Separation of Church and State: Good for Both

A new poll apparently shows that some Christians want America to be officially declared “a Christian nation.”

If this means wanting others to know the grace and new life of God given in Jesus alone, gifts that come to us by faith in Jesus, I’m on board.

If it means making Christianity the country’s official religion, I absolutely oppose the idea. And no Christian should want that either.

People can’t and shouldn’t be coerced into faith in Jesus or into complying with some people's notions of what Christians should look like or do. 

Just because you force people to abide by rules you claim to be Christian doesn’t mean that people are Christian. 

Christians are people who can honestly confess that they are sinners saved, not by being “good people,” which none of us is, but by God’s grace through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

This talk of making America “a Christian nation” sounds less like Christianity than it does like religious legalism, which can never set sinners free from our inborn bondage to sin, death, and darkness.

Not once did Jesus seek to coerce people into “acting right.” The Pharisees of His day did that and Jesus condemned them for it, frequently. (Check out these scorching words from Jesus in Matthew 23:3-5.)

Instead, Jesus calls us all to repent and believe in the good news of new and everlasting life through Him. (Cf., John 3:16-18; Mark 1:15)

Jesus commissions His disciples to make disciples, not to make rules.