Home » Academics » Prof's Office » Office Hours

Office Hours: God and Country, Part 2 of 2

Read Part 1

Peter was having one of his periodic attacks of scruples. For the past 30 minutes he had been twisting my ear over the question of whether you can be faithful to your country without being unfaithful to Christ.

"All right," he said, "I'm asking. Are you going to answer?"

"Sure. Do you want me to give a general philosophical —"

"Please, Prof, no. I'm not asking every question in the book. What, did I say something funny?"

"No, no."

"Just tell me what you think of what I said. Can you do that?"

"Certainly."

"I don't even know myself whether my argument is sound."

"One argument? I counted five or six."

"Well, take 'em one by one. I'll go away and think, and if I want
to argue —"

"You'll come again another day. That's what they all say."

"Yes, but I'll really do it."

"All right." I took a breath. "Concerning your idea that it's wrong to call the country Christian. I don't say that you should or shouldn't call it that, but your arguments are faulty. Your first line of attack was that the ideas underlying the country's political system are anti-Christian, and you mentioned two such ideas. One was religious liberty, which you called not Christian but agnostic, because it means leaving it up to the individual what to believe."

"Yeah. Start there."

"Very well. It's true that there are no criminal penalties for not believing in Christianity. But agnosticism couldn't be the reason."

"Why not?"

"Agnosticism means not knowing. If we didn't know anything, we wouldn't know whether religious liberty is good. To believe in religious liberty you have to have a reason to believe in it; you can't get something from nothing."

"So what do you say is the reason?"

"There are several," I answered. "One is that man was made to know the truth about God, and in order to find that truth, he has to have liberty to search.¹ Another is that coerced love isn't real; what God wants is willing worship." I paused to think and then went on. "Besides, suppose you did enforce Christianity by law. You wouldn't make Christians, you'd make hypocrites. Non-Christians would lie to escape the penalty. Does Christianity require giving people motives to be hypocrites?"

"You're leaving out one of my most important arguments," Peter grumbled.

"Which one is that?"

"Historically, Christianity has thrived under conditions of persecution. 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.'"²

"That line is a good one, but you've missed Tertullian's point. He didn't say persecution is the seed of the Church; he said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. And why? Because that blood is the emblem of the testimony they bore, even unto death. Would you wish persecution on your children in hopes that it would make their faith strong? Of course not. Instead pray that their faith is strong enough to endure even if they face persecution."

"Children? Professor, I'm not even married yet."

I smiled. "I recommend the institution."

Peter wasn't sure how to take that remark. He went on, "But Prof, even if Christianity can mix with religious liberty, you can't say it mixes with democracy. Like I was saying before, democracy is either a form of nihilism or a form of idolatry."

"You almost have a case. Ancient democracy meant that the most numerous group or class could do as it selfishly pleased. That really does look like nihilism. The motto that 'the voice of the people is the voice of God' has been around at least since the eighth century. That really does look like idolatry."

"That is my case. What do you mean, I almost have a case?"

"I mean that what we mean by democracy today isn't like either of those ideas. It's more like what Aristotle called 'mixed government,' but ennobled by the biblical understanding that human beings bear the image of God. No group automatically gets its way. Many groups share power on principles of equal dignity, institutional balance, and natural justice."

"I hope you're not claiming that our 'democracy' always works like that."

"No, Peter, but be fair. You were complaining that the ideas underlying the political system are somehow un-Christian. Whether they always work the way that they were intended to work is another story. You can complain about that some other day."

"I don't seem to be making much headway talking about political ideas."

"Not so far."

"Well, my second line of attack was that our national identity isn't Christian. Can we talk about that?"

"Certainly, but help me out. I agree with you that not all of the influences on the country's Founding were Christian. We had a mixed Founding, with a blend of influences from Christianity, influences from classical antiquity, and influences from the secular Enlightenment. But you say that doesn't bother you. So what's the problem?"

"The problem is that even if we did have a partly Christian Founding, each generation has to work out its own identity. C'mon, Professor Theophilus, can't people reject what their ancestors believed?"

"They can, but they can't reject the fact that their ancestors believed it. If we had a partly Christian Founding, then like it or not, we also have a partly Christian heritage. The whole point of speaking of the 'identity' of nation, or a person, is to suggest a reality that endures, despite some changes, over time. One of the things that doesn't change is where it started, so if you want to tell the story of who we are, you can't leave out who we were — just like in the song, 'I once was lost, but now I'm found.' Or it could be 'I once was found, but now I'm lost.' A nation's past still concerns them if some day they come to reject everything that their ancestors believed — though I hope, in our case, that they won't."

