Not long ago, our church got an unexpected lesson in the importance of religious liberty.
We’ve been looking for property for a permanent location for our Chapel Hill campus, which currently meets in a high school. We found a piece of land in Chatham County, North Carolina, and we went through the normal rezoning process. By the county’s own assessment, our proposal fit within its comprehensive land-use plan, and early in the process, one planning board member even said, “There are not really any clear reasons to object.”
But objections eventually emerged, and some had little to do with zoning. Residents complained explicitly about our church’s conservative, evangelical beliefs—particularly our convictions about sexuality. Some county officials raised concerns about the fact that we’re a large church that encourages aggressive proselytization. So the county’s Board of Commissioners unanimously denied our request.
We appealed to the courts, specifically the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of North Carolina, under a federal law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). As part of our lawsuit, we requested the court issue a mandatory injunction to stop the Board of Commissioners’ denial and grant our rezoning request. The United States Department of Justice filed a statement of interest supporting our position, arguing that the federal religious-liberty protections codified within RLUIPA applied to the county’s decision. A federal judge subsequently enjoined the county’s denial while the case proceeded.
Walking through this experience hasn’t been fun. But through it, I’ve recognized an important truth I didn’t fully appreciate before: The greatest protection for our church isn’t the right Christians being in power but rather that our government is denied the authority to decide whether my church is sufficiently Christian. This truth has clarified for me why I’m not a Christian nationalist.
Debate over Religious Tests
Some Christians today argue that neutrality toward religion is both impossible and undesirable. They say all laws are based on some worldview and that our laws are rooted in the Christian worldview—sentiments I fully agree with. So, they argue, shouldn’t our government therefore privilege and promote the Christian worldview? Why wouldn’t we encourage Christian beliefs—perhaps even require religious “tests” or “acknowledgments” to ensure those exercising authority share Christian convictions?
Believe me, I get it. But my experience with Chatham County makes me ask, Who gets to decide what counts as “good” Christianity?
This question hasn’t been theoretical for us. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the people opposing our church identify as Christians, and I’m sure those who do also believe their version of Christianity—mainline Protestantism—is the correct one.
From their perspective, our church’s convictions about biblical sexuality, the sanctity of unborn life, and male pastoral leadership don’t represent faithful Christianity but an extreme, intolerant, and even harmful version of the faith. They’re doing exactly what the Christian nationalists want to do—using the government to privilege and promote their version of the Christian religion.
The same government power that favors your faith today can be used to suppress it tomorrow.
The same government power that favors your faith today can be used to suppress it tomorrow.
That’s why I get nervous when I hear Christians talk approvingly about blasphemy laws or religious tests for public office. They picture wise, orthodox Christians administering those standards according to biblical truth. But who gets to write the religious tests? Who decides which doctrines are essential? Which denomination defines orthodoxy?
If I were creating the new standards, I’d have to ask, Do Catholics get a say? Liberal Protestants? Mormons? And what happens if I’m not making the rules? What if the people creating the tests regard my beliefs as hateful, dangerous, or heretical?
The more foundational question is this: Does God give that responsibility to human government today? Did Jesus encourage us in this direction when he gave the church his Great Commission?
Some suggest he did. Even fellow Baptists like Albert Mohler have given “blasphemy laws” an approving nod recently. But the overwhelming majority of Baptist and American evangelical thinkers for the last several centuries maintain that Jesus didn’t give governments that authority. For that reason, I appreciate Mohler’s latest response to his critics, particularly how he grapples with Richard Land’s argument that “in this age, gospel Christians are most at risk of being punished under such laws at the hands of secularists” (Mohler’s words).
Giving the government religious power doesn’t guarantee a Christian government. It merely guarantees a more powerful government. And that scenario rarely turns out well.
Power Is the Problem
China provides an instructive example. Western descriptions of China’s “social-credit system” sometimes exaggerate, but it’s safe to say the Chinese government has experimented with various systems that connect political and social behavior with government benefits and penalties. Authorities there have implemented social-credit assessments for religious workers based in part on their political conformity.
