I’ve never been particularly interested in politics. However, after the 2016 election, I began to take an interest in Christian perspectives on American politics and how the Bible was used in various political speeches and campaigns.
As I became aware of many of the more popular uses of Scripture in the political realm, I began to feel like Bonhoeffer, who said the following at the International Youth Congress in Gland,
“…has it not, again and again, become terribly clear in all that we have said here to each other that we are no longer obedient to the Bible? We prefer our own ideas to those of the Bible. We no longer read the Bible seriously, no longer read it as against us but only as for us.”
As Christians in America think about politics, we may well be reading the scriptures “for us” rather than “against us” because we “prefer our own ideas to those of the Bible.”
In God We Trust
The idea that many seem to prefer is that the United States is uniquely blessed by God. The Bible, and by extension, God, is drawn into a national narrative in ways that scratch our itching ears.
The problem with this national narrative is that it assumes God is for our nation in a special way. God is active and present in America today, but God’s relationship with America is not like his relationship with Old Testament Israel, which was to be a kingdom of priests.
As Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright notes, this status involved “the historical task of bringing the knowledge of God to the nations, and of bringing the nations to the means of atonement with God.”
While God has certainly blessed America, America is not a kingdom of priests, nor is it “a city on a hill” drawing other nations to Christ or a “nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage” (Psalm 33:12).
God has blessed America as he has blessed other nations. In Scripture, God prospers many nations, including Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. At certain points in time, these nations could claim a “blessed” status even though they were not honoring the Lord.
Babylon, for example, did not defeat Israel because Babylonia was the pinnacle of morality but because of Israel’s disobedience (Lamentations 1:5; Ezekiel 39:21-24; Nehemiah 9:29-31). Babylonia would also be displaced by the Persians because of its wickedness (Isaiah 13; Jeremiah 51).
Cyrus, God’s anointed (Isaiah 45:1), and the Persian empire will be prospered despite not knowing the Lord prior to their victory (45:3). Cyrus is called though he does not know the Lord and is given victory for Israel’s sake (45:4).
Claiming that God has blessed America is not the problem. Presuming to know why God has blessed America.
When we claim God has blessed America because previous generations were guided by Scripture or various Christian principles and teachings, we engage in speculation that can create confusion, particularly confusion about our unique Christian mission of making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).
The way we speak and think about our nation should remind us that being and making disciples is the non-negotiable task of the church in America.
As we make disciples, we position ourselves to participate with God, who can do more than we can ask or think, rather than depending on our own wit, wisdom, and strength.
Speaking and Thinking about God and Our Nation
In Deuteronomy, God warns Israel not to assume they possess the land because of their righteousness “whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you” (9:4).
Israel will possess the land because of the Lord’s promise. They will possess the land “because of the wickedness of these nations” (9:5). Israel’s righteousness is not the cause.
As such, it should not become a point of pride for the Israelites or a “political chip” that could be played to pressure God to bless Israel.
God’s warning highlights the relational dimensions that exist between the nations of the world. At times, nations prosper because the iniquity of other nations has been completed (Genesis 15:16).
Israel has been given the opportunity to “choose life” by “loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of day…” (Deuteronomy 30:20).
Yet, Israel is not alone. God is also attending to the other nations. Neither the blessing of Israel in possession of the land nor the nation’s status as a kingdom of priests is conditioned on Israel’s righteousness.
Israel’s obedience will result in blessing; however, the relationship between obedience and blessing was secured by a prior bond forged through Israel’s covenant with the Lord.
It was not a moral framework that secured Israel’s blessing but a promise made by the Lord enacted in the Lord’s timing based on factors outside of Israel’s control.
If God’s covenant people cannot claim that their righteousness resulted in their possession of the land, how can any other nation presume that their moral state will secure prosperity?
Adopting a moral framework based on principles abstracted from Old Testament law would not be a bad thing.
God’s law aligns with God’s order. Adopting a moral framework is not the problem, but assuming that adhering to that moral framework will secure God’s blessing.
The relationship between the two is less “cause and effect” than we often seem to assume. Maintaining a moral framework is part of the role government is to fulfill. The Bible does not advocate for anarchy. Yet, not even the most moral nation is the kingdom of God.
Christians need to maintain a distinction between the body of Christ and the nations in which that body lives as “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11).
However, we also need to recognize the responsibility the body of Christ has to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” who “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
We are to make the nations aware of God and point the nations toward Jesus Christ and the salvation he provides.
As Paul tells the men of Athens, God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:26-27).
As Creator, God determines the duration of national dominance and the boundaries of their domain so that they may search for Him. Christians aid them in that search.
Why it Matters, What it Entails
With this brief overview of some of the ways God works among the nations and the role the body of Christ plays in the midst of the nations in mind, it would seem wise to reframe the way we think and speak about the relationship between God, America, blessing, and Christian action in the world today.
We can agree that God has blessed America as he has blessed other nations past and present. Based on Deuteronomy 9:4-5 and other biblical passages, we can also assume that righteousness (or morality) is not causally linked to God’s blessing.
In fact, there are biblical patterns to suggest that one nation may prosper because of the wickedness of another for the sake of God’s people and/or so that the nations have the time and space to seek God.
With these conclusions in mind, we may also say that without knowing why God blesses a given nation, we have no particular insight as to what we might do to improve or ensure the nation’s chances of securing the blessing ongoing.
This latter point is important because it clarifies the relationship between morality and prosperity or blessing. Morality is not trivial. We should not ignore it.
This line of argument is not intended to suggest that Christians should stand silently in the face of injustice, callousness, or dehumanization.
Rather, it is intended as a reminder that morality and blessing or prosperity do not have a cause-effect relationship.
As such, we must ensure that all our work is gospel work that helps the nations “feel their way toward” Christ (Acts 17:27). We aren’t working to ensure that Americans are “very religious” like Paul’s “men of Athens” (17:22) but to bring them to a knowledge of “the unknown God” (17:23).
Christians can participate in moral reforms, yet we cannot neglect the one task only we can do: making disciples of the nations.
Discipleship is the most important activity for God’s people in the United States. Through discipleship, we not only proclaim Christ to the nations, but we also learn to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
We must be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” not so that we can reform our nation but so that we can survive within it “to bear witness before them and the Gentiles” (Matthew 16:18; Acts 26:1-32).
To be shrewd in this way may mean learning to navigate and influence the various systems (i.e., political, economic, social) of the day to ensure our survival and availability to proclaim the gospel.
America’s unique governmental procedures, capitalist sensibilities, and social norms open up a range of possible ways for Christians to be “shrewd” and “innocent” so that, as New Testament scholar Grant Osbourne notes, “the Christian is to interact with outsiders with a practical wisdom and a behavioral innocence so the kingdom truths go out with divine power without hindrance.”
Reforming our nation may well be a consequence of gospel proclamation, but it cannot become the aim of our activities.
We represent the gospel to the world not so that the world will become more moral (or less evil) but to point our nation and its people to Jesus Christ.
For further reading:
How Did the Bible Influence the Foundation of America?
7 Scriptures to Pray for America
What Was the First Bible Printed in America?
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