known at the foremost expert on American colonization. His book is over 1000 pages long, but it is fascinating. He says that there were four main migrations that influenced American thought. There were other migrations, to be sure, but they didn’t have a foundational impact.
To understand the role of religion among the colonists, you have to start with understanding England itself in the 1600s. It was not a very peaceful place. Most Americans know that we had a civil war in the 1860s, but most don’t know that England went through a civil war in the early 1600s. The power kept passing between Anglicans (those who cherished the king and followed the Church of England), Catholics (those who cherished the king but followed the Roman Catholic Church), and Congregationalists (those who had little use for the king nor the Anglican or Catholic churches, and followed a Calvinist form of religion). Whichever group was in power typically oppressed the other two. This is the context that led to the first big migration to America, which was the Puritan migration into the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Puritans were from a soil-poor area of England called East Anglia. It was comprised of Norfolk and Suffolk counties, mainly, along with several other counties. It was on the eastern coast of England, and the people who lived there were very independent and communal. They were Calvinists, following the religious reforms of the Swiss Reformation of the 1500s. They were a thorn in the king’s side, as well as the Anglicans and the Catholics. They did manage to secure power in England for a decade or more under Oliver Cromwell, but their rule was austere and violent. Why did the king allow the Puritans to set up a colony in Massachusetts? Because he wanted to get rid of them, and they wanted to escape their religious persecution in England.
The Puritans set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was comprised of what is today Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, with the hope that it would become a model Christian society. John Winthrop, in delivering a sermon to Puritan colonists in 1630 as they prepared to disembark in Salem bay, said that he hoped Massachusetts would become a “city set upon a hill” (based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5) that would become a model to the world. Since then, many Americans have declared that our whole country was founded as this city on a hill.
For the Puritans, their faith was everything. They saw no disconnect between faith and the rest of life. We often think of them as being very austere and rigid, although this wasn’t quite true. It is true that they dressed in a very reserved and modest way, wearing simple linen and wool clothing. Women always had their heads covered, and their dresses revealed no wrists, legs, or chest. The men were dark clothing that similarly covered their whole bodies. There was no showiness about their dress. Also, they believed in hard work, but that the produce of their work should be shared. It is also true that to be a Puritan meant to conform. Everyone dressed the same, spoke the same, and shared virtually the same beliefs. There was little tolerance for dispute. Also, to become fully part of the community, whether church or village, a person had to be born-again. It wasn’t enough, though, to say that you had had a born-again experience. You had to have your experience in public in a way that others could witness to.
Still, it’s not as though everything about them was rigid and austere. Community and family was everything for them. They were known as very loving and devoted parents. And they were known for offering a very free and inclusive democratic government. For example, they were the original creators of the town hall meeting, in which everyone in the community could have a voice. Their community emphasis was also demonstrated in the fact that there were very few poor among them. The community always looked out for the poor. If you were poor in a Puritan community, you would be invited to live with a family, for as long as the rest of your life. Widows and widowers were taken in by local families, and children whose parents died were quickly adopted by family or neighbors. The wealthy among them saw it as their duty to share their wealth, and held very little of it for themselves. You can see this tradition still in Massachusetts in its nickname, “Taxachusetts.” The willingness of people to pay higher taxes to care for the community was natural outgrowth of Puritan culture. To sum up the basic sense of Puritan culture, we can say that:
• They were very salvation oriented (who’s saved and who isn’t), with each person expected to live a pure (Puritan), godly life, adhere to Calvinist doctrine, and have a publicly demonstrated conversion experience. They were extremely intolerant of different Christian ideas, and especially denominations. They did not consider Christians of other faiths to be Christian. They were an abomination. In fact, if you were found to be practicing another faith in the colony—being a Quaker, Anglican, or Presbyterian—you were often forced to walk to another colony, while your head and arms were locked in a stock. As you walked from village to village, you would be spat on, garbage would be thrown on you, and children would hit you with sticks. On rare occasions, you would be hanged.
