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Five Things I Learned Studying Other Religions

Five Things I Learned Studying Other Religions

“He who knows one [religion], knows none.” – Max Müller 

Last year I had a strange realization…I know way too much about Christianity.

When I say this, I mean that I know way too much about Christianity in comparison to other religions. I have lost count of the books I have read about Christianity, while I can barely think of one written by a non-Christian about another religion. I know the Bible like the back of my hand, but I could barely tell you the basic facts about the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita (I even had to Google how to spell that!).

I grew up in the church, have spent the past eight years of my life studying Christianity in an academically rigorous setting, and now my full-time paid job is to teach others about Christianity. I am blessed to have the opportunity and technology to study the Bible and Christian theology in great depth. As I reflect on this, I am struck by the immense privilege and heavy responsibility it is. If both my personal calling as a disciple of Jesus and my professional calling as a paid pastor compel me to encourage others to choose to follow Jesus instead of other paths, I should at least have a working knowledge of other faiths. So, last fall I set a goal to read eight books about other religions by the end of the year, and I want to share five insights from my reading. 

 

Why learn about other religions?

 

You may wonder why a Christian should learn about other religions. Isn’t it dangerous to listen to “false teaching”? While we certainly should be discerning about what we read and listen to, I think Max Müller’s quote noted at the beginning of this blog is tremendously helpful. Without a working knowledge of other religions, your understanding of Christianity begins to suffer because you don’t know what makes it unique. Learning about other religions only bolstered my faith in Jesus and understanding of him. 

As America becomes more religiously pluralistic, it is imperative that believers know how to have conversations with those of different faiths and be able to thoughtfully and respectfully disagree. Here are five lessons I learned as I studied other faiths. 

 

1. All religions are not the same. 

 

I believed this before my research journey, however,  the popular assertion that all religions are different paths to the same God reflects a profound ignorance of the various religions and what they teach and practice. Stephen Prothero, author of God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World, argues that this modern Western view is actually the minority position of the current scholarly field of religious studies. Prothero, a serious scholar teaching at Boston University and by no means a fundamentalist Christian, claims that very few of his academic peers even try to argue that religions are essentially the same. Each religion fundamentally disagrees about the problem facing human existence, presents divergent ways to solve those problems, and differs on what an ideal resolution would look like. For example, in his view, Christianity is unique in that it is essentially a religion of salvation. Human beings are trapped because of sin and are in need of someone (Jesus) to save them from this. 

Prothero thinks the popular pluralistic view is derived from ignorance. The less one knows about various religions, the more likely one is to assume they are all the same. This viewpoint, while starting from a commendable and sincere desire for religious tolerance, ends up not only wrong but also disrespectful. It denies adherents of other religions the dignity of disagreement. If you’ve ever argued with someone and they refuse to acknowledge you are in disagreement, you know what I mean. It is quite demeaning to tell someone, “No, no! You don’t understand. We actually agree,” when you are in the middle of an argument.

Moreover, the origin of this sort of religious relativism is Western imperialism. Religious studies, as a secular discipline distinct from theology, began with liberal European academics seeing the religions around the world as different stages of “evolving” into their own moralized versions of Christianity (God is love and we should be nice to one another). Imagine how a sincerely devout Buddhist would respond if told they were really an anonymous Christian! Despite how much we might recoil at bold claims that a person’s religion is the true one, every person does have some sense that this is true, otherwise they wouldn’t believe what they do. Of course, we should seek tolerance for other faiths and fight for religious freedom, but we should do so by acknowledging diversity and disagreement instead of enforcing sameness. 

 

2. God as Creator is a uniquely Christian belief.

 

As a Christian, I have typically glossed over affirming God as the creator of all things in most Christian creeds. It seemed so obvious to me that I rarely reflected on it. If I ever thought about its importance, it was always in reference to countering the idea there is no God and material things are all that exists. God creating the world just proves God exists and that’s it. 