In a system like this, job opportunities, borrowing power, governmental positions, living choices, and the schools your kids get into are determined by how well you’re living out the government’s social creed.
Imagine a government that rewarded Christian behavior: Honest business. Stable families. Volunteer service. Caring for our neighbors. Church attendance. Believing and promoting biblical teaching about sex and gender. Raising your kids in church. Posting on social media only loving and helpful words in line with Ephesians 4:25–32.
Wouldn’t this lead to religious flourishing? After all, parents incentivize good behavior in their children all the time. Why shouldn’t society incentivize Christian living?
On one level, it does. A Christian culture rewards virtue and promotes the common good. Our government gives tax breaks for giving to a church or local nonprofit. As Tom Holland has demonstrated, those are all expressions of Christian values. But do we want the government to determine whether we can borrow money or buy land based on how well we line up with its creed?
Though there are instances when a state with religious power might work for me, I must reckon with all the instances in which such power could be turned against me, as it was in Chatham County.
Every government, by definition, legislates someone’s morality. There’s no such thing as a morally neutral state. Our beliefs that we should love our neighbors, protect the vulnerable, grant equal rights to women, and guiltlessly eat both chickens and cows (but not our enemies) all reflect a Christianized worldview. Laws against murder, theft, fraud, and exploitation all reflect Christian judgments about right and wrong.
Yet there’s an important line the government must never cross. Our Baptist forebears called it freedom of conscience. The state should uphold justice, but it should not attempt to define Christianity, arbitrate doctrine, or compel (or impede) conscience.
Those simply aren’t roles given to human government, and when a government takes those roles on, it ends disastrously for believers.
That’s the part of the Christian-nationalism conversation that concerns me most. I simply don’t want a government to possess that kind of power. Period. For all our good intentions, I’m confident it won’t turn out well, and I say that not only because there’s no historical example of a Christian government that has ruled for several successive generations without persecuting believers like me; I also say it because the Bible itself tells me it won’t turn out well.
Eschatology Matters
The book of Revelation assures us that until Jesus comes back, we should expect the Dragon to have unusual sway over human government. Yes, Christians can hope for good from governments, and we should seek to influence and serve in them. Yet God wants us to be realistic about what we expect from government, and in light of what he’s told us they’ll be like until he returns, it’s sensible to limit their power.
Many evangelicals have spent the last 30 years, post–Left Behind, saying eschatology doesn’t matter. We think it’s divisive, distracting, mostly irrelevant to Christian living, and only for theological eggheads. John Calvin never wrote a commentary on Revelation, so we shouldn’t be expected to preach on it. After all, whether you’re premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial, we all believe Jesus wins in the end. So, some say, we might as well be panmillennial: It all pans out in the end.
Giving the government religious power doesn’t guarantee a Christian government. It merely guarantees a more powerful government.
There’s some truth in recognizing that one’s eschatology isn’t on the first level of theological triage. Yet our eschatology profoundly shapes what we expect between now and when Jesus returns. It’s no coincidence that Christ’s second coming is of one the most frequently discussed doctrines in the Bible.
It’s also no coincidence that many advocates of a more explicitly Christian political order come from a postmillennial framework. Postmillennialism anticipates the increasing triumph of the gospel in history, specifically in the world’s structures and institutions, before Christ returns. Prominent examples include Doug Wilson, Joe Rigney, and others associated with the Christian nationalist movement in Moscow, Idaho. I’m not saying that every postmillennialist is a Christian nationalist, just that the postmillennialist and Christian nationalist instincts often reinforce each other. Advocates for Christian nationalism often acknowledge the connection themselves.
If you expect Christian influence this side of Jesus’s return to eventually permeate all our human institutions, you might be more optimistic about Christians acquiring political power and using it to build a more explicitly Christian society. This thinking assumes that eventually all the county boards will be “our kind” of Christian, so it’s OK to cede power to them now. After all, if we’re not in charge now, we will be soon.
But as I stated above, Revelation sets a different expectation. While I believe a great revival is still ahead of us (Rom. 11:25–27), I also expect the Beast to remain the Beast until Jesus comes back (Rev. 13, 17, 19). The whore of Babylon will continue to hold enormous sway in our human governments until Jesus personally dethrones her (Rev. 17–18).
