Christianity and Constitutional Rights

On Monday, April 6, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster finally issued a stay-at-home order, the 43rd state governor in the United States to do so. Immediately, my Facebook feed filled with cries of government overreach and fear. While I expected to hear that from some, many others surprised and dismayed me. For many recent years, my views and beliefs on this topic have gradually diverged from the ideology that formed the mistaken foundation of my childhood, the equating of Christian identity with American patriotism and Constitutional rights. In the past, I have touched on this issue but today I plan to dig even deeper, make some bold statements.

I grew up in a culture that equated true, Biblical Christianity with fundamental American values and the Constitution. We were taught that because Judeo-Christian values formed the foundation of our country, unique in the whole world, we had to fight for our rights, make sure that the government did not overstep its bounds and that we had to do that as a Biblical duty. On every, single level that is patently wrong. It’s what I see filling my Facebook feed, revealing just how deep this misguided ideology has seeped into and affected the church. In this entry, I plan to dismantle, to the best of my ability, that mistaken belief. I do not imagine that I will change minds of those who believe that if they happen to read my writing. I feel compelled, however, to write this because I cannot stay silent; I must tell the truth.

First, so many believe the fallacy that the Founding Fathers based the Constitution and the Bill of Rights on Judeo-Christian values. A simple reading of primary source documents shows that these men based the governing principles on Enlightenment philosophies, words from the writings of Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. Our Founding Fathers professed belief in God because everyone at the time, with rare exception, also did so. The biggest evidence of the difference in governments based on Judeo-Christian values, which the Constitution is not, and governments based on Enlightenment philosophies comes with a comparison of the Constitution and the government of the Massachusetts Bay colony, run by the Puritans.

The Puritans ran a government as close to a theocracy as man can make. At one point the Puritan government limited suffrage to male members of the Congregational Church. If you openly disagreed with the Congressional Church, you faced legal punishment as seen in the most famous examples, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, both brought up on heresy charges, found guilty, and banished from the colony. Roger Williams went on to found Rhode Island as a refuge for those seeking religious freedom.

In contrast, the men who crafted the Constitution, believing strongly in religious freedom, adopted a neutral stance on the government’s role in religion. The Constitution mentions religion twice, once in Article VI and once, most famously in the First Amendment. Article VI forbids any religious test from being required for public service which would have abrogated the previously mentioned suffrage requirement of the Massachusetts bay colony had such a requirement been in effect at the time of the Constitution’s adoption. The First Amendment enshrines the freedom to practice, or not, any religion you choose. Additionally, the amendment prohibits the establishing aka encouraging or promoting of religion in any way.

The second part of my earlier statement gets to the heart of my problem with the responses of so many fellow Christians to the COVID-19 pandemic, the belief that we have a Biblical duty to fight to keep the government in check. Absolutely not. We have quite the opposite duty, in fact. Christians have the mandate to obey the government fully with the only exception being if the government demands that we do something contrary to God’s law. Most of the people I allude to above would fully agree with that statement. Unfortunately, American Christianity has corrupted the understanding of God’s law which we find only in the Bible, as well as the understanding of the US Constitution by conflating the two. As an American, I have freedom of speech. As a Christian, I do not have that same freedom. Yes, I can say whatever I want but not without consequences. Also, as a Christian, God instructs me to have speech that builds up others rather than tear them down, to speak truth, and to testify of and worship God. Another example comes with the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms. I have that right as an American yet as a Christian I have the obligation to respect every human life since every single human being bears God’s image. I should act with extreme caution with firearms since if I die, I will go to heaven to be with Christ, but I do not know what may happen to the one on whom I may fire.

This conflation of the Bible and the Constitution leads to hysteria and fear. The verbiage I have seen in posts from some acquaintances who claim Christ stinks with connotations evoking fear. One I read a few days ago likened some of the measures taken and/or suggested by a handful of municipalities (not our own ) to the end times. First, even if these measures indicated the end times, as Christians this should not cause panic in our heart. Second, the Bible tells us that no one knows the time of Christ’s return. Everyone in history who has attempted to predict the hour of Christ’s return has failed. Third, Christians in many countries, like China, have lived with far harsher government measures and do not go around pointing fingers towards the end times.

Lastly, and I do not say this lightly, when we cling tightly to Constitutional rights in the face of Biblical admonitions such as loving our neighbors as ourselves, we make an idol out of the Constitution. Anything that we place above God becomes an idol. It breaks my heart to see so many succumb to this temptation. Ultimately, as Paul states in Philippians and Ephesians, our citizenship as Christians is in heaven. That’s where my loyalty lies, not in the United States. My temporary body has American citizenship but not my eternal soul.