The Recent Election, Spiritually Considered

In my view, the United States is essentially a pagan country. Many of its citizens are Christian, but even among Christians, the powers that really often get their attention, motivate them and devour their energies, and command their ultimate allegiance, are natural forces which, in pagan societies, were considered gods. Among these American deities, several are particularly powerful. They are: Mammon, the god of unlimited wealth, Venus, the goddess of sex and love, Caesar, the god of the state, Mars, the god of war, and finally, there is a little one, a caricature of Christian love, the goddess of Nice, that is, being nice, tolerant, and inclusive.

The recent election, November, 2004, has been termed a victory for moral values since the religious right played a key role in George W. Bush's reelection. If, however, one considers the beliefs, practices, and morality of the religious right, one finds that they are syncretistic. In general, they do not obey the goddess of sex, but rather, they affirm biblical sexual norms as taught in Scripture. In that sense, they are Christian. There are, of course, always exceptions. I am speaking in generalities. They also have a deep concern for the sanctity of life, the life of the unborn. This also is Christian.

On the other hand, the religious right worships the gods of Mammon, War, and the State. For example, I have never known anyone on the religious right to advocate biblical teaching on economics. Indeed, the Republican Party represents the international and national corporate elite in their endless quest for unlimited profits and this in direct contradiction to the teaching of both the Old and the New Testaments. While the religious right deplores the sexual degeneration of the country, they often fail to grasp the fact that competitive capitalism entails an endless quest for profits, which in turn requires relentless selling, which is best done with sex, with the result that the U.S. populace is daily swimming in a sea of ceaseless advertising telling us, as in pagan religions, that we can have our deepest desires satisfied, be they sex or anything else. Nor have I ever known anyone on the religious right to promote a "Christian" doctrine of war. In general, they follow right along with the war spirit, rarely addressing the fact that Jesus explicitly taught his followers to turn the other cheek. Perhaps they consider this command of Christ to be hyperbole, but if so, it is still clear that Christ did not advocate war. Augustine softened the New Testament teaching on war with his doctrine of a just war, but even this minimal requirement is rarely noticed by the religious right, much less held as a standard America should follow. In fact, given Augustine's criteria, I cannot see that the war in Iraq was just at all. The religious right went along with this war, as it does most wars, because it secretly worships the god of war, and further, because it glorifies the United States of America, the god of the state. This can be seen in the fact that the right constantly speaks of love of country, honor for the flag, and allegiance to its leaders, provided of course, they are on the political right. Nowhere does the Bible command believers to love their country or the emperor as emperor. That would be equivalent to Jesus or Paul commanding believers to love Caesar or the Roman Empire. Paul commands Christians to respect Caesar, but never to love him. But the religious right often does just that, placing an ultimate concern for America above a concern for the Kingdom of God as known in the Church.

The Democratic Party, however, appeals to a different set of pagans. Like the Republicans, they never really confront the god of Mammon, the real engine that drives this country. Rather, they generally accept this god of unlimited wealth while appealing to the goddess of Nice to soften Mammon's adverse effects on the poor. Scripture, in fact, does command concern for the poor. If the religious left, however, were to get serious about biblical economics, they would advocate the sort of distribution of wealth and resources, together with limits on the accumulation of wealth (the Jubilee), as set forth in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus who "though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Cor. 8:9). They are a bit better at times in restraining the war spirit, but for fear of the Republicans who can easily impugn their patriotism, they often give way for the sake of the vote. Their worse failing is Venus and Nice. Unlike the religious right, they don't see eager to hold the line on sexual ethics. At this point their enslavement to Venus and Nice is virtually complete. There are, of course, exceptions.

Given the massive power of the pantheon just described, one could wonder if the religious right, or any Christians group for that matter, can or even should attempt to get the government to legally impose Christian morality on the population as a whole. For example, Christians might be able to outlaw homosexual unions, but given the present bondage to Mammon, it is unlikely that biblical teaching on wealth and work would be widely implemented. Nor can one expect a pagan population to accept the radical pacifism of Jesus. Space and time do not permit a fair treatment of whether and to what degree Christian teaching can be applied to national life. In general, I take a modified two-Kingdom approach, having been influenced by Karl Barth, who, probably more than any recent theologian, wrestled with the issues of Church and State. He is the theologian of the Confessing Church, that remnant of Christians who stood against the Nazis. Given the present climate in American, I strongly recommend him. I have included aspects of his teaching on my web site, especially my doctoral dissertation that considered Barth's biblical doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation in relation to economic life.

