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you may have questions about Sunday’s event on the mall. I certainly do. To read the full article please go to stevenwoolley.substack.com. While there if you haven’t already subscribed please do so. As always I am grateful for your thoughtful comments

Voices have demanded a return to traditional values for several decades now. They frequently mean the preservation of particular social norms favored by a particular sense of interest. Are there traditional values that have stood the test of time and are found throughout the world in one form or another? I believe there are. For more on this, read the latest at stevenwoolley.substack.com

A reminder that I am slowly transitioning everything over to Substack from WordPress, not because I’m unhappy with WordPress, but because I reach a much larger audience on Substack.

is the American era over? It certainly looks like it may be. Yet there is hope but it depends on the people and no one else. To read more please go to stevenwoolley.substack.com

Christians will soon observe Trinity Sunday, the doctrine of one God known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is hard, if not impossible, for people of other faiths or none at all to understand, so I have tried to clarify it in the simplest terms possible. As always, you can find it at stevenwoolley.substack.com. If it’s useful to you, please feel welcome to use it in any way you like.

blind guy typing should know better. The correct link to democracy, populism and the mob is

stevenwoolley.substack.com

to better understand whether our republican democracy will survive or we will become just another authoritarian second rate country it is important to know a little more about what Republican democracy is, what populism is and what they mob represents when it assumes power. To read more please go to

steven woolley.substack.com

to understand the New Testament with any depth at all requires a basic understanding of the Old Testament. To read more about this please go to

stevenwoolley.substack.com

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Is there such a thing as a Christian nation? I think the answer is yes—but it depends entirely on what we mean by the word nation.

In ordinary conversation, we use the word nation to mean a country. More particularly, when we say “the nation,” we usually mean the United States. Holy Scripture, however, uses the word in a very different way.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the word we translate as nation refers to a people—those who can be identified as members of a tribe or ethnic group, regardless of where they live or whether they are gathered under a single ruler. It does not mean a nation-state: a country with defined borders and a particular form of government. The nation-state, as we know it, is a relatively recent development in human history, beginning to emerge in the late Middle Ages.

When the Hebrew text speaks of “the nations,” it usually means all the peoples of the world who were not Israelites. These peoples were identified by ethnic identity, not by political borders. Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite. David’s general Uriah was a Hittite. The Cushites lived south of Egypt. Among the Greeks, anyone who was not Greek was called a “barbarian”—simply meaning they belonged to the nations outside Greek culture. At the height of the Roman Empire, the army was largely drawn from Germanic tribes; yet there was no such place as Germany.

A turning point came with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. After decades of devastating wars among dukes, kings, and emperors, these agreements helped establish the idea of defined territories under centralized rule. They did not create the modern nation-state overnight, but they marked an important step in a long development toward what we now recognize as nations.

These European states were “Christian” in the sense that Christianity was the official religion. Each ruler determined which form of Christianity would be practiced in his territory—usually Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. Individuals might be allowed to practice a different form of faith, but only under limited conditions and often at some personal risk.

Were these truly Christian nations? Not really. They were countries in which one form of Christianity was officially established. Whether the people—or their rulers—actually followed the way of Jesus Christ, or even understood what that meant, is another question entirely. They fought under the banner of Christ, but often against one another. They declared themselves Christian, yet persecuted those who were not, or who practiced Christianity differently. Church attendance might be required by law; whether it was an act of faithful worship was beside the point.

A similar pattern appeared in colonial America. In New England, Calvinism—of the Puritan and Pilgrim varieties—was dominant. In the South, the Church of England was established. Church attendance was often required, and taxes supported the church. Maryland became a haven for Roman Catholics. Parts of Pennsylvania welcomed Quakers. Rhode Island was home to Baptists. German Lutherans settled in New Jersey. Each colony set its own boundaries of tolerance, but none was especially hospitable to Jews or Muslims. Protestants distrusted Catholics, Catholics returned the favor, and nearly everyone found reason to harass the Quakers.

So, is there such a thing as a Christian nation?

Yes—but only in the biblical sense.

A Christian nation is not defined by geography, borders, or government. It is a people. It is those, wherever they live, who confess faith in Christ crucified and seek to walk in the way of the cross. They strive, however imperfectly, to love God with all that they are, and to love their neighbor as themselves. They are not bound together by ethnicity or citizenship, but by their life in Christ.

They may belong to this country or that one, but that citizenship is always secondary to who they are as members of this people.

The author of the First Letter of Peter puts it this way:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people… Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”

As John Howard Yoder observed in his 1984 book The Priestly Kingdom, the people of Jesus bear a moral and ethical responsibility within the societies where they live.

A Christian nation is the people of God following Jesus Christ—collectively known as the Church—residing in every country. Wherever they go, they are united in faith with others who follow the way of Christ, regardless of denomination.

They are a people who seek to encounter every person, and all creation, as made in the image of God and beloved by God. They invite all to join them. They exclude no one. They honor the ways in which God is at work in the lives of others, even when that work is named differently.

For all of that, they remain an imperfect people—well aware of their weaknesses and failings, both as individuals and as a community. Their life is one of continual correction and reform, as they seek to embrace all that God is still speaking.

The nation of Christians has nothing in common with today’s Christian nationalism. Nationalism is exclusive, xenophobic, and antagonistic toward any who differ. It is not a religious movement but an attempt to impose its own social norms through political power on an unwilling people.

Whatever it is, it is not Christian—no matter how boldly it claims the name.

