Category: Wilderness Wanderings

Time Heals Wounds

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

Today is not only the birthday of the OPC. Closer to home it is also the day my recently deceased dad was born. This is not the place or the time to begin sorting through my relationship to him, but a number of thoughts come to mind on this June 11th.

When I first heard my father had died, I was on my way to the emergency room of a downtown Philadelphia hospital. I had fed the livestock, Cordelia and Isabelle, and during the procedure the lid to the can of cat food made a huge impression on the index finger of my left hand. The gash which would not close after an hour of tinkering was my penalty for kitchen awkwardness. After four hours at the hospital, I took five stitches. The wait in ER gave me time to sort out the logistics of burial and memorial service with my brother.

I was – and still am – glad for that cut because the scar not only reminds me of dad but also the wound that I still feel over his loss. And even if it has healed, and will continue to just as my own spirits have rebounded to some degree, it will always be a reminder of my great loss (because my father was a great man). In which case the cut was a providential form of self-mutilation. I may have been tempted to do so on my own, but cutting the body is not a proper way to honor God’s good creation. So rather than having a stud in my tongue or a tattoo on my left buttock cheek, I have a scar on my left hand. I can live with that. This day I even relish it.

On or before June 11th I usually buy my dad a birthday gift. In later years when he and my mother were both in a nursing home the challenge of buying something that he could use became greater. Now that I no longer need to buy a gift, I wonder what my failure as a consumer will do to our ailing economy. In fact, I wonder what the effects of death are generally for the economic health of a nation. Clearly, the funeral and flower industries benefit. And the federal government breaths a pint-size sigh of relief to have one more of its citizens off its role of Social Security beneficiaries, not to mention the inordinate expense of Medicare. But if a death brings savings for some and expenses for others, it also means none of the purchases that go with birthdays, Fathers’ Day, anniversaries, and the annual spending spree we call Christmas.

So to do my part for the economy, I’ll have to go out and spend on some “spirituous” refreshments. If I drink enough tonight to spend the amount I’d normally use to buy a birthday gift, the elixir may not only further heal my wounds but pickle them.

Mike Horton is More Fun Than Mark Dever (though Mark has his moments)

Published on by D. G. Hart201 Comments

Justin Taylor made me do it.

He linked to Ray Ortlund’s blog from a couple days ago at the Gospel Coalition – calling it a “classic” in which the he warns TR’s (i.e., Truly Reformed) about the danger of falling into the Judaizer trap. Ortlund writes:

The Judaizers in Galatia did not see their distinctive – the rite of circumcision – as problematic. They could claim biblical authority for it in Genesis 17 and the Abrahamic covenant. But their distinctive functioned as an addition to the all-sufficiency of Jesus himself. Today the flash point is not circumcision. It can be Reformed theology. But no matter how well argued our position is biblically, if it functions in our hearts as an addition to Jesus, it ends up as a form of legalistic divisiveness.

This is truly an amazing assertion by the Nashville pastor. Even though Reformed folks think they are following Paul in their teaching and ministry (let’s not forget the Jerusalem Council or the pastoral epistles which say something about presbyterian polity), they become Judaizers by following Paul and insisting that the church heed everything Christ commanded – from theology to worship and polity. I feel like I am in a Coen Brothers movie where up is down, white is black, and rodents are felines.

Ortlund’s post is standard fare among evangelicals who look for a lowest-common-denominator approach to Christian unity and so regard sticklers for doctrine and practice – like the Reformed – as sticks in the mud and unloving sectarians to boot. (Ortlund fails to remark that Baptists, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans, who insist on the correctness of their distinct teachings and practices, are also would-be Judaizers. Rather than acknowledge that differences exist within the church because different parts of the visible church interpret the Bible differently, Ortlund, like many a pietist before him, disregards actual differences and chalks up resistance to unity as a lack of love – for both Christ and for other Christians. As the Church Lady might say, “isn’t that charitable?”

But the neat trick that Ortlund adds to this standard kvetch about Reformed particularists is a claim about the psychology and sociology of being Reformed. He comments on Gal 4:17 – “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” – in the following paraphrase:

“When Christians, whatever the label or badge or shibboleth, start pressuring you to come into line with their distinctive, you know something’s wrong. They want to enhance their own significance by your conformity to them: ‘See? We’re better. We’re superior. People are moving our way. They are becoming like us. We’re the buzz.’”

