The Integrity of the Church in a "Christian" Nation

Properly understood, the Church functions as a community that:

1. Embodies an alternative ethics of nonviolence and transformation, rather than violence and destruction. We overcome evil through good. (Matthew 5.38ff; Luke 6.27ff; Romans 12.14ff)
2. Embodies an alternative identity and allegiance in a Kingdom that is not of this world but is present in it. We act as witness to and dissident from Empire and Nation-State. (John 18.36; Luke 17.20f)
3. Embodies an alternative economics of generosity rather than greed, of Jubilee rather than exploitation. We give freely and forgive debts as ours have been forgiven. (Matthew 6.19; Luke 4.19; Acts 2.44ff)

Each of these aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven, to which the Church is witness, requires hard commitment and flies in the face of "conventional wisdom" and cultural norms (especially in America). Christianity in this form becomes, ironically, more difficult to live out in societies where Christian rhetoric and nominal institutional membership are normative -- i.e., in large countries with a "Judeo-Christian Tradition" or societies where the majority of citizens attend church. This paradox arises because in these situations Christian religion is appropriated by the State, compromising its essential pacifism (and, in individualist-capitalist societies, often its economic/social aspects as well).

Thus for the Christian who aspires to restore the Church to a model like that advocated here, "separation of church and state" is central -- not to protect government from undue religious influence, but to allow the Church to maintian its integrity as a witness to the dominant order.

Originally published here.