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The United States is a secular nation in the sense that all persons are guaranteed the right to practice their religious faith, provided it does not violate the freedom or security of others. It is a guarantee challenged, sometimes violently, through prejudicial acts against some of the faithful—Jews, Muslims, adherents of indigenous religions, and, until relatively recently, Roman Catholics.

Recognition of such behavior as an offense against religious freedom, an assault on human dignity, and an expression of bigotry stands as a testament to an enduring American spirit unwilling to surrender to entrenched prejudice.

That same spirit must now stand firm against a bizarre distortion of the Christian faith promoted by persons in high office such as Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, and Donald Trump, who assert an intent to make a religion masquerading as Christian and biblical into the official religion of the nation. To claim it as Christian is an offense against God; to claim it as biblical is an insult to Holy Scripture.

The Christian Church has struggled long and hard to proclaim faith in one God, whom we experience as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, made known through the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To follow in the way of Jesus is to follow what he has taught and commanded. At the same time, others have proclaimed a different faith while calling it Christian, though it departs far from what God has revealed through the prophets and commanded by Jesus himself.

This was true in the earliest centuries of the Church and has recurred throughout history. The Church has wrestled with internal conflict and a recurring need for reform. Yet the good news of God in Christ Jesus—the nearness of the kingdom in ordinary life and the power of redeeming love—has not failed. It continues to lead the faithful into deeper and more profound ways of understanding and following the way of the cross.

The Church—the assembly of all faithful Christians—is once again called to boldness in Christ, to profess the faith in word and deed in ways that clearly distinguish it from corrupt distortions now being advanced as a national religion.

How?

Drawing from my own tradition’s baptismal covenant, I offer the following. It is consistent with—if not identical to—the baptismal commitments proclaimed across the one holy catholic and apostolic Church:

• Be steadfast in worship and fellowship with other Christians; observe the apostles’ teaching; share in the holy food and drink of new and unending life in Holy Communion.
• Persevere in resisting evil; whenever one falls, repent and return to the Lord.
• Proclaim by word and example in daily life the good news of God in Christ.
• Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving one’s neighbor as oneself—including the stranger, the alien, and those we dislike or distrust.
• Strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.Respect the dignity of all creation and seek to live in harmony with it.

To follow Jesus in this way draws a wide circle, within which a multitude of faithful lives may be lived according to differing abilities and circumstances. Uniformity is not required. Unity in following the way of the cross is. In that unity in diversity, the Christian faith is most truly proclaimed.

It is what we are called to do—individually and collectively—with quiet confidence whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.

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My previous column expressed hope that the nation may be at a turning point—a moment when the public is more prepared to renew its commitment to our founding ideals. However important those ideals are—and I believe they are very important—they are not, by themselves, sufficient to energize support from the large portion of the population living paycheck to paycheck, wondering whether there will even be a next paycheck.

Not everyone living paycheck to paycheck is low-income. It is a condition of anxiety that stretches from those at the very lowest income levels well into the middle class. What unites them is uncertainty about their economic future.

If the hope of renewed national commitment to American ideals is to become reality, influential voices in public life must first address the fundamental conditions that create obstacles to economic security and deepen anxiety among those who feel their concerns are neither recognized nor taken seriously. People want to believe that housing, food, and the basic necessities of a decent life are available to them as a matter of right, earned through their labor.

The conviction that next year will bring greater opportunity, more discretionary income, and some measure of upward mobility lies at the heart of the American dream. Whether that dream is more myth than reality is beside the point. It drives emotional response. Facts, however important, are often peripheral.

A renewed commitment to democratic ideals can be generated only when public leaders begin here. Policy white papers are not the place to start.

The first step is to listen—carefully—and to respond in ways that demonstrate that anxious and insecure voices have been heard. Those feelings may or may not align with the facts, but they are real, and that reality must be acknowledged. The second step is to ask what people believe should be done. The answers will be varied, even contradictory. The third step is to ensure those voices are shared in ways that encourage mutual understanding and reduce the tendency of groups to turn against one another.

Out of that process, influential voices can begin to articulate practical steps capable of improving lives. At that moment—and not before—it becomes possible to reintroduce the essential importance of democratic ideals. That is how progress toward achieving them is made.

The New Deal, now nearly a century behind us, cannot serve as a blueprint for our time. But it does illustrate how this process can work at its best. Even then, it did not produce perfection. It produced something workable—a measure of national unity, always contested by those who felt threatened by it. That remains the nature of the task before us. The goal is not perfection. It is something that works.

I do not pretend to have a ready framework for applying this process to the conditions of our own time. But the process itself is not new. It is very old. “A chicken in every pot,” often attributed to Henry IV of France, reflects a ruler’s recognition that support from the peasant class depended on meeting the needs people actually experience. Whether he succeeded is open to debate, although he did much through investment in public infrastructure and by limiting conflict between Catholics and Huguenots. What matters is that he understood the principle.

We no longer speak of peasants. We speak of the working class. In 1949, W. Lloyd Warner published Social Class in America, describing a layered structure ranging from the lower-lower class to the lower middle class, middle-middle class, upper middle class, and on to the upper classes. His categories were largely economic, with some attention to lifestyle. Contemporary sociology has moved in more complex directions, especially in recognizing the impact of race and ethnicity on economic and social opportunity.

Even so, there is something useful in Warner’s approach. It avoids the easy distinction between blue-collar and white-collar work and allows us to recognize a simple truth: anyone working for wages, salary, or commission belongs, in one sense, to the working class.

This brief essay does not offer a conclusion. It offers an invitation—for each reader to consider what conclusions ought to be drawn, and why.