Good Friday in America

Mrs. Hommes and I met today for Good Friday, and after a to-go order at Chick-fil-A we tried to hurry in a visit to a tile showroom before returning to work. Well, the store had a note on the door giving notice that they closed at noon in observance of Good Friday. I was a perturbed. Sure, on one level I am glad that commerce stops to recognize that which is more important, but I am cynical enough to suspect most of the people that closed up shop are paying very little respect to Good Friday, if at all. Well, I let the frustration pass, but it reminded me of a tension that is ever present in our country, and has flaired in to the news in the last week. How Christian is America?

I enjoyed Robert Meacham's American Gospel and thought it was a good exploration of the role religion has (or hasn't) played in American politics. His article in this week's Newsweek, The End of Christian America is a great extension of his book, and while the entire article is too good to summarize with a quote, I submit a section particularly relevant this Good Friday:

The columnist Cal Thomas was an early figure in the Moral Majority who came to see the Christian American movement as fatally flawed in theological terms. "No country can be truly 'Christian'," Thomas says. "Only people can. God is above all nations, and, in fact, Isaiah says that 'All nations are to him a drop in the bucket and less than nothing'." Thinking back across the decades, Thomas recalls the hope—and the failure. "We were going through organizing like-minded people to 'return' America to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves!"

Their view tracks with that of the Psalmist, who said, "Put not thy trust in princes," and there is much New Testament evidence to support a vision of faith and politics in which the church is truest to its core mission when it is the farthest from the entanglements of power. The Jesus of the Gospels resolutely refuses to use the means of this world—either the clash of arms or the passions of politics—to further his ends. After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the dazzled throng thought they had found their earthly messiah. "When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." When one of his followers slices off the ear of one of the arresting party in Gethsemane, Jesus says, "Put up thy sword." Later, before Pilate, he says, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight."

And so it was that Christ submitted himself, even to the cross.


PS - The Newsweek article has spawned reaction across the cultural/religious/political spectrum, and led to a follow-up response by Meacham, found here.