Ortlund adds, “What is this, but deep emotional emptiness medicating itself by relational manipulation? This is not about Christ. This is about Self.”

Isn’t that charitable, indeed.

Is it so hard to imagine that other people with whom we disagree may actually have good reasons for what they hold, and that they may actually be trying to honor, serve, and love the Lord and his church? Apparently, Ortlund would rather speculate on motives and psychology.

Ortlund concludes with this plea to Reformed Protestants:

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

Brother Ray, I have been around the non-Reformed and they are not nearly as much fun as Reformed folks are. As much as I do enjoy Mark Dever’s company (sorry for name-dropping), I refuse to smoke a cigar or drink a Gin & Tonic in his company, not because I find him unworthy of such camaraderie but because I know my smoking or imbibing could get Mark in trouble. Baptists still bulk large in the prohibitionist camp and for that reason the merriment supplied by leisurely conversation over a pipe or a pint (better with both) is off limits to many of the Christian groups that Ortlund wants me to hang out with and have fun.

This may seem like a trivial point but it actually bears much more on the passage to which Ortlund appeals than it might seem at first. Paul’s battle with the Judaizers was over the misapplication of Scripture. In the Judaizers’ hands formerly God-made rules had become man-made norms because the work of Christ introduced freedom from the old covenant norms. In other words, the Judaizers were effectively substituting man-made rules for being Christian than the gospel that Paul was preaching. The Judaizers were denying Christian liberty in the way that contemporary believers do when they conclude that smoking or drinking is sin with (erroneous) appeals to Scripture. Without a proper biblical justification for their prohibitions they wind up enslaving Christians and thus burden the very gospel that Paul was out to protect among the Galatians.

In my own knowledge of church history, it is the Reformed (and other confessional Protestants) who understand much better than the “Jesus only” evangelicals the difference between the word of God and the words of men. And it is this difference that makes Reformed Protestants (with apologies to my friend, Mark Dever) more fun.

How Comforting the Intermediate State?

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

It is common to hear believers talk about the death of Christians in positive ways. And this is natural since Christians do believe in life after death, and a good life after death does await those who trust in Christ. So we are likely to say about someone who has been suffering physically upon their death that they are now in a better place, free from their misery. Or we say they are better off because they are with the Lord. We will even console ourselves, at least, that the passing of a widow or widower, who had a believing spouse, is in a better place because he or she has been reunited with a wife or husband. I should know, I’ve been using these lines with myself of late having lost both parents (both believers) within the space of a month.

But I have wondered how exactly a soul, that no longer has a body, will recognize another soul. I also sometimes wonder how resurrected bodies will recognize other resurrected bodies. At what vintage do our bodies come back? If an infant dies, is he glorified as an infant? Will that infant grow? If the body of an 80-year old dies, does he come back as a 35-year old? And if you only knew someone when they were 70 plus, and they come back to bodily existence as a young adult, will you actually recognize them in their gloried state? So how much trickier the recognition of other souls, invisible as they are, by other souls, who are also invisible. The mind reels.

In hopes of keeping it real, here is what the Confession of Faith says about “The State of Men After Death” (it means you too, ladies):

The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. (32.1)

That would seem to indicate that departed souls will “see” and “recognize” God. But it does raise questions about whether they will “see” the face of Jesus. Beholding is not necessarily seeing. And seeing, as we know it, is impossible without eyes.

Maybe union with Christ is the solution. I know that justification by faith alone won’t resolve this one. My pet doctrine has its limits.

The Strunk & White Guide to Reformed Soteriology

Published on by D. G. Hart53 Comments


In the interest of saying things clearly and with as few words as possible, here’s a little help on the centrality of union versus the centrality of justification discussion.

The question is, “how am I right with God?”

The Justification Priority folks answer in the following: “you are right with God by your justification, that is, an act of God wherein he freely pardons all your sins and accepts you as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you by faith alone.”

The inquirer says, “thanks, that’s helpful.”