Spiritually speaking, what happened in the last election? Mammon, Mars, and Caesar were strengthened while Venus and Nice were weakened. What of the gospel of Jesus Christ? I must confess I do not know. Portions of biblical values were upheld by the religious right, but at the same time, the rule of God over Mammon, Mars, and Caesar was further compromised. But God, the Father of Jesus Christ, is never compromised. He always reigns supreme, reigning from the cross by the power of the resurrection, and this cross is in utter contrast to war, wealth, and blind patriotism.

How will God sort this out? God has revealed himself in Scripture. Sooner or later, he judges the pagan deities and those who blindly believe in them. The Episcopal Church is a perfect example. God has allowed it to collapse upon itself. Some consider this to be tragic, but really, it is a blessing. God's judgment is always a blessing because it gives people the opportunity to repent. In the case of the Episcopal Church, the whole world can see that it has been secretly worshipping Venus and Nice for years (along with a certain intellectual snobbishness). It is also obvious that much of the leadership has lost all sense of orthodoxy. They really believe that Nice can save, forgetting the fact that faith in Jesus Christ entails God's judgment, repentance, and forgiveness even to the horror of the cross, something Nice can never fathom. God has not ignored the situation. His winnowing fork is in his hand. He is separating wheat from chaff, those who believe in the cross from those who can't face the fact that Christ's crucifixion was necessary even if it wasn't very nice.

In a similar way, sooner or later, God will judge the United States of America. It has already started. It starts with the fact that the United States has been profoundly implicated in the rule of Mammon, the economic laying waste of entire countries, if not continents, together with the devastation of wars and invasions, some of which were needless. Sooner or later these devastations will come home. God will see to it that those implicated in these outrages are judged, not because God is mean spirited (not very nice), but because we are so much better off, broken, poor, and under judgment, yet finding God at the foot of the cross, than when we are wealthy and powerful at the feet of Mammon and Mars. Whether this judgment will happen within the United States in the near future, or before the judgment seat of God in eternity, or both in certain degrees, lies with God. Nor do we know exactly when or how. But one thing is sure, God will come in judgment, seeking to save the lost through the mercies of the cross. As Jesus once said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. ... Therefore you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." (Matt 24:36, 44)

Further Comments

After the above essay was posted, I received an immediate response from a reader. For the sake of our discussion, let us call the author of that response, "Fred." Fred's response is posted below. I post his response for several reasons. Among other things, I have been posting articles critical of the Episcopal Church for some time now and have scarcely ever received a hostile response. In general, most people don't really mind if I am critical of the Church, but as the response below indicates, they get hostile if one is critical of the United States. This is not the first time I have received hostile responses from people who don't like my political ideas. The reason these hostile responses occur is that a good many Americans make a god of the state. When their god is perceived as being attacked, they get hostile. Their hostility is a function of their idolatry. Fred's hostility can be seen throughout his letter, but especially in the final paragraphs.

Further, as the response below indicates, this idolatry presents a number of symptoms. Among other things, the idolatry cannot accept the possibility that its god has done wrong. This drove Fred to present matters in black or white categories. For example, he jumped to the conclusion that I was a pacifist. At no point in my essay did I ever say I was a pacifist. My simple point was that the religious right wants to apply biblical sexual ethics to the state, but ignores Jesus' teaching on non-violence as applied to war. In fact, I said I had been influenced by Karl Barth and that I adopted a form of the two-kingdom idea. Barth was not a pacifist. Further, I offered St. Augustine as an example of one who proposed the concept of a just war. Augustine was not a pacifist. Fred had to paint me as a pacifist because he needed to frame the matter of war in simple terms. Anyone who doesn't think we should go to war in Iraq or anywhere else, is a pacifist. Then he shows the absurdity of being a pacifist and thereby justifies the war in Iraq along with other wars. But suppose simple black and white does not define the matter. Suppose some wars are legitimate and some are not. Perhaps, as Scripture so clearly states, the leaders of our country are sinners, and as sinners leading sinners, they have carried out needless wars. Perhaps these sinners can also fight wars that are justified. Some wars are justified, some are not. In my view, WWII was justified, Vietnam was not. But Fred cannot think that way, for thinking that way means that the U.S. has fought unjustified wars, wars that horribly slaughtered people. That would tarnish his god, and that is unthinkable.

