THE DAMNATION OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY + MARK A. LAMPORT + Associate Professor and Chair Youth Ministries Department Gordon College Caution: Radio-activity Ahead A couple of years ago I was asked to present a workshop at a Christian conference in Boston. The assigned topic was "teaching Christian values in secular America." Among the two hundred or so participants attending my session was a reporter for a Rhode Island newspaper. However, I did not discover that this journalist was there until about a week later . . . I was in my office one afternoon when the phone rang. It was a radio talk-show host from Providence telling me he had seen an article about my workshop in the local newspaper and asking if I would be willing to be on his live radio show. Not wanting to deprive my countless followers in the greater Rhode Island area, I accepted. The plan was that he would call back in a couple of hours during his broadcast slot and would ask me questions about "teaching values." Now, if you are being interviewed, radio has its advantages. For one thing, I've been told a face like mine belongs on the radio. For another thing, no one can see what you do. You can make faces at stupid comments or stand up and move around when you want to; which I did. For another thing, you can have stacks of books and piles of cheat-sheets to help you in answering questions; which I 1 also did. At four o'clock, the Providence version of Larry King called. I thought things went very well-until what was to be the last question of the program. The host's question: "For two hundred years our country has been a Christian nation with Christian families and values. Why has this 'Christian nation' been ineffective in transforming the moral character of our society?" The question stunned me. No doubt, it was a good one, but I was not ready for it and did not know how to begin to frame a coherent response. If I had had presence of mind I might have pointed out how the heritage of Christianity has positively affected the social institutions and public values of our day. But I had the sense that he was trying to get in "a dig" about the gaping inconsistencies between those Americans who claim Christianity yet whose lifestyle belies their stated belief. So, I heard him really saying, "Why is Christianity a failure?" I glanced hopefully at the stack of books-nothing; I rifled desperately through the piles of notes-nothing. It seemed like one of those moments when time freezes and everything moves soooo slowly. Finally, I said something, which I do not recall nor do I know if I even believe. The radio announcer thanked me and that was the end of the interview. But, it wasn't. That profound question intrigued me and I resolved I would investigate why American Christianity 2 and its values had not truly permeated the moral fiber of the nation. Christianity in America and America in Christianity My search began in the field of American Church History, an area of personal interest to me. I wanted to focus on American Christianity not only as history but also with a sociological perspective. I returned to some of the classic texts: Sidney Mead's The Lively Experiment, Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People, Robert Handy's A Christian America, and my favorite, Winthrop Hudson's Religion in America.1 The crux of what I found is a tale of two stories entwined in one: that history is hard-pressed to tell the American story without also talking much about Christianity. Dyrness (1989:12-13) says it this way: The middle-class subculture has existed in such a close relationship with Christianity that it sometimes is difficult to distinguish what is American from what is Christian. Our form of Christianity and our identity as a people were born simultaneously. Foreign as well as domestic observers of American history and culture over the decades have concluded the same. French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville (1835:17) observed: "Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention." For social scientists, the idea of religion contributing to the collective good finds 3 legitimacy in Tocqueville. He believes that participation in voluntary associations, especially religious organizations, is a key to the preservation of democracy (Wuthnow, 1989). When England's social critic, G.K. Chesterton, was asked, "What is America?," he responded, "A nation with the soul of a church (Bond, 1960). In 1925, American journalist H.L. Mencken, not to be confused as a friend of Christianity and with somewhat less diplomacy, once quipped about Christianity in the US.: "Heave an egg out of a Pullman window and you will hit a Fundamentalist almost anywhere in the United States today." (Parenthetically, it should be noted that Pullman train cars are now obsolete in America; fundamentalists are still around!) Americans by historical habit wear religion on their sleeve, almost as part of national patriotism (Bercovitch, 1978). This sentiment can be seen from the Puritans, who had the sense that America was perhaps humanity's last chance to show God's mercy before the end of the age, to President Eisenhower's 1954 pronouncement that "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply-felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is!," to modern religious conservatives who believe America was, and still is, a "Christian" country.2 Additional support for the Christian nation theory comes from the polls of George Gallup.3 Ninety-six percent of Americans believe in God and 81% of all Americans over 4 the age of eighteen identify themselves as Christian. In addition, more than a quarter of the United States population professes an evangelical conversion experience. I thought, a pound of meat would surely be affected by a quarter-pound of salt. If this is real Christianity, where is the salty-effect of which Jesus spoke? As I pondered these statistics, I kept wondering how anyone could explain the discrepancy, between these pools and what some have called a "post-Christian society," between American belief and behavior? The more I read, the more disturbed I became. The Barrenness of a Religionless Christianity I think Gallup (cited in Wuthrow, 1989:231) gropes to understand too as he writes: Americans continue to be the most religiously active citizenry among the industrialized nations-on the other hand, juxtapose this versus the increasing rates of crime and violence and eroding morals. In his classic Protestant-Catholic-Jew (1955), Will Herberg says the United States is at once the most religious and also the most secular society in the Western world. To the modern secularist the notion of a Christian America is absurd. A 1991 study from the State University of New York roughly concludes: ". . . religion seems to be an ungraspable, utterly private, and practically invisible thing in our lives." The radio talk-show host speaks the feeling of many who see through this skin-deep version of American Christian faith, or as on African bishop said after 5 a U.S. visit, "American Christianity is a mile wide and an inch thick." Two years ago, my wife, four children and I were in Kenya, East Africa. Several of the less joyous family outings we had in preparation for the trip were getting immunization shots. On one occasion, the nurse, brandishing what looked like a foot-long, pencil-thick needle, walked towards me with a glazed look and a menacing smile that said "I've-got-you-now-sucker." I protested, "You're not gonna put that thing in my arm!" Unfortunately, I was right. She did, however, manage to find another more fleshy part of my anatomy to administer the shot. With that shot, the nurse gave me a small dose of the real disease knowing full well that the antibodies in my system would rise up and conquer it and I would theoretically be immune to the real disease. I am arguing that because of the continuous exposure of Christianity to the American people, it has rendered the nation immune to the real disease-authentic Christianity. Half a century ago in The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929) and The Kingdom of God in America (1937), H. Richard Niebuhr pointed out how dangerously susceptible the churches were of being overtaken by the values of the larger society. American historian Tom Askew (1984:199) perceptively writes: Historians and sociologists have commented on the shallowness of personal commitment that accompanied much of the post-World War II religious resurgence. 6 Church membership could mean little more than respectability and belief in the American way of life (emphasis mine). Christianity has become synonymous with the American way of life. Civil religion, Christian atheism, environmental faith, cultural Christianity-call it what you will. Neibuhr's prophecy is fulfilled. Sociologist Peter Berger (1975) speaks what church-people know is true but afraid to admit: "The spirit has gone out of American religious institutions to reshape and rather have been shaped by society's agenda" (emphasis mine). A Portrait of the American Christian Plueddemann (1989) has described three groups of people. The first group-the unreached-is part of nearly three-fourths of the world, over three and a half billion, who do not claim to be Christian. The second group-nominal Christians-is composed of between 25% and 30% of the world's population, over one billion, which claim to be Christian. This includes much of North and South America and substantial pockets of Africa and Europe (Winter, 1981). Plueddemann estimates that only 10% to 20% of those in the so-called Christian nations are actually Christians, which is the third group-authentic Christians. That translates to probably less than 5% of the world's population. Perhaps these categories are too simplistic. There are too many deep-thinking and struggling people in the nominal category and too many with gaps in discipleship in the 7 authentic category to draw precise lines, but for the sake of argument, I'll use these for now. Of course, it is this second group of nominal Christians that I am referring to as dominating the American Christianity scene. This is at least the primary group of the 81% Gallup identifies as being Christian. This is the group for whom civil religion is the real religion. From my reading and observation in American religious culture I began to understand two of the most prominent tenets of this civil religion. First, the American faith is easily