The Union-Centric folks say: “you are right with God by your union with Christ, that is, by the Spirit applying to you all the benefits that Christ purchased for you, including both a forensic aspect (justification) and a renovative aspect (sanctification) and these dual benefits, though distinct, come to you simultaneously without confusion or commingling.”

The inquirer then asks, “but how am I right with God?”

The Union-Centric folks then clarifies, “well, you are right with God by your justification, that is, an act of God wherein he freely pardons all your sins and accepts you as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you by faith alone.”

The inquirer then says, “thanks, but why didn’t you say that the first time?”

Of course, the same Strunk & White rules would apply to the following scenario.

The inquirer asks, “how am I right with God?”

The Shorter Catechism Devotee responds, “God created man. Man sinned and fell. God established a covenant of grace. God sent Christ, the only redeemer of God’s elect, to execute the offices of a prophet, priest, and king and fulfill the terms of the covenant of grace. All the offices of Christ have two aspects, one of humiliation one of exaltation. The Holy Spirit applies the benefits of redemption purchased by Christ. He calls you effectually. He unites you to Christ by faith. By faith you receive the benefits of justification, adoption, sanctification, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, increase of grace, and perseverance. You also get more benefits when you die, and when you are raised from the dead.”

The inquirer has left the conversation.

"The Stakes Have Never Been Higher"

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

Really?

According to ABC News, and its report on the resignation of Bruce Waltke from Reformed Theological Seminary, both sides agree that the stakes are indeed that high. Higher than the Scopes Trial? I was glad that they did not bring up William Jennings Bryan and his difficult testimony before Clarence Darrow’s badgering. But from what I could tell, the stakes this news reporter discovered are completely beside the point.

The way the press usually treats these things, it is a case of intolerance versus open mindedness, or science versus dogma, or a religious group’s retrenchment and inability to cope with modern ideas versus a community of faith that swims along quite elegantly in the waters of modern knowledge. And they can generally find religious scholars like Pete Enns and Randall Balmer who, siding more with the reporters than their fellow believers, will back up this set of contrasts (but who actually should know that there are more than two sides since they are experts on religion and the reporters aren’t).

This set of tensions could apply to the Waltke-RTS situation, but they don’t. The major contention has been the historicity of Adam, not whether he emerged from an evolutionary process. And beyond that, the questions have been largely theological, not scientific: what happens to the doctrine of original sin or federal headship if Adam was simply a mythical figure? And what happens to Paul’s two-Adam construction of covenant theology if one of those Adams is an ethereal character of unknown identity who may have hooked up with the mother of all humanity (that mother being confirmed by geneticists and anthropologists and thus supplying the evidence necessary for the unity of the human race).

So have the stakes ever been higher for federal theology? I’m not so sure. I’d need the help of historical theologians to make that call.

But to the idea that if Christians do not accept the idea of evolution they run the risk of becoming a cult, I wonder if Waltke or his supporter Enns, or ABC’s expert interviewee, Balmer, ever considered what belief in the resurrection of Christ makes the church look like before the scientifically knowledgeable world. Granted, the Genesis account of God’s creation of the parents of the human race may from a scientific perspective be hard to believe. I, frankly, am not sure that the naturalistic accounts of human origins are any easier to understand or believe. Be that as it may, do the Christians advocating evolution – and I am not going to give them too hard a time since one of my favorite theologians (sorry, Gary), Benjamin Warfield was one of them – really think the idea of Christ’s resurrection makes Christians soft, cuddly, and scientifically mainstream?

The stakes have been what they’ve always been. The Bible contains a lot of events and ideas that are hard to believe, whether you are scientific or not (think of all the premoderns who saw and heard Christ and did not believe). If not for the longevity of Christianity in Europe and North America, reporters might actually think that Christianity resembles Mormonism more than it does the Unitarian Church.

But for the record, when a three-time presidential nominee and one of the nation’s leading attorneys square off in courtroom proceedings that are broadcast nationally – which is what happened in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 – the stakes are pretty high, higher I’d say than the recent unpleasantness between Waltke and RTS. (And those stakes had more to do with majority rule and local government than with reason versus faith — but that’s another story.)