• They were very community and family oriented, with an emphasis on conformity of dress, belief, and behavior.
• They believed in using force and social pressure to enforce religious belief.
• They believed in the equality of all people, and that what distinguishes people is the nature of their work, not their rank in society. There was little social hierarchy, with each person’s voice being considered important.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Puritans?
The next major migration to American was night-and-day when compared to the Puritans. These were the Anglican Cavaliers who settled into Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They were not looking to escape religious persecution because, for the most part, they were in the religious majority. The Cavaliers were the second, third, fourth, and fifth sons of wealthy noblemen from the south of England. Their fathers owned large estates, estates that would be willed to the eldest son upon their deaths. The other sons were given money to make their way in the world. Many came to the colonies to create their own estates and plantations to rival their father’s.
The cavaliers dress was very different from Puritan dress. They dressed in fine silks and cottons. Their hear was long, and they wore swords by their sides. They were Anglican in their faith, and while the church was important to most of them, their faith was consigned mostly to Sunday mornings. The rest of the week they lived and did as they pleased. In many ways their religion was the accumulation of wealth. They were not in the colonies seeking religious freedom. They were seeking economic opportunity, with a goal of becoming rich. To summarize Anglican Cavalier life, we can say that:
• They believed that the universe was created with a natural hierarchy, of which we all are a part and have a natural rank. They believed that this ranking was ordained by God. So in the church there would be God, the king, the archbishop, the bishop, the priests, and then the laity. In secular society there was the king, the nobility, middle-class, servants, and then slaves. To them, all people have a duty to conform to their rank, and to not desire to rise above it. Understanding their view of community, and the Puritan one, you can see why slavery thrived in the south, but never took on in Massachusetts. The Puritans saw Africans as equal, but the Anglican Cavaliers saw them as naturally inferior, and put on this earth to be slaves. As a result, it’s easy to understand why people in the South couldn’t understand what the problem with slavery was, and some today still look down on African-Americans.
• They believed in the use of force, especially to enforce their hierarchy. As a result, they were highly intolerant of any other denomination and forced Puritan and Quaker settlements out of the colony. They weren’t as violent in doing so as the Puritans, but the tolerated no other beliefs and denominations.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Anglican Cavaliers?
The next migration was radically different from the other two. This was the Quaker migration that settled into New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The Quakers were a religiously persecuted people from central England. Their faith was very different from Puritans and Anglicans. They were very anti-institutional, believing that everyone could go to God directly without the help of pastor or priest. They also believed in peace and unity, equality, and the validity of other faiths (even if they saw their own as being preeminent).
The Quakers in the colonies, led by William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania (which originally included Delaware and parts of what is now New Jersey), wanted to create a land of religious liberty. And so he not only invited Quakers to come to Pennsylvania, but also Anglicans and Presbyterians, Lutherans and German Reformed, Mennonites and Amish, Harmonites (who settled in our town of Harmony), the Scotch-Irish (whom we’ll talk about later), Jews, and even Muslims. Penn believed he was creating a grand Christian experiment, one that was diametrically opposed to the Puritan one. He was creating a colony on a hill, but one that included all who followed the Christian faith or a religion. He might have seen the Quakers as foremost among all Christians, but he saw all Christians as basically equivalent. This was far from how the Puritans and Anglicans saw things. They each saw themselves as true Christians, and all other faiths as false. The Quakers of Pennsylvania wanted to create a colony that would reflect their religious beliefs:
• The equality of everyone;
• Always seeking peace and unity in society;
• Pursuing religious freedom and social pluralism;
• Being community-oriented, but with a strong sense of personal expressions.
