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Faith, Hope, and Love

Questions Concerning American Christianity

Give, therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.

—Matt 22:21

To set the stage for our journey, it might be helpful to take a trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts, the place where, as every American school child knows, the Pilgrims landed in 1620. There we will see a replica of the famous Mayflower, that sturdy little ship that crossed the Atlantic with its precious cargo of Pilgrims and other hardy and adventurous folk.

The stone near the water’s edge is inscribed with the numbers 1620, which we are at liberty to believe were inscribed there at some later date.

There had been explorations and settlements before. But we can still see at Plymouth some historic images that can give us some insight into what the American experiment, especially in religion, is all about.

For one thing, most of these settlers were devout Christians, particularly influenced by the teachings of John Calvin, the great sixteenth-century reformer. But they differed from many other Calvinists in one regard. Unlike many Calvinists, they believed in freedom of religion; that is, they believed in the separation of church and state, something thought very odd and even dangerous by many in that day. They had moved from England to the Netherlands, a place of more religious tolerance than in many other nations. Yet they decided to move on to the New World, to America. So we see that in the very beginning those who came here were by and large Europeans, and they were Christians of the Protestant faith. They had also come as those fearing persecution for that faith. They were seeking not only a new place, but a new start in a new world. It is also true, of course, that some of the passengers came for reasons other than religion.

If you go up to the top of the hill in Plymouth, you will see more. There stand two churches, almost side by side. They represent, not the early settlers, but the later developments of the area in culture and religion. One is a beautiful chapel. Its stained-glass windows are truly delightful. They portray, not biblical scenes, but events from the early New England leaders. The chapel proclaims itself as the church of the Pilgrims. This church is Unitarian, a denomination that finds its home more in the beliefs and hopes of the Enlightenment than in the theology of Calvinism, or, indeed, in traditional Christianity. As we shall see, this rational enlightened faith will to some extent replace traditional Christianity in much of New England and beyond.

Quite near to this Unitarian church there stands another, a Congregational church. There a sign proudly proclaims that, even if the other is the church of the Pilgrims, this is the church that has preserved the faith of those Pilgrims.

Whenever we deal with the issue of the Christian life, we find so many differing explanations of exactly what that is that it is hard to know where to start. Some concentrate on matters of correct belief and doctrine. Others stress individual commitment. For still others it is a matter of the heart. Perhaps all of these can give us some insight into what is central to the faith.

It is hard to find a better expression of this center than in the Apostle Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 13:13: “Faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.” Christians throughout the ages have wrestled with this simple phrase and have found in it riches that could be applied to their own personal struggles and to the culture in which they lived.

Another expression of this same idea is found in the fifth chapter of his Letter to the Romans:

Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Rom 5:1–5)

An outstanding example of how central this view of the Christian life can be is found in a book written by no less than Augustine in the fifth century. He had been asked for a summary of the Christian faith. He responded with a handbook on this very faith,1 a commentary on just this verse, which can still be relevant in our own struggles today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the longest-serving president that this nation has ever seen. While always surrounded by controversy, he did steer the United States through some of its darkest days, the Great Depression and World War II. He was the only U.S. president ever to be elected to four terms, something now forbidden by a constitutional amendment. Near the end of his life, when he took the oath of office for the fourth and last time, his hand was on his personal Bible. That book was opened to that same passage that was central to Paul and an inspiration to Augustine, “. . . faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.”

It is hard to find anywhere in the world, or for that matter, anywhere in history, where the Christian community has found more success and prosperity than in America. In fact, many of the early American settlements were peopled by persons who were here precisely because of their faith, either escaping persecution, or striving to found a more perfect Christian society: Puritans in New England, Quakers and Presbyterians in Pennsylvania, Anglicans in most other colonies, Lutherans and Baptists here and there, with Roman Catholics in Maryland and elsewhere, and more. Eventually the Methodists would have phenomenal success in this land. Other home-grown denominations would spring up from time to time.

All of these would eventually find a home and fertile ground in which to grow under the cover of the First Amendment to the Constitution, where no religion is favored or supported over the others.

