PUBLIC SQUARE
Introduction: This weekend is the 249th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of our nation. Considering that, I want to preach a message titled “Public Square.” In ancient Greece and Rome, the public square was the center of towns and cities where people gathered to discuss politics and issues at hand. In our own nation, in colonial times, people gathered in public squares, which were near the town halls and courthouses to discuss matters facing the people and the nation. Unfortunately, for quite some time, one person has been banned from public square, the person who is most needed in the public square – God. Anytime someone brings up God in politics, they are immediately silenced. God forbid if a church or a pastor were to speak out on political issues! Someone is bound to cry “separation of church and state.” Although I have addressed this issue in other messages before, I want to do that in this message in a different way. Hopefully, we will learn some history, some biblical principles, and maybe even some common sense.
Psalm 33:12 (page #861) “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”
Context: When David wrote Psalm 33, and I believe that he wrote it (I preached on it a few years ago how it was a continuation of Psalm 32, which is a psalm of David), he had first the nation of Israel in mind. God had appointed him as the king of his people. He knew that they couldn’t exist without God’s hand upon them. God had chosen them not because (as Deuteronomy 7 says) 7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers.” Furthermore, David was also laying out this principle for any people anywhere who also wanted to be blessed by God. Listen to the verses prior to verse 12 – 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. 9 For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. 10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. 11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations.” Then, the verses following verse 12 are also very powerful – 13 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. 14 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; 15 He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. 16 No king is saved by the multitude of an army; A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. 17 A horse is a vain hope for safety; Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. 18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy, 19 To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. 22 Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.”
“Because we have trusted in His holy name” – The slogan “In God We Trust” is found over the south entrance of the Senate Chamber, in the House Chamber (Behind the President in the State of the Union address), and on our money. America is that nation in recent times that chose to trust God. This does not mean for a moment that America is a perfect nation. There’s no such nation, not even the people of Israel when God was leading them directly through Moses. It simply means that the founders of this nation chose to follow God. It means that the secret of our success in the face of some incredible odds is that we were built on the foundation of “One Nation Under God.” Just like the slogan “In God We Trust,” we can see other similar slogans as well around our nation’s capital. The capstone on the Washington Monument has the words “Laus Deo,” which is Latin for “Praise be to God.” In the Capital Building, over the east doorway of the Senate Chamber are the words “Annuit coeptis,” which is Latin for “God has favored our undertakings.” The same statement is also found on the Great Seal of the United States. Then, our Pledge of Allegiance also carries the phrase “One Nation Under God.”
Unfortunately, over the past few decades, even the past century, God has been shoved out of our nation, especially from the public square. Imagine that as a bus with God has the engine. If you try to replace that engine with any other engine, it will not work. In recent months, efforts have been made to invite God back into the public square, to put the motor back into the bus. I never thought that I would be standing on the White House lawn praying for our nation. Does that mean everything is perfect in America? No. It simply means that we are headed in the right direction when God is invited back in our lives as a nation. We are headed in the right direction when we as Christians stay in the public square. This is not easy.
To begin with, we need to understand from history how God was pushed out of the marketplace. If we don’t understand our past, we are bound to repeat it. I like what Mark Twain famously said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We need to have some understanding of the history of Religion in America. This can be divided into 3 stages (See the “Introduction” in Church, State, and Public Justice: Five Views, edited by P. C. Kemeny):
1. Protestantism as the Established Church
- from the first Europeans in the New World to 1791, Protestant Christianity was the established religion.
- New England was established by the East Anglian Puritans; Tidewater region (Virginia) was settled by the pro-royalist cavaliers who were Anglicans.
- the Appalachian peoples were from the northern borderlands between England and Scotland. They were from a Presbyterian background.
- Overall, Congregationalists to the North and Anglicans to the South
- There were some exceptions.
- Delaware Valley was settled by the Quakers and midlands people.
- Rhode Island was settled by the Baptists.
- Each had their own idea of liberty: for New Englanders, it was ordered liberty, for Virginians, hegemonic liberty; for Delaware valley, it was reciprocal liberty; and for the frontier people it was natural liberty. So different, but when they were faced with a choice of domination by England, they came together as one people and fought for this nation. “United we Stand, Divided We Fall.” See Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fisher.
- Things were changing: 1689 Act of Toleration for Trinitarian Protestants; Enlightenment ideas; First Great Awakening of the 1740s.
- The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights recognized that state religion is not good for those who were not part of that denomination. Hence, the First Amendment stipulated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”
- According to Daniel L. Dreisbach (author of Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers), “We know this, for example, by looking at probate records, the records, the catalogs, of what people left behind when they died, and they reveal that if a family owned a single book it was most certainly going to be the Bible” (taken from his talk “The Bible and the American Founders”).
- Back in the 1980s, there was a study done by a political scientist and professor named Donald S. Lutz. After scouring scores of pages of documents, both private and public, from that period, he came to the following conclusion: When all the citations are compared, the Bible is quoted 34%, Enlightenment writers 22%, Whig writers 18%, English Common Law 11%, Classical writers 9%, and miscellaneous 6%. That is about 1/3 of all the quotations were from the Bible. Something also very interesting was that the peak period for those biblical quotations was in the 1770s. Guess where these quotations were coming from! From the political pamphlets, of which 80% were reprinted sermons. Lutz concluded that “the movement toward independence found the clergy out in front, and they were also most vigorous in maintaining morale during the war” (taken from The Origins of American Constitutionalism).
