What builds up a society, government, institutions of higher learning, judicial system, laws, services, or none of the above? The answer is really none of the above. They are simply fruits of what society may or may not need. The foundation of society is the family unit. If two humans can’t get along, at the most basic level and you and another person (a child) and all three don’t get along you have a break down of society.
No laws, no government, no education system can take two people, make them get along and generate from them a child, which is the continuation of society for the future. Human beings from the early ancestors through evolution eventually recognized something more important than themselves. “Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion.” (General Audience John Paul II, 14 Nov 1979)
Recently, there has been a bit of a talk about Christian Nationalism and cultural Christian society. These are movements, or expressions, good or bad, of what Christianity is perceived to be. First, let us peel the two apart from each other to understand, and just as important describe what is and isn’t christianity in the context of those that attend church services weekly.
The identity around Christian nationalism comes from a point of politics mostly and descriptions based on some sort of christian ethos. The term is coined by political leaning groups to paint the other group of politically active people in this case Christians within the context of identity politics. It is easier to paint all people or even a subset of a group this way, but there is also something inherently wrong. It broad strokes people by beliefs in a higher power along a division of race, and social economic status.
The reality is there is no Christian Nationalism if it is to be defined appropriately and understood correctly. People who love God in the trinity, love their country, and are free to vote with their conscience along their christian beliefs could be called Christian nationalist. In a way, it sounds a lot like “God bless America” or “In God we Trust”. In many ways this aligns with the American patriotism, although throw God out the window for a moment for the point in the past 10 years of the 21st century.
Christian Nationalism is often associated with the evangelical christian. This is because during the turn of the century during the late 1800s and 1900s. The evangelical movements of that period, some protestant denominations maligned themselves and went into some really bad areas that left a bad taste for the American public. First, a certain brand of protestant beliefs maligned ideas about “inferior” races due to immigration. This led to laws banning even catholic immigrants since many catholics at the time came from Ireland and Italy to work in the factories during the industrial revolution. This started a political movement where “native born” people should be first, called nativisim. This group was also known as the “know nothings”, which were against immigration, because they felt these immigrants were “un-american”. This anti-immigration thought continued to fester and spilled over to racism as well as anti-catholic sentiment. There was an assumption that catholics would only align with the pope in Rome. Eventually, the country saw the rise of the hate group known as the KKK, out of some of these evangelical movements.
Follow this up with the 1920’s when some evangelicals pushed for prohibition that begot the 18th amendment, which was overturned by the 21st amendment. This was because some evangelicals understood alcohol to be a vice based on their understanding of the bible. In many ways the evangelical movements of the early 19th century hurt the christian identity. Using christianity to push a political agenda, for their understanding of morality in the courts and laws. Since the catholic church has many members, there are plenty examples of less than stellar performances. Take Chief Justice Roger Taney on the Dred Scott vs John F. Sanford case. “Slaves had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in asocial or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights that the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit”. Chief Justice Taney was a catholic and wrote that majority opinion for the Supreme court. This also threw a divide into the supreme court and it was the republican party under Abraham Lincoln who fought against this in a civil war.
The next few decades we are to find catholic immigrants adopted their new found country, after fighting the Civil War and WWI. They found a certain pride in being “American”, which started to lead into concerns with the church that catholics may water down their catholicism in favor for their new country. This was termed “Americanisim“. This is for another time, since the complexity of the catholic in America is interesting, but also can explain why we see this phenomenon of cultural christianity.
Cultural christian is best described as a person who identifies as christian through christian values and morals but is not a practicing christian. In 1937, 73% of the population attended a house of worship. Polls in late 2000s saw that association drop to 62% and continue to decline. The largest rising population of beliefs were the “Nones”, larger than those identifying as protestants or catholics. Why is that? It may have to do with many factors, the result of advancements in technology, and prosperity over the last century to name to major distractions in man’s solitude.
America has been losing its religion and part of what Pope Leo XIII was pointing out about separation of church and state. From a political standpoint, church and its influence in electing leaders has been a concern for politicians. At the same time, laws and policies need to lean in on some moral value system. Morality cannot be made in a void. The one problem with separation of church and state it went too far and forced religion completely out of the public discussion, which in turned threw standards of moral values to a pick your own foundation of moral values.