Yet with so many differing churches, there will necessarily be a variety of views about what is the correct understanding of the faith and what is the appropriate lifestyle of the believer. An interested observer may well be moved to ask which one of these is the real Christianity, or perhaps to wonder if any of them is. All of them can find something in the Bible or in church history to justify their beliefs and to question those of the others. We are left not only with the person’s freedom to choose one’s own religion, or none at all, but also with a kind of babel of voices, each proclaiming its own truth.

The miracle is that in the midst of all this, Christianity has grown and prospered in America in amazing ways, unheard of and unthinkable in other places and times. But the other side of this coin is that one is unclear on just what true Christianity might be.

The Culture Question

One facet of the problem of Christianity in America is that it is in America and thus cannot help but be influenced by that culture, or perhaps to a great extent be simply an expression of it. All of us are products of our culture, and that includes Christians as well as others. Clearly, Christianity has influenced various cultures over the years. But a parallel question is how much those cultures have influenced the faith itself. A Russian Orthodox will necessarily understand aspects of his or her life differently than a Southern Baptist or a medieval Roman Catholic.

I recall a conversation that I had with a somewhat sophisticated couple. I casually mentioned that we are all influenced by our culture. “We are not!” they insisted. But in fact we all are! Family life, the media, our educational system, and our circle of friends all conspire to shape our view of life, of the world, of right and wrong, and even of ourselves and where we might “fit in.” A belief that we are not so influenced can only increase the influence that our social conditioning has on us unawares, including, and perhaps especially, on our religious beliefs. To an extent, we might occasionally rise above this influence and be able to see beyond it, but these times are rare.

This issue has not gone unnoticed. Thinkers throughout the centuries have realized culture’s influence on our beliefs. In his book Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Will Herberg suggests that in America there are no real Protestants, Catholics, or Jews, but only adherents to differing forms of the one religion, Americanism!2

The classic work in the field is H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, in which he suggests that there have been five differing approaches to the issue: Christ above culture, Christ of culture, Christ the transformer of culture, Christ in paradox with culture, and Christ against culture. All, apparently, have some claim to legitimacy.3

Clearly, my own approach differs from that of Niebuhr. While he lays out all of the basic possibilities of treating the issue, I concentrate on one approach, which I believe is well justified from both Scripture and Christian history. Perhaps this way of considering the matter overlaps or includes some of his alternatives.

The Issue in Scripture

This problem has been there for believers throughout history, beginning with the Bible. We might well begin by taking a look at Abraham and the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. Abraham heard the voice of God commanding him to sacrifice his son. And he intended to obey.

On its face, this story presents difficulties. But a closer examination may clarify it. It is clear that some of the pagan gods of that day did demand child sacrifice, and for Abraham this might have been a command of one such god. One of the pagan gods of that day was Elohim, a kind of general name for a god. The text in Genesis uses exactly that name for the god who demands this sacrifice. But when God said, “No! Do not sacrifice!,” the name is Yahweh, the sacred name of the LORD given at the burning bush (Exodus 3). The tension here is between the true God and the deities of the surrounding culture.

Perhaps it is not too much to suggest that Abraham was not only the father of the Hebrew people, but also the prototype of all believers, and so of modern people. He is not some plaster saint, but a person who struggles to unite his surrounding culture with his faith in Yahweh. So, he may be very contemporary with us. We, in our world, modern as it may be, often find ourselves confused and at sea, wondering what we are to accept or reject in a surrounding world that is at the same time positive in its support of the human enterprise yet also destructive of some basic values. We have our own cultural gods calling to us. Like Abraham, we may have trouble sorting out what is from Yahweh and what is alien to the will of Yahweh.

The struggle was to continue throughout the history of this people. A short review of their history should make this plain.

When the people of Israel came into the promised land, that area was already occupied by other peoples with their own cultures and religions. The small scattered group of Israelites was hardly a match for the surrounding nations with their own gods and moralities. The choice was: either fight them or join them. Fighting often meant losing, with the possibility of the people being extinguished. Joining meant being absorbed into that other culture with its ways and its gods. Both ways were tried, and both could be disastrous.