However, while studying other religions, I was struck by how unique God as creator is to Christianity. The original Jewish idea that a single God outside of creation created  all that exists from nothing, as something purely good, is a remarkable development among the history of religions. The only major religions that share this view are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which also share a common foundation as Abrahamic faiths. Christianity originated as a Jewish sect that believed Jesus is the Messiah, and Islam was deeply influenced by Christianity and Judaism when it began in Arabia in the 7th century AD.

If you look outside these interconnected faith traditions, this idea of God as creator is almost nonexistent. In most polytheistic (multiple gods) religions, each god is only in charge of one thing (the sky, ocean, animals, fertility, etc.). In the Ancient Near East creation myths the biblical authors were aware of, creation is an accidental result of a battle between gods, rather than an intentional act of one God. The ancient Greek creation myth is called “Theogony” which means “the birth of the gods.” Their story of how the world was made begins with how the gods were made. They are not understood as having a divine life apart from the elements of nature they represent, like in the Jewish/Christian tradition. They are thought of as the personal embodiment of what they have dominion over. If you were to tell an ancient Greek that you didn’t believe in Poseidon the god of the seas, they would laugh and point to the Aegean Sea and say “There’s Poseidon.” Even other modern world religions (especially Eastern ones) like Hinduism and Buddhism similarly do not have a creator God, nor make a big deal about whether or not that is true. 

This is why throughout the Bible, people regularly say “the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth” when uniquely referring to their God. It might be a throw away line to us, but was actually a very big distinctive for Jews and later the Christians. God creating the world means so much more than just affirming his existence. 

It means that God is fundamentally unlike us since he is the Creator and we are his creation. God doesn’t owe human beings anything since he created them and so everything of theirs is rightfully his. Humans can’t give anything to God that would determine he owed them something in return. God can’t be controlled or manipulated. Everything we receive from him is an act of grace and love. 

This also means that creation is intentional. It is no accident and God has purposes in creating it. The created world was originally good and should be enjoyed as God’s gift to us. The evil and suffering we experience are deviations from and distortions of what creation was meant to be. Salvation and redemption are not about escaping this world, but rather seeing its goodness restored. 

 

3. Comparing Jesus to Mohamed and the Bible to the Quran can be unhelpful.

 

Despite the similarities between Islam and Christianity as compared to other religions, they diverge in some major ways. Christians and Muslims often misunderstand each other because they compare elements of their religions that are as different as apples and oranges. Martyn Oliver, professor at American University, argues that this can happen if people equate Jesus to Mohamed as religious founders and the Bible to the Quran as holy books when comparing Christianity and Islam. A much better comparison is to see thatJesus and the Quran play a similar role, and the Bible and Mohamed play a similar role in their respective belief systems.

In Islam, the Quran is like an embodiment of God because it is his exact voice. It has always existed for eternity past in the exact Arabic form Muslims have today. Mohamed is just the prophet who bore witness to the Quran that an angel spoke to him, and commanded him to recite it word for word for someone else to write down. This is why a translation of the Quran from Arabic into another language is no longer the Quran. I visited a mosque some years ago, and was surprised that during the ‘sermon’ the Imam (pastor) would read the Quran in Arabic, then translate, and then explain it. What if I brought my Greek New Testament to the pulpit each Sunday and read from it instead of an English translation? This helps to make sense of how Mulsims understand the Quran. When you try to understand the Quran, you don’t ask questions about authorial intent, historical or cultural setting of the original audience, or even how it fits into an overarching Quranic story line. They believe it is a purely divine project that Mohamed memorized word for word and regurgitated, and one should be able to read any part of it on its own, understand, and obey it.

Understanding how the Quran and Mohamed function in Islam as a backdrop to Christianity allows the relationship of Jesus and the Bible to come into a clearer focus.

