“A nation with the soul of a church”

We’ve finally arrived at the week of our nation’s anniversary. Over the coming days, you’re likely to see even more reminders of this country’s past, both the good and the bad. But as we reflect on the path that turned thirteen disparate colonies into the strongest nation on earth—and, yes, the United States does still hold that title, even if the gap is narrowing—let’s bring this discussion together in order to highlight the truth about how God sees America.

Last week we discussed the importance of turning control of everything we have over to God and actively recognizing his authority to use us and our possessions in whatever way he sees fit. What is true in our personal lives is true for our country as well. 

Think back to the three purposes behind America’s founding: launching evangelistic missions, building a secular economic venture, and establishing Christian community. Now, let’s add to them what we have learned from Scripture about God’s judgment and blessing on the nations. Doing so will help us to gain a better understanding of the ways our actions have enabled him to bless our nation as well as the manner in which our sins that have invoked his judgment.

America as a base for evangelistic missions

As we discussed earlier, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in America was founded by the Spanish at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. It was built as a military outpost for the defense of Florida, but even more as a base for Catholic missionary efforts across the region.

Such an evangelistic impulse has been part of America’s story from then until now.

America sends more missionaries into the world than any other nation, by far. American church planting organizations have started churches around the globe. American Christian doctors and nurses have met needs in some of the most destitute places in the world. The same is true of American Christian engineers and teachers.

Remember what my pastor friend from Cuba said about how God has blessed America so America’s Christians can bless the world? Our history certainly points in that direction.

America as a Secular Economic Enterprise

Of course, much of the means by which America’s Christians have been able to bless the world has come from the remarkable prosperity America has enjoyed across our history. Such prosperity harkens back to the Jamestown colony and its founding as an economic venture.

Those who have developed our rich natural resources over the generations have in a sense partnered with the Creator who bestowed them upon us, laboring as with Adam of old to “work” and “keep” our “garden” (Genesis 2:15). The capitalistic and consumeristic economy we have developed has unleashed private enterprise, and rewards financial and material advances that benefit us all. Our limited government, with its checks and balances to prevent the unaccountable use of power by elected or appointed individuals, has further enabled our people to thrive and the common good to advance.

As a result, our nation still leads the world in significant economic ways:

• US labor productivity has risen faster than that of any other advanced economy.
• US firms account for more than half of global profits in high-tech sectors (compared to 5 percent for Chinese firms).
• America’s research and development investments lead the world.

That’s not to mention our status as the world’s premier military superpower:

• The US is ranked #1 of 145 countries as a global military power.
• The US has the world’s most advanced air force, unparalleled naval power, and a strategic global presence with more than 750 overseas bases. We also lead in cyber and space defense.
• US defense spending is three times as large as that of China, our closest competitor, and accounts for about one-third of all global military expenditures.
• Our ability to project military power anywhere in the world is unmatched.

In addition, we have exported religious freedom around the world through diplomacy, political agencies, and our example. And our militaries have protected the world time and time again from the oppression of autocracy and imperialism.

However, this dimension of our founding and history has been built and developed in a secular context with no reference to biblical morality or authority. The most horrific example is the enslavement of humans for financial profit that began at Jamestown in 1619, catalyzing the racial prejudice and discrimination that still plague us today. While we have made great advances, we still have far to go.

The Founding Fathers understood the gravity of this sin but could not find a way to eliminate it while keeping their thirteen very disparate colonies together. From its inception, this fault line between South and North would persist and deepen until it erupted in the most destructive war in our nation’s history. And because so many Americans see others not through the biblical lens of love but through the prejudiced lens of hate, this sin persists.

Our founding secularism has similarly left us unprepared for the devolution of morality from our founding era. The First Great Awakening of 1734 was instrumental in forging that consensual morality that is vital to participatory democracy. The Second Great Awakening that began in 1792 strengthened and advanced such spirituality and morality.

But recent generations, captured by the postmodern denial of absolute truth and objective morality, have largely abandoned the moorings upon which our democratic experiment was established. The plagues of pornography and prostitution, epidemic of abortion, and rise of LGBTQ ideology, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism are examples. As is the tragic and alarming rise of antisemitism in our day.

Examine our recent moral trajectory in light of those sins for which God judges nations:

• disobedience to his word
• self-sufficient pride
• persecution of the Jewish people
• sexual immorality
• idolatry
• materialistic greed
• mistreatment of others

How many of them can you see in the news of our day and immorality of our culture? If God judged nations for such sins in the past, does his holy character obligate him to judge us for such sins in our future? We will return to this theme shortly.

America as a Christian Community

The third missional founding of our nation, as we noted, was by Pilgrims and Puritans who sought to build Christian community for themselves and others. Their success helped lay the foundation for the spiritual awakenings noted above and the spiritual vibrancy that America continues to experience. And their insistence on the religious freedom they did not experience in Europe led eventually to our First Amendment religious liberty protections.

As G. K. Chesterton observed, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.” He called us “a nation with the soul of a church.”

It is still true that America is the most religious of all the world’s industrialized nations. Nearly two-thirds of us identify as Christians. Our founding declaration claims that our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are endowed to us by our Creator.

Even though religious affiliation has declined in recent years, more Americans attend church each Sunday than watch football on television. From the time in 1630 that John Winthrop envisioned this new world as a “city upon a hill,” we have seen ourselves as “one nation under God,” as our Pledge of Allegiance describes us.

In The American Patriot’s Handbook, George Grant states that “other nations find their identity and cohesion in ethnicity or geography or partisan ideology or cultural tradition. But America was founded on certain ideas—ideas about freedom, about human dignity, and about social responsibility.”

He notes:

It was this profound peculiarity that most struck Alexis de Tocqueville during his famous visit to this land at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He called it “American exceptionalism.”

In light of our past as interpreted through the lens of Scripture, we can identify ways God has been able to bless our nation across our 250 years of history, as well as reasons we have grieved him. Now let’s relate this discussion to our future as we seek to be a nation God can bless for generations to come.

For now, though, will ask God to help you understand how his calling for your life fits within his calling for the country? How can you better live a life that he can bless? And where can you help others to do the same? 

That is God’s call for each of us today. Let’s get started.