The people of Israel eventually came to rule the entire land, but corruption sometimes accompanied this victory, often in the form of adopting the ways of the nations already there. Prophets arose to protest the faithlessness of the land. They were usually ignored, and sometimes persecuted. Eventually the nation was divided, and the southern kingdom of Judah was sent into exile in Babylon, for about seventy years.

Allowed to return from exile, the people asked themselves why God had allowed them to be so harshly punished. Their answer was that it was because of their unfaithfulness. Their response: they would no longer allow themselves to be influenced by other cultures and their gods. Men who had married foreign women must divorce them. Strict adherence to the laws of God was to be assured by an extensive set of commandments that covered every aspect of life. Further, contact with Gentiles, or non-Jews, was to be kept at a minimum. Thus, Pharisaic Judaism was born.

Yet they soon found that it is difficult or perhaps impossible to keep isolated from the inroads of other cultures. The new threat was that of the Greeks, or Hellenes, coming into their territory by the military inroads of Alexander the Great. He had inherited the Greek city-states, which his father had conquered. He himself loved Hellenic civilization. Even today we too are often amazed at what these Greeks accomplished: in architecture, in literature and the theater, and especially in philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are still admired and are read today.

Alexander quickly proved himself to be a great general when he invaded and easily defeated the long-standing enemies of the Greeks, the Persians. From there he conquered much of the Middle East, including Israel.

Alexander, as enamored as he was by Greek culture, intentionally left numerous cites around his empire as centers from which that culture could spread. They were all named, understandably, Alexandria. Upon his death his empire was divided up, with the family of the Seleucids receiving the share that included Israel. Its later ruler was Antioch Epiphanes, called the Enlighted One.

He decided to spread Hellenism, Greek culture, as a gift throughout his kingdom, and to enforce it on all who would resist it. This included the Jews, who had recently decided to resist all foreign influences. He ordered all Jewish priests to sacrifice to pagan gods. One of these priests killed the messenger of the king, and the War of the Maccabees was on.

One can only admire the faith and the grit of this small Jewish nation that held off the might of the powerful kingdom for about one hundred years, fiercely resisting Hellenic culture with its pagan aspects. Eventually, the Jews even recaptured Jerusalem.

Yet success can produce division, and it did so here. Various factions arose, each vying for control. One of these groups decided to call in Rome for help. And where Rome comes in, Rome does not leave! Palestine became part of the ever-growing Roman Empire, which by the addition of that land now controlled much of the Mediterranean, which they referred to as mare nostrum, or “Our Lake.” They had already made Greece a part of their empire, and Greek thinking had its influence among the conquerors as well as the conquered.

By the time of Jesus, Palestine was a cultural hodgepodge. Jews tried to maintain their identity while being ruled by Rome, in a world largely influenced by Greek thinking.

Jesus himself seems to have remained faithful to the Mosaic Law, but insisted on applying it to the inner person, decrying those who were only interested in cleaning the outer rim of the cup while the inside remained filthy. He also broke through the isolated approach of the Pharisees, often dealing with Gentiles and welcoming sinners.

For his troubles, Jesus was crucified by the combined forces of the two most powerful cultures of his world: Roman and Jewish.

The biblical history is filled with cultural conflicts. So is the entire history of the church. As we shall see in further chapters, the early church was forced to deal with its surrounding culture, and so have Christians throughout history. Yet we now return to modern America to take a look at some of the cultural challenges the church faces today.

Christians in America

Every Christian lives in some culture. And every culture necessarily has some virtues to it, or it could not flourish. The question for Christians at any time is what aspects of their milieu are compatible with Christian faith and morality.

What then are the major aspects of our American culture, and to what extent do they enhance Christian living or make it more difficult?

A Question of Basics

For any worthwhile examination of whether the American culture (or any culture, for that matter) is compatible with Christian life and teachings, it seems necessary to ask two questions: First, what are the irreducible basics of Christianity? And second, what are the basic beliefs and life patterns of that society?