In Christianity, the true embodiment of the eternal God is a first century Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth, God in human flesh and the image of the invisible God (John 1:14; Colossians 1:15). This audacious claim that Christianity makes is unparalleled in other religions. Other belief systems that have divine embodiments do not have the concept of a single Creator God distinct from creation, and so their incarnations mean less than the once for all incarnation of God in Jesus. In Christianity, the Bible is a witness to Jesus (John 5:39; Luke 24:25-27), and has authority because Jesus affirmed it (Matthew 5:17-18). The Bible is a divine-human project when God’s Spirit inspires and uses human authors, and to understand Scripture one must pay attention to the human elements to understand it correctly. Scriptural authority and its living and active nature extends even to translations of the Bible, as even the New Testament authors were using a Greek translation of the Old Testament as they wrote and taught. This has much to say about the affirmation of human cultural diversity that the God of the Bible has, since believers will retain their linguistic and ethnic identities in the new creation (Revelation 7:9)!

 

4. The form of Buddhism we often encounter in the West is very Westernized. 

 

Buddhism as a religious system has always confused me, because so many of its basic tenets and presuppositions are so radically different from the Christianity I have known. It appeared incredibly individualistic with its focus on achieving Nirvana (liberation from the cycle of reincarnation) for oneself after purging all desire and selfhood. This seemed to be at odds with what I understood of the deeply communal culture of East Asian countries. 

It was helpful to learn how diverse and varied Buddhism is as a religion, both throughout history and in its contemporary forms. In particular, much of the Buddhism we experience in the West is deeply influenced by Western interpretations of Buddhism. Henry Steel Olcott, the founder of the Theosophical Society, created the “Buddhist Catechism” while living in Sri Lanka in 1881. Olcott was committed to finding a simple, moralistic and universal religion, like many other Western liberal intellectuals in the 19th century were attempting to do by critiquing traditional Christianity. He used many of the same methods in his distillation of Buddhism into his catechism. This literary work was deeply influential in Buddhist revivals that followed in South Asia, and the belief system and its practices that have been adopted by Westerners. While Buddhism remains a predominantly Eastern religion, its current form, especially as it is practiced by Westerners, remains influenced by intellectual developments in 19th century Europe and North America. 

One aspect of traditional Buddhism that Olcott largely omitted because of its perceived “superstition” was the concept of Bodhisattvas and their role in Buddhist practice. A Bodhisattva is someone who is able to reach Nirvana and so cease to exist, but instead chooses to remain in this world so that they can alleviate the suffering of others and help them also reach Nirvana. They function as a sort of demigod in that they have supernatural powers and have devotees who petition them for help through religious rites. This concept was an early development in Buddhism that enabled Buddhist missionaries to incorporate local deities into the Buddhist world view as they spread their message in new communities. This others-centered, communitarian model contrasts with my initial individualistic take on Buddhism. The ideal is not just to achieve Nirvana for yourself, but rather to selflessly help others reach that state as well.

Even with this better understanding, what strikes me about Buddhism as compared to Christianity is its radically different notion of ‘salvation’ which turns out to be annihilation rather than redemption. The Bible teaches that we retain our individuality as we are bodily raised to live in the new creation, though in harmony with oneself, others, and God. 

 

5. The Bible’s presentation of women is radically different from its contemporary mythologies. 

 

One example of this is the Ancient Greek origin myth of “Pandora’s Jar” (often mistranslated as ‘box’) which presents a dramatically different view of gender than the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The myth of Pandora is about Zeus giving man the first woman, Pandora, as a veiled punishment for Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and giving it to men. Pandora came with a jar (meant to evoke womb-like imagery) that contained all kinds of evil and misery. Since Pandora was so curious, she naively opened the jar and brought suffering and evil into the world. So, in the Ancient Greek worldview, women are conceived of as a necessary evil. Men need women to reproduce, but women bring pain and suffering to men. Yikes!

While there is some overlap between this story and Eve’s role in the Fall, the differences are stark. Eve is created for Adam because it is not good for man to be alone, not as a punishment! She is a necessary ally to him, and both genders are essential for each other and incomplete on their own. Both Adam and Eve are blamed for sin’s entrance into the world, but it is through the woman’s offspring that evil is finally defeated (Genesis 3:15). 