manufactured; "some assembly may be required." It is like a buffet table; you take a little of this, a little of that; a kind of eclectic synthesis of Christianity, pop psychology, Reader's Digest folklore, and personal superstitions all wrapped up in the anecdotes of the individual's biography (Wuthnow, 1989). Second, the American faith places few demands on its adherents, is dogma-lite, and is supremely pragmatic. On the other hand, authentic Christianity is assumed to be irrelevant to life. Real Christianity has a serious public relations problem with Americans, who perceive it to be boring, restrictive, neurotic, untrue, exclusive. Pollster George Barna reports that 73% of Americans believe Christianity to be irrelevant for today; almost half (46%) of regular churchgoers agreed! Dean of American church historians Martin Marty (1976:181) points out that: Our biggest problem is not secular humanism, but 8 interest in religion that doesn't turn into everyday life . . . The faith of many Americans is a vague, oblong blur that gives them no more than a warm tingle in the bathtub. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob . . . and America? This "god" believed by so many Americans is the god French sociologist Emile Durkheim described as a symbolic representation of the collective energy and dominant values of the society that worships him (Durkheim, 1965). Simply put, if God created Man in His own image, we have more than reciprocated. Campolo (1983:101-102) offers this comment: . . . in America the cultural deity offers prosperity to his followers; the biblical God calls upon us to sacrifice all that we have for the poor and suffering peoples of the world. . . . the cultural deity invites self-aggrandizement and self-assertion, the biblical Lord calls us to be meek and humble. The cultural deity legitimates the existing social order. We say, "God is with us." He stands for the American way because we made him in the image of America. But the biblical God stands opposed to this cultural deity. The God of Scripture renders us enemies of the religion instituted by our society . . . Not only are we to be enemies of cultural religion, cultural religion has become enemies of authentic Christianity. I propose that a three-phase has occurred in this century in its relationship with Christianity. The 9 first phase was characterized by an embracing and warm acceptance of biblical Christianity. Students were led in prayer and Bible reading at school. They used McGuffy Readers laden with Christian values. The church was the central focus of the community. The second phase was characterized by tolerance of Christianity. Several ideologies, among which Christianity was one, co-existed in relative peace. Then a rising of discomfort became visible which had little room for old-fashioned and exclusivistic doctrine. The separation of church and state rhetoric emerged. Various spokespeople questioned the religious implications of our nation's practices and habits. The third stage, which we are in now, is characterized by hostility toward Christianity. It is now open season for Christian-bashing; much different from an earlier day. In the media, Christians are depicted as laughable buffoons. In schools, prayer is banned; kids take sex-education courses and are taught about alternative homosexual lifestyles, condoms, and "safe sex" in a so-called value-neutral environment. Chuck Colson (1990) says the moral majority of the '80s has become the persecuted minority of the '90s. Authentic Christianity faces very real bigotry today. If you think I am being overly sensitive, consider the fact that recently there was a meeting of one hundred Christian leaders and political activists in Washington, D.C. to strategize a response to the rising tide of anti-Christian 10 bias. Permit me to offer just a couple of recent example4, out of dozens I could cite, of hostility toward Christians, like the high school students who were informed that they could not wear their Fellowship of Christian Athletes T-shirts to school (though satanic T-shirts were okay); or the court decision forcing Zion, Illinois, to change its eighty-eight-year-old city seal because it included religious symbols; or the fact that The Last Temptation of Christ was shown in an Albuquerque high school, while the Genesis Project's Jesus film, whose script is all Scripture, would not be allowed near school grounds. Because of the 180-degree shift in society's attitude toward Christianity, all rules of the game have changed. This "game" Hunter (1991) compares Christianity to is football. He says, imagine a football team playing every game on its home field. Since home teams win about eighty percent of the time, the team would have an immense advantage. It would have winning seasons every year. During the "Christendom" era (from Constantine's conversion to the Renaissance), the Western church scored for a thousand years like a football team with home-field advantage. The church defined the game, announced the rules, and briefed the referees. The church's team always had the crowd behind it. All that has changed. If the church plays today, it plays on opposition turf. Indeed, the very map of Christianity has changed. Once the countries