American Christendom and Apostasy

https://theaquilareport.com/is-america-part-of-christendom/

There seems to be virtually an endless stream of articles like this - trying to tweak definitions or steer the conversation, but always missing the point.

Christian Nationalism is just the latest term. Do Christ's enemies employ it? I suppose so. But those who fit the label are also Christ's enemies as they have perverted the gospel and redefined not only the Kingdom but the faith itself.

Marion wants to use 'Christendom' - he thinks this is a better term. Begging the question is never helpful. Christendom has meaning in terms of history and culture but in terms of the New Testament, it's an aberration. It cannot be defended and represents little more than compromise and syncretism with the world - the Babylonian Whore riding the Draconic Beast in Revelation.

And this problem is compounded by the fact that the American Founders marked a sharp break with the tradition of Christendom which emerged with Constantine and continued to develop throughout the Middle Ages. The Founders did not claim authority from the Church, the grace of God, divine covenants or anything on that order. They appealed to Enlightenment philosophical concepts regarding rights, the assumptions of democracy, and the social contract or the consent of the governed - concepts which have no basis in Scripture or in the history of Christendom.

It is at this point that the argument is revealed to be fundamentally flawed and the article can be regarded as a waste of time. Marion (like so many others) clearly has no clue as to what he's talking about. His appeal is bankrupt.

Before the rebellion, the American Colonies fell under the aegis of the British Crown which at that point was still part of 'Christendom' so-called. But that all ended in 1776. It will be granted that the period under the Articles of Confederation was something of a transition but by 1787, the secular Enlightenment nature of the new nation was formally codified in the utterly godless US Constitution. The fact that it took generations to work all this out is to be expected. The nature of federalism and the dynamic it created meant that it would take time to iron out all the internal contradictions - and they're still being worked out.

The 19th century examples cited by the author are largely meaningless. Again, the contradictions had to be worked out - with the principles of the Constitution slowly but surely winning the victory. And even these principles would give way to modification at various epochs of American history - the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the World Wars, Cold War, and post-9/11. The country that existed in 1820 is long gone. The truth is the US Constitution was built on sand and it has only survived by undergoing regular periods of change. There is much in America's cultural and legal past that is obsolete. This is not to say this process is Christian or that any of it is - but it's the reality.

Additionally we might add that the claims and petitions of the people need to also be evaluated. Just because they claimed something did not make it so - and while courts may rule, as Christians we evaluate these questions in terms of Scripture. We need to be willing to say that they were wrong. The Puritans were often wrong - as were the Magisterial Reformers.

Established religion is antithetical to the New Testament and while the American system is non-Christian, the fact that this faux-Christian tendency was eliminated in the early 1800's is nothing to lament.

The pronouns in Marion's appeal are telling and the errors they imply are still with us today - 'Our land' proclaims some misguided Baptists from North Carolina. Marion wants to call our attention to this but all it tells us is that the confusion which dominates in our day was already a well advanced cancer in Early America. For the Christian, the state or nation one lives in is not 'ours'. We are pilgrims and strangers, citizens of the heavenly Kingdom. We may live here or there but that's incidental not existential. If it is the latter, than it represents a deviation from New Testament doctrine.

Sadly, so many of the Christians that escaped Britain and Europe and came to North America did not learn the lessons of Church history. They carried a great deal of theological baggage with them and then if that wasn't problematic enough they would in subsequent generations weave these errors into a new cloth tainted with Enlightenment idealism. The hybrid has proven to be destructive and it has permutated, corrupting virtually every section of American Christianity.

Those who think America only became hostile to Biblical Christianity in the 2010's are quite literally blind leaders of the blind - and wearing their ignorance on their sleeve. This country's ideals have always been hostile to Christianity - or at least in earnest since the period after the Civil War with the rise of industrialism and the triumph of Capitalism.

Mammon is the idol of American culture and most of the Church is given over to it. Those who have attempted to follow the teachings and ethics of the New Testament have struggled and suffered from poverty and have often faced minor forms of persecution surrounding compulsory education laws (sponsored by Magisterially minded nationalist Protestants), and with other issues surrounding the courts. There has also been the problem of conscription. Since the New Testament assumes non-violence and thus conscientious objection, the faithful suffered terribly during the periods of America's seemingly endless series of wars. Thankfully after the atrocities of Vietnam this practice came to an end - but the cloud of 'Selective Service' registration still looms over the landscape as well as calls from wayward sectors of the Church to reinstate the draft. For most 'conservative' Christians the only concern is with regard to female conscription. Students of the New Testament know better.

Marion has missed the mark. America is not part of Christendom but most of the American Church is apostate and as such it still dreams of reconstituting some variety of Christendom - wishing to rule and possess wealth and stomp on the faces of those who oppose them. The New Testament is unknown to them and were Christ to walk among them today - they would kill Him.