PATRIOTISM AND THE DECLINE OF A CHRISTIAN NATION - PART II

The idea of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire was very distant from the Book of Revelation, the Bible's last book written by John the Elder, on the Aegean Island of Patmos, around 95 A.D. In those days it was illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. The Emperor, Domitian (81-96 A.D.), had unleashed severe persecution of Christians. Christians were required to appear at the Imperial Altar, burn incense, offer animal sacrifice, bow and bend the knee and confess publicly, "Caesar is Lord."

Many Christians refused, saying they had only one Lord, Jesus Christ. Their refusal led to persecution, confiscation of property, imprisonment, sometimes death, and sometimes exile as in the case of John the Elder on Patmos where he wrote Revelation. Is it any wonder that in the 18th chapter he celebrates the destruction of Rome (there called Babylon.) Rome was oppressive, intolerant, tyrannical and brutal. Christians longed for God's judgement and wrath to descend upon the evil Empire.

But this Empire was far different from the one praised by Paul in 56 A.D. in his letter to the Romans. Paul was a Roman citizen. His family business in Tarsus, Asia Minor, (present-day Turkey) profited from making leather tents for the Roman Military. In his missionary travels, Paul benefitted from the Pax Romana, from the roads and safe shipping lanes on the waterways. And when he was brought to trial, his Roman citizenship and the Roman system of justice saved him more than once.

It was in that context that he penned these controversial words to the Christians in Rome. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed..." (Bible, Romans 13.1-2)

Likewise, Peter's First Letter, written probably around the end of the first century, echoes a similar theme. Although by that time Christians had suffered persecution, the letter states: "for the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether the emperor as supreme, or of governors sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right." (Bible, First Peter 2.13-14) The politically cynical among us today might exclaim, "how naive can you be about the nature of political power."

Cynics might say, consider Stalin's Gulag Archipelago where millions died, or Hitler's Third Reich bent on exterminating Jews and controlling the world. Think of Mao Tse Tung of China whose Revolution meant the death of millions of Chinese who opposed him. Or think of the Taliban or Isis under whose power women are suppressed and persecuted and thousands of opponents are killed, including 3000 Americans on 9/11. Can we blame atheists and cynics (and maybe even ourselves) for being critical of Paul's words to the Roman Christians?

It may be that Paul and Peter had in mind (as some scholars suggest) that the end of the world was near, and that Christians ought to submit to the temporal authorities believing the ultimate, eternal authority of God was about to be imposed. Or it might be imagined Paul had in mind some Christian rulers like Theodosius I who came to power some three centuries after Paul. While that would be an inaccurate interpretation of Paul, let us fast-forward to some so-called Christian rulers.

Consider, for example, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. While they commissioned and financed Columbus to "sail the ocean blue in 1492," they also instituted the Inquisition in 1492. They decided they wanted Spain to be 100 percent Catholic, so they began an "ethnic" or "religious cleansing" of their country. Jews and Muslims could convert, leave or be killed. Thousands left while some thousands of others converted only later to be vilified.

A little later in Germany, about 1521, Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer (remember he had been a Roman Catholic priest and professor) stood before the Diet (a formal general assembly of the princes or estates of the Holy Roman Empire) of Worms, (a supposedly Christian body) on trial for his life because of his supposed heretical views. At great peril to his life, he boldly upheld his views, contrary to the State and its Church saying, "Here I stand. I can do other."

In the 17th century French Huguenots (Calvinistic Protestants) were massacred by Church and State. In 17th century England our Congregational forbearers, variously called independents, dissenters and separatists, were persecuted by a Christian King and Church. The Separatists believed the Church of England to be corrupt and wanted to separate from it to form a pure New Testament Church. So, in 1620 the Mayflower Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to establish their Congregational (i.e., governed by the congregation, not the Bishop or King) Churches. In subsequent years the Puritans, (wanting to purify the Church of England), joined them to be a "city upon a hill" to be a "light to all the nations" and to form a Divine Commonwealth. They believed in religious freedom for themselves, but not so much for the Baptists, who had to go to Rhode Island, or the Quakers who had to go to Pennsylvania.

Back in Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin advocated freedom from Roman Catholicism. But when Geneva's Servetus advocated Unitarian freedom from Calvinistic Trinitarianism, Calvin consented to Servetus being burned at the stake for his heretical views. On and on the story goes. Did Paul the Apostle mean that every Christian magistrate is ordained of God and brought to office by Divine will? Did he mean to imply the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, and that to resist the King was to resist God? If in 1776, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin had believed that, would they have signed our Declaration of Independence in defiance of King George, a Christian King?

(To be continued.)