Today’s post picks up on yesterday’s summary of David Sehat, 
The Myth of American Religious Freedom.
I am a historian neither of American religious history nor of the American judicial and legal system. So most of my responses were tangentially related to the book: he stimulated a huge number of thoughts, but those mostly tied to my own interests in teaching the Bible and getting our theology properly storied.
Throughout Sehat’s book, the idea of a “moral establishment,” later resurrected in the “moral majority,” indicated the way in which Christians were seeing to make the United States faithfully Christian. Behind this is the core conviction that the Bible is the book by which God’s moral law is made known, and those who would be faithful to God must strive to enact the law of this law book.
Again and again as I read the book I was struck by how this misconception about the Bible drives Christian political engagement. There was no sense that the Bible is a diachronic narrative, with moral imperatives changing over time.
But
more importantly, there was no sense that the defining moment of the story is the cross. A law without a story produced an ethics without the cross which led to power with no room for justice.
When the Bible is the transhistorical law of God (or witness to that law), the point of life on earth becomes enacting that law by whatsoever means necessary: women, stay at home and stop asking to be treated as human beings–you’re simply extensions of your husband; black people: stay enslaved and be thankful that God has brought you under the tutelage of those who have been gifted with the higher refinements of the Christian religion; laborers: be glad that those who are empowered with gifts of rule are ruling over you so as to give you work that lasts 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. Isn’t God good?
And in all this, the fact that the Christ in whose name such oppression was perpetuated refused to seize power by the sword, but attained his kingdom by self-giving love. In all this, 
Jesus’ rebuke of the sword, his rebuke of the disciples’ desires to rule by power and force, Paul’s mandate that we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus is all left to the side.
At the risk of sounding narcissistic, Sehat’s book convinced me that what I do is one of the most important jobs in the world. As a theologian and Bible professor, my job is to keep drawing people to read their Bibles well, to understand the story aright. And if you don’t think that’s important, look at how poor readings have reinforced narratives of power, domination, and oppression.
My contention is that the cruciform narrative of the Gospel, found throughout the New Testament itself, provides a sustained rebuke to the ways in which the conservative theological establishment has sought to coopt the power of the state to enforce the law of God. Jesus didn’t come to force people to obey, he came to rebuke the people who employed such tactics.
I left Sehat’s book wanting the “Myth of American Religious Freedom” to become the defining myth of our country–a myth that, precisely because of its mythic power, transforms the imaginations of the American people so that we will never again accept the idea that the “cause of Christ” is served by the state’s imposition of the Christian will on the lives of its diverse citizens.
Good thoughts. I have felt that when most conservatives read the Bible, they do through the lens of timeless truth, a very enlightenment concept. The idea of the Bible being diachronic narrative is totally missing. This misconception only leads us to know the law but not God.
Thanks for these thoughts. I quoted you and linked to this page: http://web.me.com/craigadams1/Commonplace_Holiness/Blog/Entries/2010/12/28_Jesus_Didn%E2%80%99t_Come_to_Force_Obedience.html
Interesting how our stories and worldview color our reading of scripture. Then we go forth thinking we have God’s word and blessing, when in reality we’ve only “verified” what we already hold to. We all need to stay in scripture and see in God’s kingdom come in Jesus a critique of everything, and always with that attitude day after day, guarding against the idea of arriving, and yet pressing toward that goal.
I would love to read this book, by the way. Any book that can give a better understanding of life here, and the complexities in it, is well worth the investment in time required to read it. I’m leery of easy answers and this book looks like it doesn’t give such.
Daniel
On what basis do you decide which specific moral imperatives found in the Bible no longer apply today?
Hi GC, i know am not Dan, but i used to ask myself that question. Of late i have not found the need to answer it. One of the changes i have made in my thinking is moving away from making Christianity out to be a moralistic religion. That question tends to become a key question only when we are viewing the Bible as some kind of instruction book or moral code. even in the Torah, God did not reveal the mosaic Law in a form of contiguous commandments but through a story. Jesus too did not have a moralistic view of the world. He started his sermon with the beatitudes. He said the greatest commands were love God and neighbor. Even “do unto others as you would have other do unto you: was considered by him to sum up the law. He expected us to be followers of him, not some moral code. There needs to be a re-orientation of how we read the Bible. I am not ruling out ethics or moral values, but they are couched within a bigger story.
I hope this answers some of what you are asking.
Hey Daniel,
just on a related note, I cannot recommend highly enough the book edited by Chris Smith, The Secular Revolution. Smith’s introduction taken by itself is well worth the price, but the book contains several accounts of how the various institutions of the US moved from self-consciously Christian ideas to self-consciously secular ones in the 1880-1930 period. Just a great work on American religious history.
This was very interesting and thought-provoking. I now understand the true nature of fundamentalist conservative Christians and the so-called “Religious Right.” It makes me glad that, even though I’m a Christian, I do not support the cause of these people who call themselves Christian, and thinking that they are doing the will of God, they are actually imposing their own will on others. The Religious Right, for an example, want to take over our government only to shrink it and enact Bible-based laws that force others to conform, then punish or murder those who disagree and do not conform. They may not admit to the fact that this is really what they want America to look like, but it is evident everywhere when you hear them say, “We want to take back America!” Hint: They want to eliminate sin and imprison and/or murder those whose lifestyles and beliefs don’t coincide with their own lifestyles and beliefs. In other words, it’s “Agree with us and live as we do, or else,” a Christian mentality that treats everyone the same and has absolutely no regard or respect for individual needs and desires. They are modern-day Pharisees, which means they’re not really Christian because Jesus rebuked the Pharisees 2,000 years ago.