The same can be said to Fred's thinking on economics. As in the case of war, he carried out some convoluted thinking in regards to my presumed economic views. This convoluted thinking allows him to obscure the fact that the economic life of the United States has some defects, and further, he will not consider the possibility that the U. S. has, to quote my original essay, "been implicated in the rule of Mammon, the economic laying waste of entire countries ... " Now, Fred doesn't want to know about that. He could have earnestly written me asking for evidence. He might have noticed that I did not say that the U.S. had directly devastated entire countries economically, but had been "implicated" in that devastation. For evidence, let me suggest Globalism and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz. There are parts of the world where economic misery prevails and I am convinced that the U.S. is a part of the problem not the solution. This is not to deny that the U.S. economic system has fed, clothed, and housed millions of people in the United States and this is an outstanding accomplishment. There are, of course, many hard-working people in this country who are nevertheless poor. But the fact that many North Americans are blessed economically does not mean that the economic system and its projection abroad has been an unmitigated blessing. Again, sinners do terribly sinful things and I'm convinced that massive greed has implicated the U.S. in economic devastation. But Fred doesn't want to know about that. So he distorts my thinking, poses unrelated questions, and drives himself into polarities that obscure real facts. This is typical of those who make an idol out of the American Way of Life.

Finally, I think the following comment by Fred especially telling: "America is the only force on earth that can repel the two major enemies which threaten the life of the church: secular humanism and global jihad." To begin with, America is not the only force on earth that can repel secular humanism and global jihad. The gospel is the only true force against evil. The church was not founded by force. It's kingdom is not of this world. It cannot be defended or extended by force. What we have here is the god of war being smuggled into the church as an agent of God's protection. This is idolatry. Force, as Paul says in Romans 13 can be used to restrain evil, but it does not found the Kingdom of Christ.

I don't know Fred personally, and Fred is not the name of the person who wrote the response given below. He may be a Christian saint for all I know, loving God with al his heart, soul, and mind. His response to my essay, however, is typical of those who venerate Mammon and the State and therefore worth posting for your consideration. His response follows.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
November, 2004

Fred's Response to My Essay

I read your essay on the recent election with interest. A few comments:

1. You accuse the religious right of syncretism. This may in some measure be true. However, once one considers the beliefs, practices, and morality of the Robert Sanders, one finds that they are syncretistic as well. For example, Dr. Sanders believes that we should model our society on OT economics. I myself am quite open to that argument.

However, Dr. Sanders evidently does not believe that we should model our statecraft on the OT theology of war. So he believes in OT economics, but not OT ethics.

Now, perhaps you would say the OT theology of war was fulfilled in Christ, such that it is no longer applicable under the New Covenant not, at least, at a literal level. Yet you also say that OT economics were fulfilled in Christ (2 Cor 8:9), and yet you apparently believe that his example is exemplary for Christians, and exemplary at a fairly literal level, when you literally reapply the Jubilee to Christian ethics.

2. There is also the problem of your love/hate attitude towards private property. On the one hand, you seem regard poverty as an evil to be rectified by income redistribution. Yet, in the exemplary case of Christ, you regard impoverishment as a good. On the other hand, you evidently regard wealth as an evil. Yet you seem to believe that the rich ought to share their wealth so that everyone is relatively rich.

So is affluence a good thing or a bad thing? Is your position that no one should be rich unless everyone is rich? It looks like you love the poor as long as they're poor, and you hate the rich as long as the rich. If the rich became poor, you'd love them; if the poor became rich, you'd hate them. Yet you think that the rich should enrich the poor, at which point the poor would become hateful.

Although I don't suppose you're a rich man by American standards, you are a rich man by Third World standards. Does the fact that Robert Sanders is the thankless beneficiary of a modern American standard of living make him a worshipper of Pluto? Is so, that's another aspect of his syncretistic doctrine and praxis. He combines ingratitude and hypocrisy all in one sanctimonious package.

3. Then there's your stated commitment to radical pacifism. Putting aside the question of whether this is exegetically supportable, it raises yet another difficulty. Suppose the wealthy were to spread their largesse in some equitable division of the spoils.

