Reading the Bible in America and For America

(Part 4 of America as a Christian Nation)

How should we, as Christians living in America, read the Bible with the nation in mind? This question looms large in our minds as we consider what it means to be a “Christian nation” in the current political climate.

The trajectory for how we think about this question was set early on in American history. Almost 400 years ago the Puritans sailed to the New World to establish a Christian society. It was their “errand in the wilderness.” Finding guidance in the Bible, they aspired to create a “city on a hill” that would demonstrate to the world what God intends a society to be. John Winthrop, the first governor of the colony, declared that the eyes of the world were watching. God would grant the colony prosperity if its people obeyed him, which would result in the nations taking notice of their success and turning to God. But God would make them a “byword” if they disobeyed, which would result in the nations scorning them for their failure and turning from God.

However small their numbers, the Puritans were about great things. The notion of a special mission spread as more colonies were established and the population of America grew. No matter how “secular” the nation turned out to be, many Americans living across the centuries have taken their cue from the Puritans and have viewed the nation as having a divine purpose, almost as if it were a new Israel. Lincoln referred to America as “God’s almost chosen people,” and G. K. Chesterton said that America was “a nation with the soul of a church.”

This peculiar identity affects how Americans read the Bible. We are inclined to believe America has a unique and divine destiny, and we often confuse how the Bible speaks to America and how the Bible addresses Israel. America is not Israel, even though it does have deeply Christian roots.

Does the Bible teach that America has a special destiny?

Yes, and no.

Yes, because God does use “the nations” to advance his redemptive plan: some to exercise judgment, even on his own people, as Babylon did, and others to deliver his people from oppression, as Persia did. Cyrus, king of Persia, was even called God’s “chosen one” because of the redemptive role he played.

Such a pattern has prevailed from the beginning of time, all the way to the present.

God used the Pax Romana (the peace of Rome) to make the entire Mediterranean world accessible to Christian missionaries, even though Rome persecuted Christians, too. God used the “conversion” of Rome and its emperors in late antiquity that allowed the church to create a stable and powerful institution (e.g., church buildings, church hierarchy, sacraments, monasteries), which enabled it to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of Rome only a hundred years later. God used the British Empire to create a global network to assist in advancing the work of the missionary movement, which eventually resulted in the formation of indigenous churches around the world.

But the Roman Empire fell; the British Empire shrank. We don’t yet know what will happen to America, though it appears its years of dominance and influence are waning.

And no, because what endures is not nation or empire but God’s kingdom, which the church is called to represent and serve.

“All the nations are as nothing before him;
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”

There is no “American church,” only the church in America that belongs to the universal church. Likewise, there is no “American Christian,” only Christians who live in America and see Christians living on the other side of the globe as their family and people.

God will judge this nation, as God judges all nations, not according to its religious claims (being a “Christian nation”) or its official rituals (saying the pledge of allegiance or reinstating prayer in public schools) but according to its just actions: how it treats the “least of these”—the orphan, the widow, the poor, and the sojourner (using O.T. terms).

God’s will for the nations is stated with clarity in the prophets, who applied their message not only to Israel and Judah but to all nations (see Amos 1 and 2). Speaking to the northern kingdom of Israel Amos proclaims:

21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

I am not discounting the special role America has played in world history, as its defenders claim (and rightly so), nor do I want to overlook its failures, which its critics name (and rightly so). Both are true and important.

In the end the kingdom of God will prevail, not America. Our task is not to “save America” or “take America back for God.” Instead, our task as Christians is to live as disciples of Jesus, which will make us not only loyal citizens in America but also global Christians, committed to the common good of our society and to the advancement of God’s kingdom work in the world.