All that to say, Protestantism was the faith of the Nation. Again, this does not mean that every person was a born again saved individual.
2. Protestantism as the De Facto National Religion
- The Second Great Awakening in 1830s and 1840s led to many getting saved and many efforts were led to Christianize the American society.
- Many revivalists were trying to fight the evils of society to expedite the Millennial kingdom.
- Many voluntary societies like the temperance society, abolition groups, societies against illiteracy, poverty, obscene literature were founded.
- In this period came the Civil War (1861-65), which shook up our nation.
- This was also the time when immigration began around 1850s when many Roman Catholics began coming here, along with Jewish people and some Eastern Orthodox. Some came because of persecution, and some because of famine or in search of opportunities (the American dream).
- Then, followed World War 1 and World War 2. More immigration continued, but it was mostly from a Judeo-Christian background.
- Beginning in the 1920’s the dominance of the Protestant group began to wane. Some of the events including the Scopes “Monkey Trial” over whether Darwinian evolution should be taught in the public schools. Even though most Americans did not support evolution, it further pushed Christianity out of the public square.
- In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy was elected as the first Roman Catholic President.
- Around the same time period, there were battles between the fundamentalists and the modernists. Liberal protestants focused on the “social gospel,” and the conservatives focused on salvation (also prohibition).
- Liberal theology from Europe had invaded the seminaries and universities.
- New movements (Pentecostals and Holiness) began growing.
- There was a new development of the urban-industrial life in America.
- Fundamentalists/Conservatives retreated from public life, which was a huge mistake.
- Supreme Court decisions were made that contradicted Christian values:
- In 1947, the Supreme Court sharply defined the separation of church and state.
- In 1962-63, the Supreme Court decided to ban prayers in public school.
3. Post Protestant Pluralist America
- In 1965, the Hart-Celler Immigration Law reopened the doors to immigrants from non-European and Asian countries. This had been excluded by the 1924 immigration laws.
- Just between 1960 and 1990 over 15 million immigrants came to America, many from non-Christian countries. More specifically, without Judeo-Christian values.
- Islamic background immigrations began to grow from a few hundred thousand to about 5 million or so now.
- Of course, many Supreme court decisions were made that were contrary to biblical values:
- In 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade.
- In 2015, the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriages.
What is tragic is that Christianity was not just a contender among other faiths, but it was banned from even contending! Of course, many tried to fight for the place for Judeo-Christian values (Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, etc.). If a Christian were to voice their views, they were called biased, bigots, and all kinds of names. Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor of philosophical theology from Yale argued that to make believers “not base their decisions and discussions concerning political issues on their religion is to infringe, inequitably, on the free exercise of their religion.” Again, he added, “Let citizens use whatever reasons they find appropriate-including, then, religious reasons.”
In some sense, we have to go back to the original period while being sensitive to the present. We cannot change the past, neither should we try to. It’s like we had put a different (wrong/weaker) motor in a vehicle. Now that we are putting the right motor in it, we cannot jettison the passengers who got on over the years. Nonetheless, we have to make sure that we don’t let anyone work under the hood or take the keys.
What about the ills of society under those “right motor” periods? There are no perfect societies. Knowing what we know now, we need to keep such injustices from happening. What happens when Christians read the Bible wrongly? (Case in point: slavery) It becomes even more imperative that we read the Bible correctly! Case in Point: Civil War
This approach looks differently in other non-Judeo-Christian societies. We cannot change the motor. We must find other ways to live our faith and win the lost world around us. To go a little deeper, this is contrary to the Common Grace approach of the Reformed and the Natural Law approach of the Roman Catholics. Neither is this about Theonomy or Theocracy. It is simply making sure that America has the right motor.
This motor operates on the local, state, and national levels. The federal level allows the state to make its own rules, but not put a different motor. Case in point: All Muslim city council in Hamtramck, Michigan. As long as it is a moderate group, it may work. If not, there will be laws enacted that will be contrary to the American Spirit. March 7, 2024, the city council voted to rename “Holbrook Avenue” to “Palestine Ave.” Make no mistake that when the Polish people came here, they also renamed the streets, but they were operating from Biblical framework, albeit a Roman Catholic one.
Our ultimate goal is to see lives transformed through Jesus Christ – Matthew 28 19Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. The vehicle doesn’t save people. It only keeps it possible for us to do so.
Our operating principle is Matthew 22. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Truth and Mercy should always be our standard. This cannot compromise Law and Order. Truth without Law is a sham. Mercy without Justice is a facade.
Our vision for our Nation – Matthew 5 13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Amillenialists – motor is staying the same
Postmillennialists – motor is getting better and better.
Premillenialists – motor is wearing down, we can refurbish it time to time. As Premillenialists, we are refurbishing the motor so that we can win more and more people into Christ’s kingdom
Are you saved? Are you praying for our nation? Are you praying for the world?