and peoples of 11 Europe and North America were "Christian," and the countries and peoples of the Third World were "mission fields." The picture today is starkly different, practically reversed. Today a higher percentage of Angolans than Americans are active Christians, a higher percentage of Koreans than Canadians, a higher percentage in Fiji than in any country in Europe. The United States has become the largest mission field in the Western Hemisphere (Hunter, 1991).5 The Cost of Non-Discipleship Then it hit me: the powerful third tenet of American faith, which is, that Christian belief need not find any expression in one's behavior. Data from a recent study on Canada and the U.S. shows that a Christian's lifestyle is not discernibly different from that of non-Christians (Christianity Today, 1991). William Hutchison, American church historian at Harvard, says in many Western societies there is a gap between profession of belief and committed Christian practice, but it is most striking in the United States. The pagan religions of the ancient world usually separated belief and conduct in a fashion unknown to first century Christianity. The priests and priestesses of the ancient idols did not insist on a change of behavior. Rather, devotees of the pagan religions could live much as they pleased. They worshipped the deities in deference to public expectation, but in private nothing changed (Green, 1970). American Christians are much like these pagan 12 religions in that their beliefs often are not manifest in their behavior. Chesterton, said, "Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried." University of Southern California philosopher Dallas Willard (1988:258-59) claims in The Spirit of the Disciples: . . . For at lest several decades the churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian. One is not required to be . . . a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward or in discipleship . . . Discipleship is clearly optional. This phenomenon of "undiscipled disciples" is the cause for a post-Christian nation where four of five adults believe they are Christian. Most Christians are familiar with the teaching in Matthew 28:19 to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel." However, the "great omission" from this Great Commission is found in the rest of verses 19 and 20. Jesus' charge is really to "go and make disciples," and, as verse 20 adds, "to teach them to obey everything I have commanded you." This is the focus of the discipline of Christian Education. But in place of Christ's plan, historical drift has substituted: "Go into all the world and make converts (to a particular faith and practice) and baptize them (into church membership). The requirement for 13 being a Christian has become that one believe the proper things about Jesus; merely a mental assent to orthodoxy. Christians have heard, especially from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, about the cost of discipleship; consider the cost of non-discipleship. Besides thwarting the teaching of Jesus, nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most trying circumstances, and power to do what is right (Willard, 1988). In other words, nondiscipleship costs the "abundant life" that Jesus referred to in John 10:10. When Jesus Comes Looking I read a story about a small community that had a gigantic oak tree in the middle of its town square. The tree was the pride of the townspeople. It has been there long before most of them were born and would undoubtedly outlive them. Then one day storm winds cracked the tree in half and revealed a trunk filled with disease. A symbol of strength on the outside, the oak had been weak and vulnerable on the inside. For years it had fooled its unknowing admirers. This is the story of American Christianity. Few external problems hinder the ministry of the contemporary, Western church. We have money and buildings. We have top-notch educational institutions to prepare our leaders. We have ample resources-books, tapes, conferences, training 14 centers, parachurch ministries. We have relative political freedom. The outside trunk looks solid; the interior is faulted. Inauthentic Christian living negates all these external advantages. Luke 18:8 asks the haunting question, "When the Son of Man comes will He find faith on earth?" He will find religion, in the form of institutions, denominations, creeds, documents, but will He find faith? Evangelist E. Stanley Jones relates a conversation with Mahatma Gandhi in which he asked the Indian nationalist leader how Christianity could be made more acceptable in India. Gandhi said: "In my judgment the Christian faith does not lend itself to much preaching or talking. It is best propagated by living it and applying it. When will you Christians really crown Jesus Christ as Prince of Peace and proclaim Him through your deeds . . .?" (Underwood, 1988:6). Christians must not be "a thousand points of dim," but we must "let (our) light shine before men, that they may see (our) good works, and glorify (our) Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:14). Near the main entrance to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a portrait with the following inscription: "James Butler