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One of the greatest things about my seminary is the diversity. Having grown up and attended college up in homogeneous Western PA, I have a chance to finally meet people from an array of different cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities. Over the course of the year I have become quite good friends with a British student named Philip. We enjoy talking about theology, culture, and politics (usually over a beer), as well as occasionally and playfully mocking each others nationality.
One evening I brought up the recent retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. I asked him who he thought his replacement would be. He informed me that typically the Church of England alternates between a theological conservative and a theological liberal. Rowans (at least from an Evangelical perspective) was liberal, so a conservative ought to take his place. Yet there is a complication: the Church of England is a state church, which means that the Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen by Parliament. The problem is that British Prime Minister David Cameron, as part of an effort to modernize the Tories by dropping the party's historical social conservatism, is a strong advocate of gay marriage. Whereas gay marriage is largely a social issue in the US, it is a messy political-ecclesial issue in Britain because the Church of England baptizes, marries, and buries British subjects. In other words, the legalization of gay marriage in Britain means that the Church of England would have to marry homosexual couples. However, while the Church has a broad social function, its primary religious functions are increasingly dominated by theological conservatives, whether Evangelicals or Anglo-Catholics, because these are the only people who still regularly attend church in Britain. Hence, against the wishes (and conscience) of the greater portion of its active members, the Church of England may soon be required to wed homosexuals. No doubt these Anglican parishioners will be quite upset. Social conservatism largely dead in Britain (hence, Cameron's decision to ditch this platform) so lobbying against gay marriage would probably only cause resentment. Philip told me that what this means is that the messy disestablishment of the Church sometime down the road is probably inevitable.
Thus, the irony is this: whereas American Evangelicals want to preserve a Christian America, British Evangelicals wish to hasten the end of Christian Britain.
Though American Evangelicals do not want to officially bind church and state together in America, they do tend to yearn for the days when Protestantism was unofficially established in American culture. Up until the twentieth century Protestants, or at least a Protestant ethos, wielded tremendous influence over public schools, colleges and universities, local governments, and local communities. The presence of a chapel on the campuses of many public universities is a testament to this fact. But as American high culture became increasingly secular, this cultural hegemony was challenged. Ugly culture wars were fought, and are still fought, between those who want to see a strong Christian presence in American culture, and those want Christianity banished from it altogether.
Christianity in America has been historically tied so close to American culture that many Christians don't know how to get along without being culturally established. Many Christians push for a Christianized America because their very identities are tied up with the national culture. As a result, the religious nature of American Christianity gets sidetracked by the nasty arena of politics. Three decades of lobbying by the religious right has done little more than cause deep-seated bitterness towards Christianity from non-Christians. Hence, Christians have allowed themselves to caught up in the messiness of identity politics, uncivil discourse, and resentment that dominates most of the public square.
Another one of the ill-effects of this cultural secularization was Protestant liberalism. Virtually all of the mainline churches were so inextricably tied to American culture as established institutions within that culture that they found it impossible to resist the rising tide of modernism. As a result the mainline denominations, just like the Church England, had to compromise their values due to a messy alliance with an increasingly secular culture. This compromise involved a nasty divorce proceeding, just as the Church of England may soon also face. The plethora of splinter Presbyterian denominations is a testament to the bitter separation that occurred between Evangelicals and the mainline cultural establishment.
The lesson to be learned is that a "Christian America" is a double edged sword. Culture can transform Christianity instead of Christianity transforming culture. For many Christians the line between Christianity and Americanism became so blurred that when the latter exerted pressure on the former to compromise their values, they had little ability to resist. Liberal Christians have largely given orthodox values in order to become "modern" or "progressive." Evangelical circles have compromised as well. The profusion of consumerist, therapeutic, and nationalist Christianity in American churches, particularly in the mega-church churches, is a witness to the fact that Christianity often prostitutes itself out when seeks cultural establishment.
If we are unable to learn from our own past, let us at least learn from what is going on in Britain right now. The Church must ultimately stand with one foot in the world and with the other in the City of God. We must strive for the difficult paradox of antithesis to and contextualization within our culture. Only then will the integrity of the body of Christ be kept.