 

God “is not far from each one of us” yet “he commands all people everywhere to repent”

 

As we learn more about other religions, it is important to use Paul’s posture in Acts 17 while speaking to pagan, Greek philosophers as our framework. God, as the creator of all, has not left himself without a witness, and through his common grace and natural revelation of the created world, human beings try to reach out and find God and “he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). Because of this, we shouldn’t be surprised if we find truth, beauty, and goodness in other faith traditions, and we should engage them with respect while seeking to understand them better. Moreover, learning about other belief systems can help us become better Christians as we see more clearly what is special about our faith. 

Simultaneously, sin has broken our ability to understand God, and every attempt ultimately ends in idolatry, gods created in our own image (Acts 17:29). God overlooked this ignorance for a time, but since Jesus has inaugurated a new age through his death and resurrection, God “commands all people everywhere to repent” from their idolatry and follow Jesus (Acts 17:30). May we winsomely, graciously, and boldly help others of all backgrounds come to find authentic faith in Jesus!

 

Five Reasons to Practice Solitude

Five Reasons to Practice Solitude

Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. John 16:12

We are afraid of being alone. So much of our self-worth and self-image is tied to what others think about us. We can so easily fill our schedules with other people and activities to keep us busy. Even when no one else is physically around, the whole world is just one click or swipe away. We can endlessly distract ourselves with noise and images from TV, social media, music, podcasts, and so much more in this digital age. We use other people, endless activity, and entertaining technology to keep ourselves from ever truly being alone.

The intentional practice of solitude can be scary, but it has deeply formed Jesus-followers for over two-thousand years. Here are five reasons to engage in the discipline of solitude.

 

 

1. Jesus practiced solitude.

 

As disciples of Jesus, our goal is to become like him. We must imitate our master Jesus or that to happen. He was not afraid to be alone because he knew his Father was with him. He practiced the discipline of solitude daily throughout his life to commune with God, even as others would clamor for his attention (Mark 1:32-39). As Jesus approached the most difficult week of his life that would culminate in death and abandonment, he ultimately trusted his loving Father to meet him there.


2. Solitude teaches us to rely on God for identity and not others.


Whether it be a positive review from your boss or your friend’s laughter after telling a joke, it is so easy to rely on the opinions of others for our sense of self-worth. Intentionally taking time to be alone and connect with God through prayer and Scripture reading can teach ourselves to find identity in Christ and not in others. This is what Jesus did even at the height of his ministry so that he would not be caught up in others’ expectations of him (Luke 5:15-16). Jesus’ identity firmly rooted in God’s love empowered his ministry toward others.


3. Solitude empowers us to be present with God and others.


If you’re like me, perhaps you’ve found that your attention span steadily decreased as you began carrying your smartphone more. Technology has complicated the practice of solitude because we are never more than a swipe away from superficial connections with others. The intentional practice of solitude to remove ourselves from distractions like technology can clear our minds of distracting thoughts, and retrain our brains to have longer attention spans. This enables us to be present with God while reading the Bible and praying. It can also change our habits and patterns so that we can be more attentive as we interact with others. 


4. Solitude can open us up to the Holy Spirit’s gentle correction.


Often the fear of solitude stems from unresolved guilt and shame. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “We are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one event to the next in order to not have to spend a moment alone with ourselves, in order to not have to look at ourselves in the mirror.” As God’s beloved children, there is no need to fear shame or judgment from him (Hebrews 4:16). When we are alone with God without anything to use as a distraction, God’s Spirit can reveal ways we are living and thinking that are different from the abundant life God wants for us. In solitude, we can confess these things and receive God’s forgiveness and empowerment to change.


5. Solitude develops contentment within us.


As we sit alone with God, we can develop a sense of contentment in him. Other pleasures or accolades can be seen in proper perspective to God. Practicing gratitude in this time of solitude can shift the focus from what you don’t have to how God has already blessed and sustained you. This contentment reminds us of God’s love for us and empowers us to say “no” to lesser things that ultimately won’t satisfy us.