Bonham-not picture of him exists. This portrait is of his nephew, Major James Bonham, deceased, who greatly resembled his uncle. It is placed here by the family that people may know the appearance of the man who died for freedom." No literal portrait of Jesus exists either. But the likeness of this One can only be 15 seen in the lives of God's family. The only salvation for American Christianity is for American Christians to live-really live-as Jesus. When the Son of Man comes will He find faith on earth? When the Son of Man comes will He find faith in American Christianity? Notes 1Following are several other noteworthy books on the development of Christianity in America that I recommend: Sidney Mead, The Nation with the Soul of Church; Jerald Bauer, Protestantism in America; Martin Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America; Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew. 2Noll (1988:1) uses an interesting metaphor to describe the issue of a "Christian" America: Debates over the question of America's supposedly "Christian" character can resemble a boxing card without a main event. A few stout blows are delivered in preliminary bouts on lower order questions, yet even though everyone is shadowboxing furiously, a fully satisfying claske-in which opponents direct themselves primarily to each other rather than to their respective opponents-rarely occurs. 3For more on what Americans think about Christianity and religion, see George Gallup, The Search for America's Faith and George Barna, The Frog in the Kettle and What America Believes. 4For more examples, see "Open Season of Christians?" 16 Christianity Today, 23 April 1990, pp. 34-7, 47; and "Uncle Sam v. First Church," Christianity Today, 7 October 1991, pp. 38-41, 47. 5The church prior to Pentecost numbered only a few hundred believers. Within thirty years it had multiplied four-hundred fold (on the basis five hundred believers before Pentecost (1 Corinthians 15:6), estimating close to 200,000 at the close of Acts-which represents an annual increase of 22% per generation, and the rate of growth continued remarkably high for three hundred years. By the beginning of the fourth century, when Constantine converted to Christianity, the number of disciples may have reached 10-12 million, or 10% of the population-some estimates are higher (Coleman, 1987). See also, Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 1, Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 1950, pp. 196-7; Adolph Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. and ed. James Moffatt, New York: Williams and Norgate, 1908, pp. 4, 5, 7, 16; Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, Vol 1, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1937, pp. 66-114. In AD 100, the population was 181.5 million-180.5 million non-Christians. By AD 2000, the population will be 6.3 billion-4.3 billion non-Christians. In AD 100 the world was only 0.6% Christian versus 32.3% in AD 2000; however, the total number of non-Christians will increase to 4.3 billion. The Christian population has declined over the 17 last hundred years from 34.4% to 32.3% (Barrett, 1982). References Aeschliman, Gordon. Global Trends: Ten Changes Affecting Christian Everywhere, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1990, pp. 101-8. Askew, Thomas A. and Peter W. Spellman. The Churches and the American Experience: Ideals and Institutions, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984, pp. 191-202. Bercovitch, Sacvan. The American Jeremiad, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978. Bond, Raynond T. (ed.) The Man Who Was Chesterton, Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1960. Campolo, Anthony. A Reasonable Faith, Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983. Colson, Charles. "From a Moral Majority to a Persecuted Minority, "Christianity Today, 14 May 1990. De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America, 2 vols. (trans. Henry Reeve, rev. Francis Bowen, ed. Phillips Bradley), New York: Vintage Books, 1963 (originally published, 1835). Drucker, Peter F. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985, p. 4-5. Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (trans. Joseph Ward Swain), New York: Free Press, 1965. Dyrness, William A. How Does America Hear the Gospel? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. 18 Hunter III, George G. "Can the West Be Won?" Christianity Today, 16 December 1991, pp. 43-6. Plueddemann, James E. (revision editor), Education That Is Christian by Lois LeBar, Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1989, pp. 14-16. Underwood, B.E. "Contrasting Kingdoms," United Evangelical Action, January-February 1988, p. 8. Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1988. Wuthrow, Robert. The Struggle for America's Soul: Evangelicals, Liberals and Secularization, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. Acknowledgments I am grateful for the helpful critiques of my colleagues and friends at Gordon College (MA): Dr. Thomas A. Askew, Professor of History and Dr. S.D. Gaege, Professor of Sociology. I am also indebted to my former professor, Dr. Robert Hower, Professor of Church History at Evangelical School of Theology (PA). 19