Walker Percy on American Protestantism

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

The main character, Tom More, writing about his Protestant wife:

Later Ellen experienced a religious conversions. She became disaffected when the Southern and Northern Presbyterians, estranged since the Civil War, reunited after over a hundred years. It was not the reunion she objected to but the liberal theology of the Northern Presbyterians, how, according to her, were more interested in African revolutionaries than the divinity of Christ. She and others pulled out and formed the Independent Northlake Presbyterian Church.

Then she became an Episcopalian.

Then suddenly she joined a Pentecostal sect. She tells me straight out that she has had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, that where once she was lost and confused, seduced by Satan and the false pleasures of this world, she has now found true happiness with her Lord and Saviour. She has also been baptized in the Holy Spirit. She speaks in tongues.

I do not know what to make of this. I do not know that she has not found Jesus Christ and been born again. Therefore I accept that she believes she has and may in fact have been. I settle for her being back with us and apparently happy and otherwise her old tart, lusty self. She is as lusty a Pentecostal as she was a Southern Presbyterian. She likes as much as ever cooking a hearty breakfast, packing the kids off to school, and making morning love on our Sears Best bed, as we used to.

She loves the Holy Spirit, says little about Jesus.

She is herself a little holy spirit hooked up to a lusty body. In her case spirit has nothing to do with body. Each goes its own way. Even when she was a Presbyterian and I was a Catholic, I remember that she was horrified by the Eucharist: Eating the body of Christ. That’s pagan and barbaric, she said. What she meant and what horrified her was the mixing up of body and spirit, Catholic trafficking in bread, wine, oil, salt, water, body, blood, spit – things. What does the Holy Spirit need with things? Body does body things. Spirit does spirit things.

She’s happy, so I’ll settle for it. But a few things bother me. She attributes her conversion to a TV evangelist to whom she contributed most of her fortune plus a hundred dollars a week to this guy, which we cannot afford, or rather to his Gospel Outreach program for the poor of Latin America. I listened to this reverend once. He’d rather convert a Catholic Hispanic than a Bantu any day of the week. . . .

Catholics have become a remnant of a remnant. Louisiana, however, is more Christian than ever, not Catholic Christian, but Texas Christian. Even most Cajuns have been converted first by Texas oil bucks, then by Texas evangelists. The shrimp fleet, mostly born again, that is, for the third time, is no longer blessed and sprinkled by a priest.

Why don’t I like these new Christians better? They’re sober, dependable, industrious, helpful. They praise God frequently, call you brother, and punctuate ordinary conversation with exclamations like Glory! Praise God! Hallelujah!. I’ve nothing against them, but they give me the creeps. (The Thanatos Syndrome, pp. 353-45)

On the Road to Duality

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

This is not the right path. But to introduce the concept to 24/7 Christians it may be a place to begin.

The new book is called Christian -Atheist, by some megachurch pastor somewhere. The email from Christianity Today plugging the book asked, “Are you living a dual existence?” My answer, “why, yes I am.” In fact, hyphenation is exactly what the life of exile requires – we live here but this is not our home. The advertisement adds, “If you profess a belief in God, but live as though He doesn’t exist, you may be more divided than you think. Read The Christian Atheist and join author Craig Groeschel as he looks to resolve a conflict that affects the lives of countless Christians.”

I do think I’ll pass.

But it is an interesting thought experiment whether the way I ride the subway, cross the street, teach at a secular university, root for the Phillies, or read John Updike differs from non-Christians performing those same tasks in any sort of visible way. At least, it does differ on the common days of the week since my Christian self avoids teaching, rooting, and reading Updike on the Lord’s Day. Crossing the street and riding the subway may actually be works of necessity to participate in worship.

So even if the dichotomy is wrongheaded – Christian-Atheist – the idea of hyphenation is one that needs to be cultivated, as in Christian-Americans, Christian-Phillies fans, and Christian-historians. We have a lot of divided loyalties out there 24/6, and negotiating them is the task of that wonderful Protestant doctrine of vocation.

(By the way, why doesn’t the Christian side of this guy shave?)