As we enter this season of Lent, preparing to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection, we invite you to join us in a seven-week journey to experience greater intimacy with God through the discipline of solitude. This study is available at theFormed.life, an online daily devotional resource to deepen your relationship with God and build habits of spiritual discipline. 

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How to Rediscover Lost Values with MLK

How to Rediscover Lost Values with MLK

One of my personal traditions is to listen to my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr speech each year on MLK weekend. While not as popular as “I Have a Dream” or “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” my favorite speech, entitled “Rediscovering Lost Values,” embodies the compelling moral vision of King and the broader African-American church that we celebrate each year on MLK day. This speech was actually a sermon delivered at Detroit’s Second Baptist Church before the Montgomery bus boycott that elevated him to a national stage. It reminds us that before King became the renowned activist and public persona, he was a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was his deep faith commitments of the latter that propelled him to become the former. The sermon’s correct diagnosis and searing critique of modern western culture’s moral relativism, in both theory and practice, is as relevant today in 2023 as it was in 1954.

King begins by asserting that, as modern people, “the means by which we live, have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live.” The profound problems we face in our world today cannot be solved by more information or more economic resources, both of which we have more of today than any society in human history. No, the problem lies within the hearts and souls of human beings and results from leaving behind the value of there being a God-given moral fabric to our universe. King likens this to the story of Joseph and Mary accidentally leaving behind Jesus as a boy in Jerusalem while returning to Nazareth (Luke 2:41-52). If we are to move forward as a society, we must go back to rediscover these foundational spiritual and moral values.

The problem is that we have forgotten that God created our universe with moral laws every bit as true as physical laws. Even if you don’t understand Newtonian physics, you know that if you jump off a tall building the law of gravity means that you will fall to the ground and die. Certain things are right and certain things are wrong, in every time, place, and culture, precisely because God made it so… 

It’s wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong! It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China! It was wrong in two thousand BC, and it’s wrong in nineteen fifty-four AD! It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong! It’s wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it. It’s wrong! It always will be wrong! And it always has been wrong. It’s wrong in every age, and it’s wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. 

Yet, King points out, we think we can disobey God’s moral laws and not face the consequences. He says that we live by an 11th commandment that supersedes the other 10… “Thou shalt not get caught.” You can break any command you want, so long as you don’t get caught and face negative consequences for it. We have deceived ourselves and forgotten the biblical truth that “You shall reap what you sow” (Galatians 6:7). This is the result of forgetting the moral foundation of the universe, and the God who upholds it.

At this point you may be amening just like the congregation at Detroit Second Baptist back in 1954. This is when King shifts the focus from our broader culture to the church. He observes that even believers can unintentionally forget God and leave him behind, just like Jesus’ parents accidentally forgot him back in Jerusalem on their way back to Nazareth. It is easy for Christians to “pay lip service to God and not life service.” We create false gods out of materialism or political ideologies that affirm us and how we want to live, and we use those idols to distract ourselves from the real God of Scripture who places moral demands on us and holds us accountable. 

All too often, Christians are passionate about either personal holiness or communal justice, while neglecting the other. King and others in the African-American Christian tradition show us there is a strong moral foundation that should lead to both. There is much the broader church can learn from them. We should seek to know the God who created this moral universe, and follow him by his grace.

This MLK weekend, I encourage you to take some time to read or listen to one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons. Let’s remind ourselves of the moral foundation of God’s created order, and how we follow the God who upholds it.

 

More Resources:

Rediscovering Lost Values

Why I Can’t Stand Christmas Music but Love This Carol

Why I Can’t Stand Christmas Music but Love This Carol

Confession time…I’m not a huge fan of Christmas music. Maybe that’s because I get tired of hearing the same tunes every year. Maybe it’s just because “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” or “dreaming of a white Christmas” don’t evoke the same nostalgia for me as they do for others. These songs don’t resonate with my experience growing up in Africa. Or maybe it’s because the quaint sentimentality of many Christmas songs feel out of touch with my life and the concerns of a broken world. Call me a ‘Scrooge’ but I don’t plan on voluntarily listening to much Christmas music this year.

