Today, March 1st, is Super Tuesday. 11 states hold primaries today to determine their preference for a presidential candidate within each political party. Typically the outcomes of each states voting represents a presidential candidate's first test of national electability. Convincing wins in Super Tuesday primaries have usually propelled candidates to their party's nomination.
Political elections are as much about those doing the electing as it is about those eventually elected to office. Think about it, if each vote represents what a voter believes and hopes for, then the person elected is really a magnification of the desires voters happen to have at that point in time.
This is why national elections are so fascinating. Every four years, Americans collectively paint and present to the world a picture that communicates their aspirations and fears. It is a picture that enables us to see the character of a nation. Every four years candidates are going to “fix” the problems of America, just like every candidate in all the prior elections have been going to do. Something is wrong with that picture, as it would seem that no problems are ever really fixed, or not fixed right as a new crop of political saviors would project.
Growing up in America, you learn early on that the land of the free and home of the brave considers itself to be a Christian nation. This assertion is not simply drawn from the presumption that America has many self-professing Christians living within its borders, it is born of America’s identity as a whole, its history and its destiny are somehow tied to Christianity.
Political leaders feel the need to appear Christian, say Christian-sounding things, [Two Corinthians..?] show up at Christian institutions, and end their speeches with “God Bless America!” American money proclaims “In God we Trust.” What could be more Christian than that?
The current election cycle is demonstrating once again that the rhetoric and mythology of a uniquely Christian America should come to an end. Why? Because the votes don’t lie. Though voters may speak piously and rather vaguely about Christian values and ideals, polls and election results communicate clearly that this is a nation consumed by fear, anger, suspicion, and racial divisions – none of which are Christian virtues.
If voters were serious about presenting to the world a picture of a Christian America, they would need to be painting with the colors of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, gentleness and self-control, because these are the colors that, as the Apostle Paul said in Galatians chapter 5, give convincing evidence of harmony with Jesus Christ and the power of God at work in American lives.
Of course, Americans and their leaders will continue to speak in the name of God, even profess grand things about God, as they make their case for American Exceptionalism and the righteousness of the American Way. But from a scriptural point of view, this rhetoric is all rubbish. What matters is not what you say but how you live. And from a Christian point of view, nothing matters more than living a life that is inspired by God’s love for everyone. (1 Corinthians chapter 13)
In Matthew’s gospel (chapter 25) readers are taken to the time when God judges all the nations of the world. It is a rather terrifying scene because many of the people present at this judgement are convinced that they are the legitimate inheritors of the Kingdom of God.
But God is not fooled. God simply asks... Did you feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit those in prison?
How will America fare in this time of judgment, especially when we admit as evidence the millions of Americans (many of them children and the elderly) who do not have enough good food to eat, or the millions of Americans who have to drink water polluted with lead and industrial/agricultural pollutants?
What about the refugees and immigrants who are being refused at our borders and made to feel unwelcome in our land, or the homeless, many of them ill, who do not have a home and proper shelter from the elements, or the prison inmates, many of them African American, who are treated like the garbage of society? See, in America it does matter where you live and what color you are and how much money you have. The people of color in Flint Michigan with lead poisoned water are far less important than the people of Malibu California.
God is asking the nations about their public policy, not their verbal piety, because the true test of Christianity has only ever been and always will be... the test of love.
Imagine a political leader saying, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).
Love or noise? Love or nothing? Christianity hinges on how people choose between them. If Americans were serious about being a Christian nation, they would call forth and elect leaders who are patient and kind, and never boastful or rude. They would demand a political process much less characterized by vitriol and noise. But for that to happen, the people who vote would themselves need to espouse the virtues of love. You see, we don’t get the opposite of who we are... we get exactly a reflection of our own core values. That’s why this years political candidates are woefully insufficient to the tasks of inspiring and pristine leadership. Ain’t pretty but its true!
America, BE who you are and tell it like it really is. Or, look in the mirror, change, and start living what you say you are... a Christian nation! Contemplating an end to the rhetoric of a “Christian America,” is not the same as suggesting an end to Christianity in America.
However, the violence and hate, and the greed and the lack of sympathy for those deemed to be threatening minorities, all those outside the prevailing majority who make the rules, strongly suggest that now is precisely the time for a sustained re-infusion of God’s love in our American foundations.
But for that love to be genuinely Christian, and not a projection of our own fear, anxiety or arrogance, citizens are going to have to separate once and for America’s true nature from true Christian ideals. They are not the same thing.