This pick and choose attitude has some of its roots in the 1600s during the enlightenment era and writers. Humanists such as Richard Dawkins argues “Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.” Richard Dawkins (2006, p. 348) this mindset has propagated to the idea that “organized religion is bad”. Sociologist have asked this question.
"It is simply impossible for people to be moral without religion or God." —Laura Schlessinger (quoted in Zuckerman, 2008).
If we continue to pick and choose beliefs of what we think are good, then as a society we are “moralizing gods”. This is a pagan mindset where you have an assortment of gods to pick from that fits how you see what is moral for oneself. This becomes an irrational thought because it excludes the whole created universe. Psychologist have been trying to understand morality of religion in a person’s life if it is a factor through the lens of scientific observation. This is pretty hard to do, because there are “religious” pious people, but internally their hearts aren’t there. There is a term called “cafeteria catholic”, and it is a person who picks and chooses through ignorance, or political belief, or self driven intellectual or emotional motivation to ignore various tenants of the church’s magisterium. This is a little more difficult with protestant denominations as there is no central authority of interpretation of the the bible so you see everything from the sparkle creed to snake handlers, to God wants you to have lots of money and good health, just to illustrate the extremes as most regular attending protestants tend toward the middle from liberal and conservative mindsets based on Pew study on religious attendance.
This is where Protestants and Catholics can work together ecumenically, since both camps are in the same camp of dwindling numbers in terms of regular attendance(once a week). In the dysphoria of the Christian world we are pointing fingers why the other is not Christian. Reflecting on St Paul’s “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. . . . Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Rom. 14:10,19). There is common ground between the different christian denominations in the world that can be leveraged within frameworks of Ut Unum Sint. In the United States, continual collaboration that started in 1995, under the constructs of Evangelicals and Catholics Togther, or ECT. This is a mission of allowing the christian conversation to occur in the government spaces and institutions, and work places. Basically bring a christian voice back to the public square.
The idea of this alliance is to affirm separation of church and state, but not the extreme where we see today that religion is excluded completely from the public square. The narrative of if a person has a religious affiliation they are racist, uneducated, not open has painted christianity in a terrible light and it is no wonder your most extreme states of this language we see have become less religious with up to 75% of the population in some states like Vermont saying they never went to a church service or rarely did. This is because according to a pew study “Nearly half of U.S. adults say they feel at least “some” tension between their religious beliefs and mainstream culture”.
Even recently in April 2024, our old friend Richard Dawkins lamented that the fall of christianity doesn’t look like a good prospect. That he himself, an avowed atheist, identifies as a “cultural christian”(youtube). He lays out what he likes about christianity and to be frank what he is describing is simply fruits of christianity, but not what it really is to be christian. Even in self described identifying christian when prompted, do you attend a service, or pray or study scripture or other theological documents the answers based on the polls seem to reflect this cultural identity, but not a deep rooted conviction to actually bring their selves to the church.
Christian relationship with God is important in the moral life. It is incumbent upon politicians regardless of political party as Pope Francis says, “We need wise politicians, guided by the criterion of fraternity, and who know how to discern between one season and another, avoiding wasting resources when they exist and leaving future generations in grave difficulty”.
“The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.” – Dorthy Day
Those that identify as christians should consider a deeper commitment to being christian. Rather than saying, start doing, by living out the faith. Consider time in prayer and reflection. Make effort to increase your participation by attending a service, or if a Catholic deeper in understanding the mass. Make intentional efforts to study the bible either self study, bible in a year, or a bible study. Increase your understanding of christians through stories of the lives of the saints, theological books or spiritual writings by the early church fathers and many others.
Today, sadly many Catholics don’t realize that the mass is not for us, homilies, music, fellowship, donuts after mass are just fruits of the mass. The mass is the sacrifice of ourselves along with the priest, after the offerings are brought up to the altar the priest says “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father”, and the congregation responds “may the lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church”. Then the Catholic faithful start into the prayer of the Eucharist prayers. This is why even in the Catholic church only 30% of catholics understand the real presence and there is an ongoing Eucharistic revival.
The decline of christianity and church attendants are fruits of a society that has shifted away from having a relationship with God, and is moving more to a pagan society mindset. Yet it is not all doom and gloom. There is a light with the religiously unaffiliated known as the “nones”. They are seeking, but more about that later.
Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. – 1 Corinthians 3:18
Searching the Logos 