Whose God? (January, 2005)

Jay decries political parties and movements invoking God's name for their own agendas. He cites Daniel Lazare in The Nation, and makes reference to William Willimon in The Christian Century (neither of which I've read).

What I appreciated [with my comments interspersed]:

• "God stands in judgment on all peoples and states, all parties and politicians. God will not be used as the ground of American democracy and power." [See Romans 3:23, Isaiah 40:15, Psalm 2:1.]
  
• "It should also be said that the [Christian] God ... is not the god of Islam." [See John 14:6. I commend Jay for unflinchingly quoting the controverial John Ashcroft.]
  
• "[William Willimon:] I defy anyone to attempt to read through a translation of the Qur'an ... and come away saying, 'Well, Jesus and Muhammad are heading in much the same direction.'"
  
• "...living with Muslims may actually help Christians become better followers of Jesus."
  
• "Well, how should [the Muslim college student] judge the Christian faith [but by the actions of his 'Christian' roommate]?" [Well put! See 2 Cor 5:20.]
  
• "It is the pagan that uses God for their own purposes. The Christian follows the God of Jesus by living the Jesus-life regardless of the siren call of money, power, sex, or even the nation state."
  

Where I'd challenge him:

President Eisenhower famously opined, "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith and I don't care what it is." [Emphasis mine.]

In not caring what faith it is, Eisenhower is endorsing Unitarianism, not Christianity. As a Christian, that statement doesn't inspire me to vote for him or to blindly follow every other idea he advances. How about you? Does this straw man really make a case?

[Lazare] comments: "Just as ancient Rome tolerated all cults as long as they sacrificed to the emperor," Eisenhower believed postwar United States "should welcome all forms of religious expression as long as they bolstered the national cause. Faith in God and faith in America were mutually reinforcing."
...The painful thing is that Lazare implies that the Christian God is much more pliable and agreeable to cooperating with the national cult.

Ironically, ancient Rome fed Christians to the lions by the thousands, exactly because they refused to sacrifice to the emperor. And it was Christian influence that stopped it. So in this very case, the "national cult," not God, was the pliable party.

[That President Eisenhower and "many before and after him" seems to have used God to manipulate the electorate] ...suggests that followers of Christ in the U.S. in particular have let our God be used by politicians of every stripe to undergird their own goals and sustain their own power."

I don't doubt politicians have used God (both successfully and not) to justify their positions. Living in the Bible belt for nine months, I saw religion used to sell all sorts of things. (Does it work? I hope not.) But what would it look like for Christians to not "let our God be used?" Enacting heavy-handed laws against mentioning God's name? I doubt Jay would endorse that.

To be fair, religion is mocked, ridiculed and vilified in secular circles to "sell" (typically political ideas), and far more often. This is using God to endorse a point of view, albeit negatively. Not letting the Christian God "be used" would have to include forbidding this as well, wouldn't it?

In reality, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not available to add dignity to the political causes of the right or the left, to justify tax breaks or entitlement programs, wars just or unjust... God stands in judgment on all peoples and states...

People of every nation, culture, sub-culture and political persuasion will be shown their blind spots and sins at the judgment seat of God. That includes you and me.

But Jay implies that God, who requires us to act justly and to love mercy (Micah 6:8), who urges us to set the oppressed free (Isaiah 58:6), is now "not available to add dignity" when these requirements work themselves out into actions (particularly voting). I disagree.

Willimon concludes, "Frankly, I think the Muslims have got it right when they say that Christians in the West appear to have produced, or at least acquiesced to a pagan, sex-saturated, violent, materialistic society. Muslims seem to despise us not because we're so free (wrong, G. W. Bush) or because we're so very Christians [sic] (wrong, Jerry Falwell) but because we're so awfully pagan."

Muslims do despise our society's paganism. (I do, too.) Muslim societies use heavy-handed laws to ban paganism, but also to perpetuate slavery (as in Sudan) and drastic inequality between men and women, and ban religious freedom. Do these Muslims only despise our paganism? Jay is pretty selective in the things he points out Muslims despising. A look at the whole picture proves G. W. Bush right.

Our founding fathers, many Christian, all strongly influenced by Christianity, built a free nation knowing full well that many would use this freedom to reject Christ and indulge in pagan pursuits. They built a free nation, not a Christian nation. And this free nation eventually banned the slavery it inherited and gave women unprecedented rights. This same free nation that gives pagans the right to revel publicly, also gives Christians the freedom to publicly live the Jesus-life.

Though I appreciate Jay's thoughts and challenges, his sweeping judgments don't leave us with a coherent point of view. If in "living the Jesus-life" we let our beliefs influence our voting, we're letting "our God be used by politicians...to undergird their own goals and sustain their own power." If we don't, we've "acquiesced to a pagan, sex-saturated, violent, materialistic society."