In many ways I see myself as a product of Pennsylvania. I believe in these same values, but I know that I live among many Christians who see only themselves as true Christians, and all others as false. Knowing all this about Penn, the Quakers, and the founding of Pennsylvania, it’s no accident that the signing of the Declaration of Independence took place in Philadelphia. That document would have a hard time finding the same kind of communal support in either the New England or Southern colonies. It’s also no accident that Pennsylvania had the most signers of the Declaration of Independence than any other colony.
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Quakers?
The final major migration to shape American thought was the Scotch-Irish settlement first into Pennsylvania (the only colony that would invite and have them), and then down the spine of the Appalachians. It’s a bit of a misnomer to call them Scotch-Irish because many of them really weren’t Scottish. They really should have been called borderlanders. They came from the borderlands between Scotland and England. These were people who owed allegiance neither to Scotland and England. For centuries they were caught in a vice. When England would attack Scotland, they would demand allegiance from these people, but if they lost the battle, the Scottish would come onto their lands and kill the people there for supporting the English. If the Scottish attacked the English, they would demand the support of the borderlanders. If they lost, the English would then come and kill them. They were caught in a perpetual vice, so they created their own clan system of familial connection and support. When either the Scottish or the English would demand allegiance, these families would gather together and tell each army that not only would they not align with them, but whenever the army passed they would attack them from the rear. These were a fiercely independent and violent people who learned to be self-reliant and to take care of self and family first.
Many of these borderland folk were sent to Northern Ireland when Scotland and England joined to create Great Britain. Despite the peace between Scotland and Ireland, these folks remained violent and disruptive, so it made sense to exile them. From there they moved to the colonies in America. These people were unlike any other to come to America. They were built for the frontier, not the cities. They were uncultivated, and had their own ways that were extremely different from the educated Anglicans, Puritans, and Quakers. They cursed, they got drunk, they spat, and they fought. The women’s dresses revealed ankles and wrists, and sometimes even cleavage. Even the tolerant Quakers were uncomfortable with them, and encouraged them to move to frontier to places like,… Western Pennsylvania.
The legacy of the Scotch-Irish is still with us. These people were not seeking religious freedom. They already felt they had it. In the independence of the borderlands they had formed their own Christian churches. It is said that they often went into the frontier armed with a Bible and an axe. They felt no allegiance to any church, and if they disagreed among their own churches, they were quick to split. I’m convinced that what’s at the root of all our arguing in the Presbyterian Church is our Scotch-Irish roots. We’ve been arguing and splitting for centuries. In each new era we find new things to fight and split about, but it’s in our DNA, it seems, to fight. If you really want to understand the Scotch-Irish temperament, look to the Hatfield-McCoy feud of the 19th century. Do you know what they were fighting about? Neither do I, nor does anyone else. They were feuding because they were Scotch-Irish.
So how did these folk influence the faith of our country? They were the first libertarians. They believed in their own independence, their own freedom, and their right to do what they wanted. They didn’t want to pay taxes, and they didn’t want the government interfering in their lives. From a political perspective, these are the forebears of the NRA, the Libertarians, and even the Tea Party. Their influence on American faith is that they were the first to be spiritual but not religious. They may have gone to church, but often not together. Each individual person or family saw themselves as the real Christians, and all others as pale imitations. And they justified whatever they did on those grounds. They could find biblical justification for anything. Does that sound familiar today?
So,… this gets back to our basic question. If we are we a Christian nation, are we Christian like the Scotch-Irish?
The problem with calling ourselves a Christian nation is that if we look at our roots, there was no consistent Christianity to say what was universally Christian. If we are a Christian nation, which version are we? We can’t be all because they aren’t all compatible with each other. The independence of the Scotch-Irish conflicts with the communal focus of the Puritans. The intolerance of the Puritans and Anglicans conflicts with the tolerance of the Quakers. So which Christianity are we as a nation?
Next week I want to look at the faith of the founding fathers, because it was just as complex and varied as that of the colonists. Until then I want you to reflect on this question: knowing what you know now, would you say that we are a Christian nation?
Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)