A growing number of Christian writers are embracing the idea that the United States is moving into a post-Christendom phase and that the church should not resist this transition. This has significant implications for the very hotly debated question of how faith intersects with politics.
Notice that there are both factual and prescriptive claims in the first sentence above. The claim that the United States is shifting into a post-Christendom phase is articulated as an observation of reality. This observation is supported by a variety of evidence, including the growing religious pluralism of our country; the increasing resistance to Christian hegemony in the public square; the rising visibility of secularists, agnostics, and atheists; various court decisions that hem in, reject, or challenge Christian positions or organizations; and the religiously and morally offensive material that emanates from much of the mass media.
The claim is that we are moving from a legally-disestablished-but-culturally-established Christianity to a society that is post-Christian. Whether it will turn out to be characterized by an established secularism or a multi-hued religious pluralism remains to be seen.
I think that it is possible but not inevitable that this transition will happen in the United States. Certainly it has happened all over Europe, but on this point in particular we are not very much like Europe. It seems to be happening at different rates in different places, even here in our country. Where I live here in west Tennessee, I can't see that it is happening much at all. Here Christendom survives. One might say that red-state and blue-state America are partly determined by how far this process has advanced.
But the more interesting question is: Should Christians resist this transition to post-Christendom America? Most Christian social activists are busy resisting it with all their might. The politically active members of the conservative Christian community are attempting to reverse every trend discussed thus far. Even more moderate or liberal Christians who engage the public square can be viewed as sharing in the same essential presupposition: that Christians are responsible for advancing their moral values in politics and culture. They just have a different set of moral priorities.
The post-Christendom crowd is in a different place. They are rejecting the very concept that the job of Christians is to advance their moral values in public life or especially in politics. Post-Christendom advocates seem to be motivated by different strands of thinking. Some tend toward a classic Radical Reformation sectarianism and the principled withdrawal of the church from the culture. Some operate with a theology of the kingdom or of salvation that leaves them with the conclusion that the church, because it is pursuing a different kingdom, has no business engaging in any nation's political activities or debates.
Some are impressed by the centrality of coercion and violence in public life and have concluded that Christians, disciples of the crucified One, can have nothing to do with organized violence and therefore with the states that employ it. Some post-Christendom folks are turned off by liberal democratic capitalism and are seeking to extract themselves from it — and from the church's complicity with it — as much as possible. Finally, some post-Christendom advocates seem to believe that the church's mission of preaching the gospel, of administering Word and sacrament, of serving the neighbor in need, is fatally compromised when mixed with any kind of political activity.
At the root of this argument, in one sense, is a question about the church's historical journey. We began as a marginalized, persecuted religious minority in a pagan empire. We were powerless but morally pure. After Constantine, we transitioned into being an established religious majority. We were powerful but morally impure. As “Christian civilization” fades all over the western world, some find this a congenial opportunity to go back to the marginalized purity of the early church. Others yearn for a preservation or restoration of some form of Christendom, without its excesses and abuses.
I see no easy way to resolve the tensions between these two positions. In the end, the facts on the ground may decide the matter for us. We may become a marginalized religious minority whether we like it or not. For now, I cannot accept that our calling is to renounce the use of whatever influence we may still have in American culture. But I do know that the mission and survival of the church do not depend on retaining a hold on cultural power.
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