Grace

It is not at all far-fetched to believe that the concept of the grace of God is central to the Scriptures and especially to the New Testament. The Greek term for grace is charis, is evidently derived from chairo, “to look favorably upon” or “to take delight in.” The concept in the New Testament is that God looks favorably on us, even when that favor is undeserved. It is an undeserved gift, an unearned blessing. It bestows on one what he or she has not deserved.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.4

The concept of undeserved grace is also found throughout the Old Testament.

The prophets continually scold the Hebrew people, who, although called and blessed by God without their merit, still remained stiff-necked and rebellious.

In the exodus, God takes them out of slavery, although they had done nothing to deserve it. Even the Ten Commandments assume his previous activities. These laws are premised in the first word, which reminds them that he had already freed them from slavery, and so in response they must be obedient.

When the Israelites became unfaithful and corrupt, the prophets continually harped on their sins, but in most cases they insisted that after well-deserved punishment, God would rescue a remnant. Hosea proclaims that God will take back his people, just as the prophet himself takes back his unfaithful wife.

Those returning from exile saw that return as a gift from God, which placed upon them the responsibility of obedience.

Throughout the Psalms there is the recurring theme of trust in God’s gracious forgiveness from sin and help in times of trouble.

But it is in the New Testament that grace clearly becomes central. Charis in one form or another is used over 150 times, usually expressing the theme of God’s favor.

Luke tells us that Mary “found favor” with God. The child Jesus “found favor” with God and man.

Jesus himself stresses the gracious nature of the Heavenly Father, who forgives the sinner. Jesus dines with the Pharisee and the publican and welcomes home the prodigal.

The prologue to John connects grace with Jesus Christ himself. He is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “From his fullness we have received grace upon grace” (1:16) And, “The law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ” (1:17).

Yet by far the most excited proclaimer of the grace of God coming in Jesus was Paul. Time and time again he expresses joy in his discovery of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, or better, that this grace had discovered him: “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God” (Eph 2:8).

But Paul did not come to this realization easily. He tells us he was “a Pharisee of the Pharisees,” evidently trusting in his own righteousness according to the law, which he evidently kept scrupulously. He was first an opponent of the new faith, joining in the killing of Steven. Yet it was on a journey to persecute Christians that he experienced the presence of Christ, and was converted to the new faith, for which he became one of its greatest advocates, traveling extensively to proclaim it.

Every writing of Paul rings with his joy in this faith, trusting in the favor of God, and not in his own piety. Nowhere is this clearer than in his Letter to the Romans, a kind of summary of his message. It is in the third chapter of this book that he sums up his message.

Paul, ever the Pharisee, feels it necessary to ask what advantage there is in being a Jew. “Much!,” he insists, because the Jew is entrusted with God’s word. But all, Jew and Gentile, are both under the power of sin.

What the law does is expose our sin and make us accountable. It does not justify us before God (make us just in his eyes). Rather, it shows us that we are not made acceptable by the law, only held accountable by it.

How then can any of us be justified? “We are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus . . .” (Rom 3:24). God’s righteousness is shown in that he makes us righteous! This is made possible by faith, not by the law; faith in God’s graciousness, not in ourselves.

For Paul, the great example of this in the Hebrew Scriptures is not Moses, the lawgiver, but Abraham, the man of faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:1–15). It is not by works that we are accepted by God as righteous, but by faith, or as we saw earlier, belief or trust.

This dynamic view of our relation to God totally reverses much of our usual understanding of religion. It is trusting in God, not in our own virtue or accomplishments.

Paul’s radical understanding of faith had enormous cultural consequences. As a Jew who now saw his Judaism in a new light, he went from synagogue to synagogue proclaiming Christ. Sometimes he was accepted, sometimes not. Occasionally Gentiles were interested. But it was in Antioch of Pisidia that an immense change came (Acts 13). Being rejected by the Jews there, he proclaimed that he would now turn to the Gentiles. Now one of the most dedicated and energetic of early Christians would devote himself to proclaiming the Good News to non-Jews.