Revelation doesn’t leave me expecting that faithful Christians will gradually transform every earthly political institution into outposts of God’s kingdom so that once we accomplish that feat, Jesus will saunter in and take up residence on a throne we’ve built for him. In my view, there’s no kingdom without the King.
So, until Christ personally returns, Babylon will remain Babylon, and that means fallen political powers remain capable of being (and even likely will be) weaponized against God’s true people. For proof, we need look no further than Finland, which has a state church. Despite the government’s acknowledgment of its Christian heritage, an evangelical member of that country’s parliament was prosecuted for criticizing the LGBT+ community.
Since Revelation tells me that the weaponization of government power against believers isn’t only a possibility but a probability, I don’t want to hand the Beast authority over my conscience or put him in a position to arbitrate our church’s beliefs. Instead, I’m convinced that the best way to limit the damage evil rulers can do to faith and conscience is to deny them power over faith and conscience in the first place. Furthermore, quite frankly, our gospel doesn’t need the power of human governments. Its power is sufficient on its own.
Yes, I recognize that the government is instituted by God for the preservation of human flourishing (Rom. 13:1–4). I appreciate it, submit to it under God, and encourage the people at our church to be involved in it. Yet I don’t want to turn over to political authorities the keys that God gave only to the church.
What We Want for and from Government
As I’ve noted, none of this means Christians should withdraw from politics. Far from it. We are salt and light (Matt. 5:13–16), and we’ve been given a responsibility to restrain Babylon’s evil. As I’ve noted, justice always arises out of a worldview. So do freedoms and basic human rights. We’re not wrong to point out that our society’s viewpoints about these matters owe a great debt to Christianity. No one governs from a morally neutral worldview.
But that’s where the government’s authority and activity should stop. Magistrates should rule according to the dictates of justice and protect our freedoms, but they should leave the job of defining and spreading Christianity to the church.
Truly, our nation depends on us, the church, to define and spread the gospel. As John Adams famously observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” That means our form of government only works when citizens possess the internal restraints and compulsions that government itself can never produce. Many historians note that the American Revolution led to different outcomes than the French Revolution for one primary reason: America’s came on the heels of the First Great Awakening.
Note the distinction: The American government needs a moral people, but that doesn’t mean it should be entrusted to guard the beliefs that make a people moral. That’s the church’s assignment. Scripture doesn’t call Congress the pillar of truth; it gives that designation to the church alone (1 Tim. 3:15). We neither need nor want Babylon’s help in the Great Commission. The Spirit of God and the promises of Jesus are enough.
The American government needs a moral people, but that doesn’t mean it should be entrusted to guard the beliefs that make a people moral.
America doesn’t need the government to create Christians. America needs Christians to preach the gospel. If a genuine spiritual awakening swept our country—if millions came to Christ, fathers loved their children, citizens valued human life, and politicians genuinely feared God—the ramifications for our nation would be enormous. We’d live out the positive side of Adams’s statement, and America would thrive.
I want Christian politicians. I want Christian teachers and attorneys and business owners and artists and judges. I want Christians bringing their biblical convictions into every square inch of society. But what I don’t want is Caesar deciding which Christians count. Some of our spiritual ancestors left England for that reason. I don’t want to have to leave Chatham County too.
When I think about America’s future, my hope isn’t in the state’s coercive power. It’s in the church’s preaching of the gospel. My Baptist forefathers gave their lives to preserve this distinction, and I don’t want to give it up. Ever.
So, let our government do what it’s designed to do: protect our freedom to preach, worship, persuade, organize, vote, serve, and live according to conscience. And then let the church do what God commissioned us to do: proclaim a gospel that raises the spiritually dead to life.
In our case against Chatham County, we’re not hoping we stumble on a judge whose theological convictions line up with ours. Our appeal is based on the fact that we live in a land where our government has been denied the authority to decide whose Christianity counts. So, to paraphrase Roger Williams, give me as much Christianity as possible in our government and as little government authority as possible over my Christianity.
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