Church Cemeteries Make Sense

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

I got lost on the way out of a cemetery in Bucks County, Pa. yesterday. This was slightly embarrassing since I was escorting relatives from out of town who were completely unfamiliar with the local roads. I knew the roads. My problem was getting out on to the road.

Like many “memorial” parks, this one had roads that go in circles. Its sweeping access lanes are supposed to mingle with the greenery to create a pastoral feeling. Never mind that you are in a machine using fossil fuels to negotiate this “green” space. These sorts of burial grounds arose as alternatives to church cemeteries both to accommodate non-believes and to emphasize death as a wholesome form of rest, one not necessarily connected to church teaching about the fall, sin, death, and the resurrection.

These “secular” cemeteries were also designed to be more user friendly in that they functioned as parks where not only survivors of loved ones would go to continue to pay their respects on anniversaries and holidays but even those unrelated to the deceased might go to enjoy the scenery.

What any observer of urban history knows, though, is that grids function much better than cow paths when designing a city. William Penn’s original plan for Philadelphia, with streets running East and West between the Delaware and Schukyl rivers, and others running perpendicularly North and South between South and Vine Streets, made the city much easier for pedestrians, developers, and even drivers. Compared to Boston or New York which as villages relied on existing Native American and livestock trails, Philadelphia was a real city.

Church cemeteries (as well as military) tend to follow Penn’s ideas about arranging space – rows, grids, symmetry. They are more efficient by providing more space for bodies and they accommodate more visitors in search of loved ones.

Ironically, memorial parks tend to follow the patterns of suburban developers like William Levitt, who bequeathed to us Levittown. His subsections with pastoral names like Stonybrook, or Farmbrook, or Holly Hill, also included circular drives that surrounded winding streets to give, apparently, the featureless design of his homes a natural and inviting feel. What he didn’t account for was how many of the new residents in Levittown would get lost, like I did yesterday, because of curving lanes and cookie cutter facades.

Hug Me, I'm Protestant

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

A word to the wise Old Lifer who may be out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Don’t! It’s an Irish festivity for a Roman Catholic Saint. You’re Protestant. Just stick to Sundays, Mother’s and Father’s Days, and July 4th.

But if you do go out to make up for the Roman Catholics who gave up whiskey for Lent, keep in mind that Bushmill’s is the Protestant Irish whiskey, produced as it is in Northern Ireland, which may be the oldest active distillery in the world.

Jameson, by contrast, is the Roman Catholic whiskey, made in County Cork.

A recent piece in the Washington Post made the arresting point that the religious identities of Irish whiskey is nonsense:

There is a dicey — and misguided — aspect of Irish whiskey loyalty that splits along partisan lines. I’ve known a lot of older Irish Americans who will drink only Jameson because it is considered the “Catholic” whiskey, as opposed to Bushmills, which is perceived as the “Protestant” whiskey. During grad school in Boston, I drank once or twice in a hard-core Irish pub where you might come to physical harm if you ordered a Bushmills. (That bar also passed around a hat once a night, and you were strongly “encouraged” to donate to “the cause”).

This idea of Catholic vs. Protestant whiskey is bunk. For one thing, from 1972 to 2005, coinciding with some the worst of The Troubles, both distilleries were owned by the same company, Irish Distillers, before Bushmills was sold to Diageo. Jameson is now owned by Pernod Ricard, a French conglomerate. Also, John Jameson was a Scotsman, and therefore in all likelihood a Protestant.

Still, the perception persists. As we were tasting, one of my friends, Kevin Meeker, who owns an Irish pub in Philadelphia called the Plough and the Stars, gave a thumbs up to Bushmills Black Bush blended whiskey. He texted his Irish managing partner, Patrick Nester, at the bar and asked whether they sold a lot of Bushmills. Nester’s reply: “Not much because u idiots think it’s a Protestant whiskey.” Perhaps it’s best, as usual, to avoid discussing religion and politics while drinking.

Maybe the confessional difference between Irish whiskies no longer holds. But in the age of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, maintaining the legitimate antagonisms between Rome and its Christian protestors is imperative. For Old Lifers it’s a treat if you can do so with spirits.

Be careful out there.