Paul’s hope that it is God’s grace and not the law that will open the door for non-Jews to enter the faith, with the accompanying difficult questions about how their cultural beliefs and practices will, or will not, facilitate their new faith. This problem is still with us.

American Basics

If God’s grace is an irreducible aspect of Christianity, a sine qua non of the faith, what are the basics of the American way of life, its own sine qua non, that without which it would not be what it is? I will explore five characteristics of the American faith, the American belief system, and seek to relate or contrast them to God’s grace, if and when it is possible.

The first thing that comes to mind about America is what has been our innate optimism. We are the “can do!” people. This can account for much of our success in the political realm as well as in the sciences and engineering. If there is a problem, it is there to be solved.

This often includes an optimism about ourselves, our basic goodness, and the goodness of our goals. The question that necessarily arises is to what extent this is compatible with the biblical and traditional Christian teachings about grace.

Nowhere is this issue more obvious than in the preaching of Joel Osteen. He is at this time among the most influential of American TV preachers. His books are best-sellers. Immense crowds come to hear him in person. Clearly, his message resonates with something in the American psyche.5

To his credit, he proclaims God’s love for us all. He also insists on the need for personal integrity, honesty, selflessness, and sharing with others—something not always observable in many modern clerics.

Yet the heart of his message and the greater part of his appeal is his positive thinking. In this he stands in the tradition of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. He offers a salutary antidote to guilt-ridden lives and philosophical cynicism. It is precisely here that he is most in keeping with American optimism, but he may be proclaiming a cultural belief while at the same time denying what is central to the New Testament and the great thrust of Christian tradition: sin and the need for grace.

To begin, it seems apparent that Osteen’s faith is that God wants for you exactly what you already want for yourself. God wants the best for you. He wants to make life easier for you, and to give you an advantage. He wants to give you the desires of your heart. He wants you to be complete and content: a good marriage, happiness, and abundance.

Our response to this, he says, is faith. This means seeing yourself on a new level. It means believing that your business will take off, that you will prosper financially. Setting your mind on higher things is seeing yourself as stronger, healthier, and victorious. It involves believing that you will get that promotion. It believes that you can get that house that you seemingly cannot afford, just as the Osteens obtained the huge stadium in which they now worship. So then pray! Have faith that God will get you customers.

It appears that there is little or none of the offense of Christianity left here. While God affirms our personal values, it is hard to find anywhere that he confronts them or holds them in question.

While Osteen insists that our success in life is ultimately by God’s grace, he also says that if you do your part, God will do his part. If you keep the right (i.e., positive) attitude, he will repay you double for your trouble. Behind this is the belief in the innate goodness of us all.

It is no accident that Osteen seldom mentions sin. This may have a positive side, since for so many preachers sin is whether you smoke, drink, or swear. He knows his Bible well enough to say that sin is “missing the mark.” But Osteen’s heart is surely elsewhere. A positive attitude toward ourselves, our goals, and God’s approval of us is his dearest belief. While God forgives us, it is more often for mistakes we make, with little awareness that there a deep spiritual disease in the human heart—except, perhaps, for negative thinking, which may be for Osteen something close to the ultimate sin.

It is also telling that he very seldom mentions Jesus. We can well understand why this is so. It is not surprising. Why would we need Jesus? We certainly do not need the Jesus of Luther, who stands between us and the Father’s wrath, nor the Jesus of Augustine, who brings healing to our deep disorientation.

The cross is simply not mentioned. In the more than three hundred pages of Your Best Life Now, there is only one reference to Jesus giving his life. And this is in another context.

It is clear that Osteen’s message is both appropriate and appealing to a culture that wants to think positively, and strongly resents any hint that we who are part of it may ourselves be infected with hopes and desires that can warp and distort our very beings and our relationships with other persons and cultures. What we have here is clearly a matter of American positive thinking: a la Peale, Schuller, and, of course, Osteen himself. Russell Moore is certainly right when he suggests that these thinkers “are more akin to a Canaanite fertility religion than to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”6 That is, our relationship to God is one where we attempt to gain the most we can from him.

