McCloskey: Is this a Christian nation? It’s complicated

There’s a lot of confusion right now about how church and state relate in America, and it’s center stage this presidential election cycle. Even the pope is getting involved. This month, Pope Francis advised Catholics to choose the lesser of two evils in the voting booth, though he didn’t make clear which candidate fits that bill.
According to Pew Research, almost half of Americans believe that the U.S. should be a Christian nation, while two-thirds believe that the church should stay out of politics. (Close readers will note the clang of discord in those numbers.)
We’re hearing more about Christian nationalism, especially as it relates to the GOP, the MAGA movement and the ReAwaken tour, which features allies of former President Donald Trump. Christian nationalism is the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and that political power must be used to return it to such. Others are concerned about discrimination against Christians and cancel culture coming from “the secular left.”
Still others will say that the church has no place in politics or public life. As theologians N.T. Wright and Michael Bird describe (and rebuke) in their new book Jesus and the Powers, “Many will claim that the Church should never get involved in politics. The Church (such people will say) should not seek a place at the table of political power or even get involved in debates about civil rights, climate change and public housing. … Stick to the cure of souls, not trying to save the world.”
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Meanwhile, American churches are emptying out at record rates. The share of U.S. adults who identify as “religious nones” has grown by 75% since 2007, according to Pew Research. More people have left the church than all those who converted during the Billy Graham crusades and Great Awakenings combined, according to authors Jim Davis and Michael Graham.
The shifting religious paradigm of the American public has many implications, but here are three big ones for politics.
First, the rapid decline in church attendance contributes to a feeling that there is not a shared moral framework or moral authority for political discussions. It’s hard to generate widespread appeal to the sanctity of life, for example, if there’s not agreement about what counts as human life, when it begins or whether it’s sacred. As C.S. Lewis quipped decades ago, “My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives.”
Second, the decline in religious affiliation combined with a reducing white share of the population means that white Protestants in particular have gone from a majority to essentially a minority, which creates a feeling of vulnerability and desire for muscular political protection.
Third, church tends to be one of the remaining institutions where Americans interact with people different from themselves. Shared worship creates empathy and connection across other dividing lines such as race, neighborhood, gender or income. It’s a cross-cutting community that the secular culture has not been able to replicate as New York Times columnist Jessica Grose recently pointed out. The loss of such mediating institutions contributes to our polarization.
To help me understand the role of church and state in America, I reached out to Peter Wehner who has been involved in three Republican presidential administrations and is not shy about his faith. Christianity is the topic of his book with the late Michael Gerson, City of Man, and many of his columns in outlets like The New York Times and The Atlantic.
I asked Wehner the big question: Is America a Christian nation? His answer was an easy “No.”
While many of our founders were Christian and certainly their beliefs infused our founding documents (especially the fallenness of people), they were fresh off the religious wars in Europe and wanted to set the new nation on a course away from sectarian conflict, he said. America was innovative in establishing a separation of church and state wherein the state would have no sanctioned church or preferred religion.
But this has been misinterpreted over the years, according to Wehner. The separation of church and state did not mean the founders wanted a secular nation. While there was no official religion, the founders were very concerned with the virtue of the public and believed religion to have significant value. It was never meant to be walled off from public life, just that no religion in particular would be favored.
Thus, Christian nationalism is clearly too far to the right of what the founders intended, and the rise in secularism is too far to the left. Amen.
Wehner is most concerned with the former — Christianity tying itself too closely to a political party, and Trump in particular. In this, he’s not alone.
When the late Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller was asked how Christians fit into the two-party system, his answer was, “They don’t.” As I’ve written about in these pages, the passions of the early church and Scripture cover a wide range from immigration to poverty to abortion to racial justice, which don’t fall neatly into either political party.
This too is the spirit of the pope’s comments, pointing out that neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor Trump consistently upholds the values of life and dignity, one because she opposes restrictions on abortion, the other because he’s running on the promise of immigration detention camps and mass deportations.
The debate around church and state is a huge issue that will continue to ebb and flow beyond this election. But the church, at its best, provides accountability to politics and shines light where political passions have blinded us to the bigger story.
My interview with Wehner was recorded to create Episode 3 of my project Beyond Talking Points: An American Middle Podcast. The entire conversation will be available Tuesday at www.dallasnews.com/elections-24-podcast as well as on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Part of our opinion series The American Middle, this essay and related podcast defend the founders’ vision of America as a pluralist society where religious freedom is protected.
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