"OK, Professor T, but that just brings us to my third line of attack — what people today do reject or believe. I admit that the country may be nominally Christian. I mean, lots of its citizens call themselves Christians. But you know they aren't Christians really."

"What are you calling a Christian really?"

"Someone who holds traditional Christian beliefs."

"Like what?"

"Like, 'There is one God.'"

"Most people in our country still believe that."

"Like, 'Jesus Christ is our Savior.'"

"Most might even say that they believe that too."

Peter sneered. "I bet they don't understand what it means."

"Peter, do you fully understand what it means?"

"Prof!"

"I'm serious. Do you fully understand how His death and resurrection opened the way for the forgiveness of our sins and our reconciliation with God? Do you fully understand how His grace works within us to restore us to Himself? I don't. I don't think we gain anything by saying that a confused Christian just isn't a Christian."

"But you wouldn't say people like the girl in my Con Law class are Christians, would you, Professor T? You know — the one who says God is a 'legal fiction.' She calls herself Christian."

"I wouldn't dare to guess what might be going on in her soul. She might be struggling to believe. She might be merely struggling to be clever. She might be any of a hundred other things. She might be moving toward Christ or away from Him. At least she wants to identify with Him."

"Are you claiming that everyone who calls himself a Christian is a Christian?"

"I'm saying that I don't know what they are. If someone calls himself Christian but seems confused about what that means, my job isn't to decide his eternal destiny but to try to unconfuse him and to help him know Christ. 'Admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all,' said Paul.³ That's still good advice. But Peter, what has any of this got to do with — Peter?"

He snapped out of a momentary daze. "Sorry. I was thinking about the girl. What were you asking?"

"I was asking what any of this has to do with the question that was eating you — whether your loyalty to your country can be reconciled with your loyalty to Christ."

"Why — it has everything to do with it. My first loyalty is to Christ. If my country isn't Christian, how can I support it?"

"Would you say the same thing about your family?"

"But my family is Christian."

"Suppose it wasn't. Shouldn't you love your family even if they didn't follow Christ? Shouldn't you honor your mother and father above other mothers and fathers, not because they follow Christ, but just because they are the mother and father Christ gave you?"

"You've got me there," he answered. "Fourth Commandment and all that.⁴ But there are limits, right? I couldn't support them in doing something wrong, like cheating another family."

"No, of course not. In the truest sense, supporting them means bearing them up, helping them toward the good, as they've tried to help you. 'Supporting them in doing something wrong' wouldn't be bearing them up, but dragging them down. It's the same with your country or your friends. But you're missing the larger point."

"What point is that?"

"You owe special honor to your family just because it's your family, the family that is given to you. In the same way, you owe something to your country. Not because it's Christian, not because it's the best in the world, not because God loves it more than other countries, just because it's your country, the one that is given to you."

Peter said, "I see a flaw in that argument."

I gestured. "Speak."

"You agreed with me that I shouldn't help my country do something unjust, because that wouldn't really be supporting it. But what about supporting it in war? Isn't that unjust? Jesus taught, 'You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil.'"⁵

"What do you think Jesus was teaching against in that passage, Peter?"

"Revenge."

"I agree. Then if your country goes to war for revenge, you should be a witness for pardon. But what if it goes to war for the sake of rightly-ordered peace?⁶ For example, what if the goal is to remove an oppressor, or save innocent people from massacre?"

"Prof, you're only looking at the first part of the passage. Look at the other part. He says, 'Do not resist one who is evil.'"

"I am looking at it. But you're cherry-picking. Doesn't the New Testament also say that the magistrate 'does not bear the sword in vain' — that he is 'the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer'?"⁷

He hesitated. "Yes."

"And wasn't St. Paul speaking on that occasion as an Apostle — with the authority of Christ?"

"I admit that. But I can't square his words with what Jesus said."

"Of course you can. Christ wasn't teaching that the public official shouldn't 'bear the sword' to uphold public justice. He was teaching that you shouldn't 'bear the sword' to avenge a personal insult."

"But Christ didn't come to set up a nation. He came to set up a Church!"

"That's right, but God created the nations too.⁸ Our true Commonwealth is in heaven,⁹ and our first loyalty lies there. But the King of Heaven says that while we're here, we have duties to our earthly one too."

Peter was silent for so long that I spoke again. "Peter? Has any of this helped you? Do you agree? Disagree? Want to fight?"

C O F F E E  S H O P

---

Why do you think honoring your country is important or unimportant?

Join the discussion!

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I haven't the foggiest idea. I need to chew on it. When I've had enough time to think it all through I'll come back and talk again."

"When? Next week?"

He smiled wryly. "How about in six months?"