One serious problem that arises when the Christian faith is reduced to positive thinking is the problem of evil. We refer here not to the evils that beset us all simply due to the fact that we are human and mortal. The problem for Christians is that we are called to suffer because we are Christians, and we are sometimes called to take stands and act in ways that are counter to our culture. Old Testament prophets were often rejected. Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet.” Jesus himself was crucified by the powers that ruled. He admonished his followers to take up their cross, and told them that he would bring not peace, but a sword. Paul, a persecutor himself, was then himself persecuted. Many early believers felt the wrath of Rome. In our own day, believers who feel that their faith puts them in opposition to their cultural zeitgeist of the day have found suffering in their paths: witness Christians under Stalin and Hitler, as well as Americans who have fought for equal rights, and on and on.

It is wonderful when believers can live out their lives honestly in their culture, but all too often belief brings antagonism with society, and the accompanying suffering that attends it. On the other hand, many of us may avoid suffering for our faith by being all too willing to turn our eyes away from the false gods and the injustices around us.

A second aspect of American thinking that is observed by almost all is pragmatism, a philosophy that is uninterested in theoretical musings, but only concerned with what works. We are a practical people! In fact, we totally reject as impractical any abstractions that offer no worthwhile results.

It is interesting that America has until recently never adopted the many philosophies emanating from Europe. And the only philosophy that we have ever developed on our own is pragmatism. Probably its most important advocate has been John Dewey. He actually preferred to have his views labeled as “instrumentalism.” Here, the mind is seen as an instrument that makes it possible for us to survive in the best possible way. He explains that the only relevant question to ask is what real effects will result from an action or belief. In one of his writings he offers this analogy: Imagine that you are going somewhere, but on your walk you find that the way is blocked by a huge gulf in the road. What do you do? You may think about jumping across, going around, placing a board over the gulf. Which is the correct answer? The one that works!

This philosophy has been a hugely successful way of thinking for Americans. It is largely responsible for the almost unbelievable progress we have made in science, technology, and economics.

But many thinkers, Christian and otherwise, have found it lacking in some important ways. For one thing, while it can get you “there,” it does little or nothing to guide you in what “there” is. Unless I know where I am going, how will I know what is really getting me there? Most of us have some idea, perhaps unexamined, of where we want to go: to be president, discover the cure for cancer, get rich, or something else. Pragmatism gives us no guidance here.

Another problem that I encounter as a human being, where pragmatism might disappoint me, is that I must face the fact it is not only my surroundings, but also my own inner orientation, that keeps me from doing what is best practically. However noble my goals may be, my inner fears and disorientation may keep me from realizing them. Or they may actually twist me into seeking goods that are harmful.

In these regards, American pragmatism may see Christianity simply as a tool to achieve success, no matter how that success is defined or understood.

Another aspect of the American experience is pluralism. Historically, we have attracted a menagerie of peoples from elsewhere, as few nations on Earth have done. We have welcomed, or at least tolerated, nationalities and religions from everywhere. “Give me your tired and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” We have made a home for persecuted cultures and religions, and for the most part have been able to integrate them, and “Americanize” them into our society. This stands at the core of our national greatness.

But this laudable success has come at a price. So many peoples living and working peacefully together has meant that certain values must be adjusted, or even abandoned, to keep peace.

We can now look at two additional views of our national life that help us to survive at an optimum level: relativism and secularism. To what extent these are compatible with any kind of Christianity is questionable.

Relativism: In order to “get along” in a society that welcomes and contains so many different lifestyles and religions, Christian and other, it seems appropriate to adopt a kind of relativism. This approach maintains that no truth is absolute. All can claim only relative truth. It is also consistent with the basic American democratic creed that each person has the right to make up his or her own mind on important issues.

This way of dealing with our multi-everything nation has a generous and salutary humility to it. Yet it also contains its own absolutism: anyone who questions the belief that all truths are relative must be rejected as questioning the absolute truth of relativism. Christians often face just this accusation, because there are some things we hold as true, simply true.