That being said, when I get past my personal music tastes and really pay attention to the lyrics of many traditional Christmas carols, I find them to have a deeply rich theology. One such song is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. This carol was written by Edmund Sears in 1849 during the aftermath of the Mexican-American War and popularized during the Civil War. The lyrics draw out the disconnect between the announcement of peace from heaven at Christ’s birth and continuing war and suffering on earth.

It came upon the midnight clear,
that glorious song of old,
from angels bending near the earth
to touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, good will to men,
from heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
to hear the angels sing.

This opening stanza references the angels’ announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds (Luke 2:14). The carol doesn’t treat this pronouncement as something only given one time in the distant past, but envisions how this message is continually proclaimed. This happens despite the discord and division among humans, referenced by an allusion to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). 

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.

The next stanza is often omitted in contemporary hymnals, but it is my favorite. Unlike many sentimental Christmas songs, this carol is not unaware of the suffering and brokenness still experienced in this world. Even two thousand years after Christ’s coming, sin and death still reign in our world. Even still, the lyrics call us to hush the messages that lead us to strife and focus on the message of the Promised King.

 But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

The beauty of Christmas is not found in sanitized and picturesque images of an ideal nativity scene, but rather in God’s entrance into the broken messiness of human life as a real baby to save us. He is the one “who redeems your life from the pit” (Psalm 103:4). This song names those messy experiences of pain and suffering we have, and it invites us to look to Christ in the midst of it.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing; –
Oh, rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!

This carol captures the profound tension of the Advent season. We are caught in the already-not-yet, looking back to Jesus’ first coming with joy, and also looking forward in faith to his second coming, when he will make all things right. Unlike out of touch Christmas tunes, this carol connects with that enduring and timeless struggle.

For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Listen to the recording of this beautiful carol performed by our campus worship pastors. As the music washes over you, may you experience God in the midst of pain, disappointment, and brokenness. He doesn’t ignore the pain you are in, but instead sees you there and enters into the mess to redeem it. 

We the Fallen People Includes You and Me

We the Fallen People Includes You and Me

I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Humanity.

I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought humankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.

The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true…I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation….

The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Humankind is so fallen that no one can be trusted with unchecked power over his or her fellows.

“Equality” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses* by C.S. Lewis

 

Political Partisanship

If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you are frustrated and perplexed by the political partisanship that only seems to increase with each passing election cycle. Whether it be disagreements over abortion, inflation, student loan forgiveness, public school curriculum, or anything else, thoughtful and charitable debate is hard to find. In spite of these divisions, there is one thing almost all politicians, pundits, and activists agree on: “most Americans want what is right and good, and they agree with me.” Both sides of our political discourse will creatively redefine what “most Americans” means to make this statement true. You would be hard pressed to find a public persona who asserts “Most Americans disagree with me on this, but they are profoundly mistaken.” In our contemporary political culture, the voice of the people is considered the voice of God. 

 

Sin and American Democracy

I recently had the pleasure of reading We the Fallen People: The Founders and Future of American Democracy by Robert Tracy McKenzie, Professor of History at Wheaton College. In this deeply thought-provoking book, McKenzie explores the relationship between the Christian doctrine of sin and American democracy. He argues that the founders, who were by no means perfect, had a robust view of the brokenness of human nature that coheres with the biblical view. They designed our constitution with that view of human nature in mind and created built-in checks and balances to guard against the tyranny of the majority. However, within a generation, this view of fallen humanity fell out of favor with the function of American politics. The will of “We, the People” gained the moral high ground simply because it reflects the majority of people who consider themselves essentially good. 