How do you square your radical pacifism with the right of private ownership? What keeps the thief from impoverishing his neighbor? If you don't believe in the use of force to restrain evildoers, then evildoers will use force to confiscate all the goodies for themselves.

That, indeed, is more than a hypothetical. It happens all the time in totalitarian regimes.

4. In this same general connection, you talk about the Confessing Church, that remnant of Christians who stood against the Nazis.

Now, forgive me for stating the obvious, but you can only talk about a Christian remnant because our side won. If Hitler had been victorious, there would be no Christian remnant, or Jewish remnant for that matter. The whole world would be Nazi.

Indeed, we can turn back the clock. If our side hadn't won the Battle of Lepanto, or the Battle of Poitiers, there would be no Christian remnant. The whole world would be Muslim.

BTW, this is one of the problems with your "Christian" pacifism. Your "Christian" pacifism is a ghost town, uninhabited by Christians. A necropolis rather than the city of God.

Our Lord founded a church a church for the duration of the church age. A defenseless church cannot long survive.

Oh, yes, you can cite historical examples in which nonviolence has been successful, but that will not work with everyone.

You set up a false antithesis between patriotism and the church. Yes, there's a danger of blind patriotism. But at this present time, America is the only force on earth that can repel the two major enemies which threaten the life of the church: secular humanism and global jihad.

5. So far I've confined myself to your syncretism, to your systematic incoherence. Given the massive moral condescension of your essay, I don't think it is asking toi much from you to favor us with a principled and practical alternative instead of an intellectually confused and contradictory screed.

Now let's move on to some detailed errors.

6. There's a difference between quoting the Sermon on the Mount, and exegeting the Sermon on the Mount.

What does it mean to turn the other cheek? Have you bothered to visualize the concrete imagery? To strike someone on the right hand side of the face is, literally, a backhanded slap. That is an insult, not an assault.

The Sermon on the Mount was addressed to Jews living under Roman occupation. It doesn't envision or address a post Constantinian situation.

This doesn't mean that the Sermon on the Mount has no relevance for contemporary Christians. But some minimal effort must be made to adapt the message to our own time and place. Again, that doesn't mean that we conform the message to our situation. We may need to conform our situation to the message. Nevertheless, you do need to recontextualize the message to the circumstances of an audience other than the original audience.

7. The Jubilee was not about income redistribution. Rather, it presupposes a tribal society in which major landholdings were common property of the clan. The Jubilee represents a restoration of the status quo ante. 8. As to the plight of the poor, the OT makes provision for charitable giving. It was not, however, welfare, but workfare gleaning the fields (Lev 19:9 10; 23:22; Deut 24:19 21).

9. You level the following accusation: "the United States has been profoundly implicated in the rule of Mammon, the economic laying waste of entire countries, if not continents, together with the devastation of wars and invasions, some of which were needless."

What wars and invasions in particular? W.W.I? W.W.II? The Cold War? The ongoing war against Islamo terrorism? Would the world be a better off without our intervention? If the Third Reich or the Empire of Japan had been victorious? If Stalinism swept the world? If the forces of global jihad, aided by state spon sored terrorism, were victorious?

What is your standard of comparison here? And what does it mean to say that some of our wars and invasions were needless? I thought your were a radical pacifist. Are you now saying that although some wars are needless, other wars are needful, but we shouldn't fight them anyway?

What makes you think that the US has impoverished rather than enriched the world? Isn't the US the engine powering the world economy? Wouldn't broad swaths of the world be infinitely poorer without American trade, technology, and outsourcing? Why are Mexicans pouring over the border for their slice of the American dream if the American way of life is such a nightmare?

You love employees, but hate employers. Can't have one without the other, though.

If you want to attack specific instances of abuse, fine. But warm fuzzy words don't defend the defenseless or feed the hungry.

If you really think you have a better way of getting the job done, go somewhere and make it happen. If you think pacifism is the answer, then go to some war torn part of the world and try it out.

If you think you have a better economic system, go somewhere and make it happen. Start your own little commune or whatever.

Why do you just sit there in front of your computer screen, brought to you c/o those evil multinational corporations, unctuously attacking everyone else for failing to put your wonderful ideas into practice? Why don't you make some personal effort to implement your own ideas? Why should we believe in your ideas if you don't? Why should we drop everything and try to make them work if you don't? What are we to make of your deedless creed? Haven't you ever heard of leading by example?