Although most Americans seem content to rest secure in just such a position, it is hard to see how, rather than uniting us, it may just as well lead to intellectual chaos, where “ignorant armies clash by night,” and there are no common beliefs that can bring us together. The case can be made that it is just such kinds of beliefs that were helpless in the face of demonic tyrannies in the form of Hitler’s Nazism and Stalin’s communism.

This leads to another set of beliefs that are common in America, and throughout much of the Western, formerly Christian, world: secularism. The modern history of the Western world is fraught with horrible examples of religious persecutions and religious wars, many of them in the name of the Prince of Peace. It is enough to drive any decent person away from all religious belief, and to place one’s hope and faith in what the world and society have to offer.

“Secular” is from the Latin saeculum, which refers to the present age, usually to the exclusion of any religious beliefs and practices. Faith in science, social progress, and the innate goodness of the human race are the usual substitutes. In Europe, the grandest cathedrals, from another age, stand empty, while attempts at progress in other areas of life go on apace.

In the United States the First Amendment to the Constitution states that congress shall pass no law establishing any religion. Although the term “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution, it has become the basic understanding of that amendment.

The idea that government has no business meddling in religious matters has allowed religions of all sorts to flourish here. It is one of the pillars of our democratic society.

In his book The Secular City, Harvey Cox rejoices that we are now free from religious dogmas being injected into the body politic. We can now “get the ghost out of the machine,” taking the world on its own terms, unconcerned with placating the gods and spirits thought to be in it.

Cox sees his position as thoroughly in keeping with the Old Testament prophets, who were continually opposing the religions of their day, and mocking the various gods who dominated people’s lives, while these deities were really mere nothings. Thus, they freed the people from the fears and burdens that these gods brought.7

American secularism has been a truly positive aspect of our society and our lives, and especially in its ability to allow religions of all sorts to prosper.

But on the other side of the coin, there is the question of whether secularism itself has not become its own religion, its own ultimate, which can be as demanding and oppressive as any other religion. Christian beliefs and practices are more and more excluded from the public square at the same time that governments—national, state, and local—are dominating a greater and greater share of our lives. It remains to be seen what effects for good or evil this will have on both church and state.

Looking Forward

The American experiment in social life, politics, and religion has been an undeniable success in many regards. It has allowed individuals to practice, or to ignore, whatever faith they desire. It has engendered a huge and confusing variety of religious life and thought. Freedom from politicians and priests has produced one of the most productive and exciting panoramas anywhere or at any other time.

On my shelf is a book titled Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion, by David Gelernter.8 It puts forth the idea that Judaism was true in its way but was surpassed by Catholicism. In turn, Catholicism was surpassed by Protestantism. Finally, Americanism comes, which surpasses them all. It is truly the great religion.

The question, of course, is not whether American beliefs and practices surpass previous incarnations of Christianity, but how the two are related. This brings us back to our original question of whether Christianity is the same thing as Americanism, or whether they are incompatible, or perhaps overlap in some ways.

In order to deal with this issue, we must look at various expressions of the faith, as seen, of course, in the Bible. But it is also important to look at some of the most seminal theologies throughout time and place, and relate them to Paul’s “faith, hope, and love.”

Faith is basic to all believers. Certainly, one of the great advocates of this is Martin Luther. It will be necessary to examine his experience of this faith.

Christians have always clung to some manner of hope in the face of doubt and despair. Irenaeus of Lyon, from the second century, will be our guide here.

Perhaps the greatest articulation of divine and human love in the history of the church is from Augustine of Hippo. We will look at his beliefs.

In looking at them we can unfold for ourselves some of the depths and riches of the Christian faith and examine ourselves and our culture in that light.

1. Augustine, Enchiridion.

2. Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew.

3 Niebuhr, Christ and Culture. See also Carlson, Christ and Culture Revisited. Also: Penner, ed., Postmodern Turn; Baker and Smith, American Secularism.

4. John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (1772).

5. E.g., Osteen, Your Best Life Now.

6. Moore, Onward, 64.

7. Cox, Secular City.

8. Gelernter, Americanism.