Biblically, this is not true. Humans were created good but were broken and tainted by sin when Adam and Eve fell. God sees “that every intention of the thoughts of (humanity’s) heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). The prophet Jeremiah locates this corruption deep within the human heart as it “is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). The apostle Paul, summarizing and combining much of the Old Testament, concludes that “none is righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). Even Jesus himself declares “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18).

 

Fallen Image-Bearers

Now this does not mean every human being is as wicked and evil as they could possibly be. Each human still bears God’s image even after The Fall (Genesis 9:6), and God’s goodness and common grace prevents humans from being absolutely evil. Also, Christians are not completely exempt from brokenness and sin from the moment of their conversion. Though sin is defeated when Christ redeems us and gives us the Holy Spirit, sinful desires and inclinations still remain within us. This is why Paul commands believers not to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies (Romans 6:12). Moreover, the reality and depth of human sinfulness should lead even saved Christians to maintain a posture of humility toward others because we are all broken (Ephesians 2:1-9). Gospel-centered Christians can’t divide the world neatly into “good guys” and “bad guys.” Instead, we confess we are all the “bad guys”, and our only hope of being made new is the one Good Guy who died in our place.

Does our broader political engagement and faith in democracy embody this view? McKenzie says no and details major events in Andrew Jackson’s presidency that are emblematic of the opposite shift that still persist today. Notably, Native Americans were removed from the southeast portion of the United States during the “Trail of Tears” in order to distribute more farmland to white settlers. Though there was dissent to this egregious violation of justice and disregard for ratified treaties, such opposition was labeled as ‘elitist’ and wrong because it went against the “populist” will of the people. Jackson would say “the great mass of the people cannot be corrupted” in defense of these policies. This perspective prevails in the present day with our democracy functioning as though humans are individually good and collectively wise.

What should faithful Christians consider in our democratic process in light of this? 

 

Bearing Witness to God’s Kingdom

McKenzie does not argue that returning to the founders’ style of democracy, where only white, property-owning males could vote, would solve our problems. A tyranny of the minority is no better since all are affected by The Fall. He does point to the C.S. Lewis quote noted above and claims our motivation for pursuing democracy must reckon with the reality of human depravity. We should be cautious of assuming a certain perspective or policy is right merely because “the majority” believes it to be so. We should take care to protect the rights of minorities, practice restraint when our preferred “team” is in power, and advocate for principles of justice to be followed, even if they are unpopular. This is because victory for Christian values over our culture should not be the church’s goal, but rather to be faithfully present in the midst of culture to bear witness to God’s kingdom, no matter if the majority accepts or opposes our view.

Our engagement in politics ought to flow out of our virtue formation. One of the most commonly repeated quotes during election season is “America is great because she is good.” McKenzie explains how this is falsely attributed to Alexis de Toqueville, a French author who wrote about American democracy when visiting Jacksonian America. De Toqueville’s actual perspective was the opposite. He said “I cannot regard you (Americans) as a virtuous people.” He recognized a profound individualism in American culture that is antithetical to virtue, in that true virtue seeks the good of the whole at the expense of one’s self. A democracy that elevates the will of the majority, when there are not sufficient structures in that culture to instill the character of self-sacrifice for the betterment of others, will inevitably lead to tyranny and oppression.

Where Is Our Dependence?

As we enter into another contentious election season, let’s keep this in mind. American Christians have been given an immense privilege to have a voice in how our government is run. Engaging politically is potentially one of the most powerful ways to love our neighbors, while simultaneously also being an avenue that can bring immense pain and suffering to them. Let’s use that privilege virtuously to serve others. Let’s engage those we disagree with in a posture of humility. Let’s ask God for guidance and wisdom because we are dependent on him. Let’s interrogate our own political ideals as much as we question the “other side”, knowing that “We the Fallen People” includes ourselves.

Further Reading

McKenzie, Robert Tracy. We the Fallen People : the Founders and the Future of American Democracy. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021.

Lewis, C. S. “Equality” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. First HarperCollins edition 2001 [revised]. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

*Lewis’ quote has been adjusted to reflect contemporary norms for gender-inclusive language for human beings.