Praying in Public

Published on by D. G. Hart36 Comments

Since I grew up in a home where the mother passed out tracts with tips and even with fares for turnpike tolls, I will be forever scarred by an evangelical piety that was always in the “car sales” mode, always looking to make the deal. (For a particularly empathetic treatment of this piety – as well as way too many ehff bombs for those with sensitive consciences, see The Big Kahuna.) Part of my mother and father’s piety included prayer before every meal, not only at home but also in the restaurant or diner. Oh, the embarrassment for a pubescent boy when the waitress brought the house salad to the table while dad was prayerfully thanking God for his provision. For that reason it became a source of comfort to learn while doing dissertation research that Machen was no fan of praying in public, say in a restaurant before a meal with commissioners to General Assembly. During my time in the Christian Reformed Church I also welcomed the practice among Dutch-American Calvinists that you did not need to say grace if a meal lacked potatoes or used no utensils. This meant a meal of just burgers at McDonald’s could be consumed without an audible prayer. Add fries to the order and you had to pray out loud.

The point of these memories is to introduce a question for readers of Oldlife: what do you do when you are invited to dinner at the home of non-Christians? Do you bow your head and pray silently before eating? Do you pray with your spouse and/or family by the curb before entering the house or apartment? Or do you simply go with the flow and not pray? My own sense is that good manners involve respecting the rules of the house in which I am a guest. Better then to pray before entering the non-believing home than to make the hosts feel uncomfortable or embarrassed when I bow my head, say a prayer, and invariably miss the mashed potatoes while they are being passed. Doh!

What is impermissible, it seems to me, is for me to turn to the head of the non-Christian household and say, “let me lead us in prayer,” stand, and ask God’s blessing in the name of Christ. If I use the words “we” and “our” in my prayer, I am rightfully including my wife. But I am also including people who have not professed Christ and perhaps given them the impression that they are Christians by the use of “we.” If they are generic God-fearing Americans, that won’t alarm them. If they are some of my secular academic friends, they will think I’m nuts and likely lose respect. And if I pray in the first-person singular – “I just want to thank you Lord” – then why am I praying out loud? Am I not guilty at that point of doing exactly what Jesus told his disciples not to do when he said, “When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men” (Matt 6:5)?

But so far these questions and considerations are only the sub-point for this post’s point, which is how Christians act in public life in the greatest nation on God’s green earth. For a long time in our country’s history — 1789-1965 — Protestants acted like the public square was their dining room. They could go out and pray in Jesus’ name and not have to worry about anyone else taking exception because those from other faiths were not “real” Americans. The genuiness attributed to being American could sometimes reach back to New England’s Puritan federal theology, or sometimes to the nation-shaping energy of the Second Great Awakening’s Benevolent Empire, or sometimes it was simply a civil religion that put “in God we trust” on coins and “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to show those atheistic Russkies just who was God-fearing. But no matter what version of Christian America, Protestants believed that this land was their land and they did not have to be bashful about praying in public. The public and private were indistinguishable. For proof, just look at the way that Protestants defended prayer and Bible reading in public schools.

The problem with this conception of “real” America was that lots of non-Protestants were also citizens of the nation. The U.S. public square was also the home of Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons, and various strains of unbelief. In which case, to enter into the public square and speak in Christian categories was akin to going over to a non-Christian friend’s home for dinner and insisting that a prayer be said before the meal. It is one thing to do that in your own home when non-Christian friends come over for a meal – though even then what pronouns do we use for such a prayer to show respect for the guests but not pray falsely to our Lord? But to go over to a non-believers house and be pushy about including non-Christians in forms of Christian devotion is rude.

It seems to me that this is what happens when Christians insist that faith and religious discourse be part of American politics. They don’t seem to recognize that non-Christians also live in the United States. This nation belongs to non-believers as much as it belongs to Christians. In which case, the insertion of religion in American public life is a modern version of Nativism – that nineteenth-century phenomenon that sought to keep Roman Catholics from becoming citizens of the United States (and sometimes burned Roman Catholic buildings). Driving unbelief from the land was wise domestic policy for Israel in the centuries before Christ – not just wise but holy. It is folly for any nation after Christ. For Christ’s followers, it is down right inhospitable.