The Ironic Origins of a "non-political" church

Dateline: August 29, In the Year of our Lord, 2022

There are a handful of ironies in this week's Classical Christian Times. The Miseducation of America was created by Pete Hegseth, the FOX producer John Case, and myself.  The story centered on the Western Christian Paideia.  Typically, FOX would look for something advocating for "patriot-education."  But Hegseth quickly realized that what we think of as "patriotic education" was really a progressive ploy to pull America away from the true source of strength in our Republic -- the Western Christian Paideia.  Thus, both the documentary and the book, Battle for the American Mind, take an unanticipated turn for many viewers/readers who expect a call for the return of flags and framed pictures of our founders in the classroom.

Instead, the series and book calls for the return of Christianity to education — not "Americanism.” With this twist, another irony has emerged.  Some Christians are asking if we should be involved with the political ecosphere, especially given its unsavory nature right now.   Christians are lining up on two poles:  either seeking a solution in a political movement, or distancing from political questions altogether.  Both positions come from a little-known part of the story touched upon in Battle for the American Mind.

Prior to about 1870, the church was engaged in politics naturally.  The church was the center of the local community, and community is the grass-root of politics in a republic.  Most traditional churches saw themselves as a necessary theological fount in law, governing authority, limits, civil disputes, family structure, and social care.  To be sure, some powers were rightly delegated to the state.   This was particularly true in Europe where the deep influence of Christian authority still lingered.  Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian turned Prime Minister of Holland between 1901 and 1905, famously championed this view:  "There is not a square inch in the whole of creation over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine’!” Even so, Kuyper was an anachronistic anomaly in a time when his view was gradually  overtaken by a light brand of Marxist socialism in Holland.  

In 1891 in America, Richard Ely founded the Christian Social Union.  Unlike Kuyper, who moved government functions toward the church, Ely went the other way.  He advocated for an interventionist, regulatory state that would assume traditional roles of the church in society.  He stopped short of socialism, but others did not.  Ely's view was roughly shared by men like Washington Gladden (congregationalist pastor), Walter Rauschenbusch (Baptist), Thomas Uzzel (Methodist), and Mark A. Matthews (Presbyterian).  The social justice movement transferred church activity into government activity as it traded the true Gospel for the Social Gospel.  What motivated this action?  There were many reasons.  One interesting reason was that, in another twist of irony, these "social gospelists" were nearly all Postmillennial in their view of end times.

A brief aside into the speculative but important world of "end times" theology will help decode this historical anomaly.  Most today in the evangelical church believe that this world needs to be evangelized before Christ returns to redeem us in a cliffhanger, just before the world runs headlong into destruction.  This view of end times is called "Dispensationalism." It was invented in the mid 1800s and popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible.  You see it in books like Left Behind.   Dispensationalism became ubiquitous among fundamentalist and evangelical churches, and remains so today.  Most mainline denominations in the 1800s held to older views, like the Postmillennial view, but one group of social gospel proponents added a new twist.  

At the close of the 19th century, Postmillennialism was rekindled with an errant flourish.  Postmillenialists, in general, believe that Christ will use His church to redeem the world over time.  Ely, Rauschenbusch, Gladden, and others sought this end, but rather than the church at the front of the charge, the state was called upon — because "social justice" encompassed "justice" which was a traditional state role.  The state, with its taxation and police power, seemed to be the most pragmatic way for the "social gospel" to bring about a utopia in America.

Between 1880 and 1910, the social gospel merged with a new and rising group, called the Progressives, that sought a Marxist utopia.  The two were surprisingly compatible.  They both sought a form of utopia and they both relied upon government to reach it.

As the Progressive movement hit its zenith in the 1910s, the church had been relegated to give up territory.  Protestants had either joined the Progressives under the banner of "social justice" or they had reverted to Dispensationalism, a belief that found no use in politics or the state because Jesus was expected to imminently return, and they had souls to save.  The state became nearly irrelevant for fundamentalists and evangelicals at the time.  

By 1916, in major cities like New York, the church — Catholic and Protestant — still provided social services as it had done since the book of Acts.  But, the city government had newly taken the reins -- with funding and regulation brought to child care, education, and orphanages.  In the July 29th issue of The New Republic, the story of politics and religion comes to an instructive head.  

When a New York City orphanage run by Jesuits came under state control, the Jesuits pushed back.  Father Blakely, a Jesuit priest, laid the situation bare: “How far [social science] morality will differ from the morality proposed and defended since the days of Jesus Christ by the Catholic Church, is evidenced by the fact that, while the Church bases her teaching upon Divine Revelation, the modern sociologist finds his theoretical standard of morality in the ‘highest good of the community’.”

Father Blakey does not shrink from the consequences.  “The Church is from God;  modern sociology is not;  for like the present day ‘non-sectarian’ education, it has severed all relations with him.”  

Remember from Battle… that this was about the same time the Gary Plan had removed Christ from schools.  This “severing” excerpted Christianity from schools, orphanages, hospitals, elderly care, and the list goes on.  How did Progressives respond to these complaints by the few Christians who cared, like Father Blakely?

Stay tuned:  Next week, I'll release the full text of The New Republic article that started the research project that became Battle for the American Mind.  

To continue this story, the sentiment that church “should never be political” was codified later in the 1954 "Johnson Amendment" to the IRS code which prohibited churches from “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”  Of course, Lyndon Johnson was a Progressive.  Much like they did in education, the Progressives took about 50 years to convert more than a dozen centuries of practice:  The idea that the church must be non-political is one of Progressive making.  Yet, many Christians (possibly because they were educated by the Progressives) believe that Christian ministries should steer clear of politics.

In one more irony, many of the Christians now involved in the classical Christian renewal are also Postmillennial!  But, they return to the true form that says the Church, and not government, is the instrument that will be used by Christ to transform our world — not to humanist ends, but to the glory of God, for His purposes. The two poles on which Christians are dividing (either seeking a solution in a political movement, or distancing from political questions altogether) both reflect error.  We should look to a third way...

The true answer is to return to the whole Gospel.  Our desire  should be "All of Christ for All of Life" —  including political matters.  The Gospel is the good news of the coming of the Kingdom of Christ, which has been and remains the one true, undefeatable political force in this world.  Kingdoms are political.  But the Kingdom of Christ is never contained in any political party or government.  It stands above and transforms or condemns any earthly political power that rages against it, and blesses any government power that gives honor to Christ and His way.  It does so through faithfulness, love, a commitment to truth, and through “attraction.”   It “attracts”, rather than “appeals” to the lost souls in our culture.  The Gospel is not appealing — it’s based on the stone that the builders rejected. But, it can be attractive to outsiders who look at the institutions and community of the Church, when they are truly practiced well, and see something divine — a love for one for another and a fear of God.  “Attraction” draws God’s elect to the distinct culture and way of life that Christians model, or should model.  This is why the early church was called “The Way.” As wokeness tears at the fabric of the church, we need to remember that any “way” of this world (and make no mistake that wokeness is purely worldly and in error) does not make us more palatable, it only makes us less salty.  And, a blind refusal to engage and call political foolishness “foolishness” will undermine the paideia of our children, and in turn the saltiness of “The Way” into which they are incorporated.

Classical Christian schools help students engage in all truth in light of good theology.  That's why we read Plato's Republic, learn rhetoric from the Roman statesman Cicero, study Ambrose's transition from provincial governor to bishop, and reflect on Luther's tug of war between the church and state.  Classical Christian education demands we are political, because we are kingdom builders.

Whitfield preaching in a town square.