Recently, in the holy week preceding Easter, Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican Party in the 2024 election released a video on his Truth Social platform urging his supporters to purchase the “God Bless America Bible.” The Bible features an American flag and the words “God Bless the USA” printed on the cover. Inside, it has the words to “God Bless the USA” and the text of The Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other historic American documents. Promotional material for the Bible shows the former president alongside country singer Lee Greenwood. Touted as the “only Bible endorsed by Donald Trump” it sells for $59.99, with a portion of the proceeds going to help pay for the mounting legal bills as he fights four criminal indictments and appeals massive civil penalties in multiple courts. Use of the Bible as a prop, a tool for politicians to exploit for their political purposes is, of course, not a new phenomenon. What is unique in Trump’s case is the degree to which he blatantly and shamelessly uses scripture for personal gain and self-aggrandizement.
Jesus castigated the money changers for turning the house of worship into a “den of robbers” (Matt 21:12-13). Trump’s behavior is deserving of similar rebuke. Some Christian leaders have indeed called Trump’s endorsement “sacrilege,” “heresy,” and “borderline offensive.” But Trump continues to receive support from his Republican base (including many evangelicals) precisely because they agree with his MAGA philosophy of Christian nationalism and don’t have a problem with using the Bible to promote that political ideology in the current culture war. Two competing narratives define this war over the soul of the nation. One is promoted by religious conservatives who fervently believe that America is uniquely blessed by God to be the “city on a hill,” that America was founded as a “Christian nation,” and the government should work to sanction Christianity on a national scale. The other narrative is promoted by liberal progressives who emphasize cultural, moral, and religious diversity and believe that we must repent of our history of racism and white supremacy. (These two ideologies are described in greater detail throughout this essay.) For many on both sides, the future of democracy hangs in the balance, depending on who “wins” this war.
Sadly, the Bible has often been weaponized in the battle between liberal and conservative ideologies. In her book The Ballot and the Bible: How the Bible Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics, Kaitlyn Schiess observes that much of American Protestantism is shaped by Bible ownership. “We live in a Bible-haunted nation. Our history is full of politicians invoking biblical images. . . . [But] for all our familiarity with the Bible, we are woefully ignorant about how or why we are using the Bible in politics.”[1] Most often, our focus is on how the Bible influences specific policies. We act as if the real issue is about which party or platform to vote for when there is a deeper and more fundamental but often ignored reality. Our real goal should be to examine how scripture shapes more general, foundational questions: What is the proper relationship between theology and politics? How should Christians think about their political participation? What is a biblical approach to government and political powers? What are the foundations for a stable political order and institutions of a democracy?
In this essay, I look at these questions through the prism of Carl F. H. Henry (1913-2003), arguably the foremost evangelical theologian of the 20th century. As Andrew Walker asks: “In a time like our own, where the fabric of liberal democracy seems more frayed than almost any time before, where moral consensus is at an all-time low, what would Carl Henry offer as a form of prophetic warning about the continued viability of ordered liberty?”[2] Back in 1996, Henry published a small volume with the title Has Democracy Had Its Day? This little-known book has been described as one of the most important works ever written by Dr. Henry. Although written almost three decades ago, the insights it gives are timeless. As a moderate evangelical, Henry deplored the threat to democracy that had come about with the ascendency of “secular humanism” and “naturalistic relativism” which detached democracy from its transcendent underpinnings. But he also rejected Christian nationalism and was wary of the authoritarian tendencies of theonomists or reconstructionists on the religious right who insist that American society ought to be governed by Mosaic law.
“The principle of majority rule has increasingly become the definitive criterion of democracy,” Henry writes. But “majority rule does not of itself assure the preservation of civil and political rights.”[3] Democratic governments must look beyond the will of the majority to a transcendent truth to which the political realm is accountable. “Those who deny transcendent principles of justice sooner or later will abandon the moral and political orders to chaos.”[4] Once divorced from a divinely established moral order, a society will collapse into a social anarchy in which political power is sought for its own sake and democracy lacks the virtue necessary to sustain it. Christians as well as non-Christians can succumb to a political ideology of one sort or another that spins off into tyranny. In many ways, the decades-old warnings that Henry gave to the evangelical Christians of his day are more relevant than ever.
Our historical and political situation differs from Henry’s in one significant respect: On January 6, 2021—despite over 60 court rulings including rulings by Republican and Trump-appointed judges that there was not widespread election fraud—Donald Trump instigated a riot on our nation’s Capitol, claiming that the election was stolen. To this day, Trump and many within the Republican Party refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election. This is unprecedented in modern times. Our democracy depends on a smooth transition of power. As Stuart Stevens states:
Donald Trump was not allowed to remain in office, but it would be a grave mistake to think that the efforts of January 6, 2021, failed. The refusal of the Republican Party to acknowledge that he lost a not-very-close presidential race has accelerated America’s division into two groups. One side believes that America has a legally elected president, and one does not . . . The last time Americans couldn’t agree on who was a legal president was in 1861.[5]
Among evangelicals there are three distinct responses to Trump. First, there are the “never Trumpers”—both conservative and more progressive evangelicals who regard Trump as a direct threat to democracy. Former Republican representative Liz Cheney represents this attitude. If Trump is on the ballot in the 2024 election, she states in her book Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, “We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic.”[6] Secondly, there are the millions of Trump loyalists—those who make up Trump's base and will always support him, no matter what. These MAGA Republicans believe that we have an illegal and undemocratic president in the White House and that they have an obligation to do whatever is necessary to end this tyranny and “restore” true democracy in America.[7] Finally, there is a third group, composed of those who for a variety of reasons adopt a more middle-of-the-road approach. Evangelicals in this camp may dislike Trump (even intensely) but still intend to vote for him as the lesser-of-two-evils or for a third-party candidate. In any case, they believe that American democratic institutions are resilient and that warnings about the possible “death of democracy” even with a Trump presidency are premature and unwarranted. In response to this attitude, Stevens (a never Trumper) argues: “The greatest danger can be a failure to recognize the greatest danger. If America slides from democracy to autocracy, it will be because those who support democracy cannot imagine an America without democracy.”[8]
How would Henry have responded to our current extreme political polarization? To answer this question, we need to look briefly at Henry’s ethical perspective.
A Brief Summary of Carl Henry’s Ethical Perspective
Before delving into the specifics of Henry’s proposal we need to go back almost five more decades to 1947 when he published his most well-known work, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. The Western World was emerging from the most destructive war in human history. In the international trials in Nuremberg there were startling revelations of Nazi atrocities. Just two years earlier, the U.S. had unleashed the tremendous power of the Atomic Bomb on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki The late 1940s also saw the start of the civil rights movement, as African American soldiers returned home from war to confront racial segregation. There were massive labor strikes, including a rail strike that precipitated the intervention of federal troops.
Henry, who had worked as a reporter for the New York Times and got his Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University, was acutely aware of the social turmoil, both at home and abroad. Though himself an evangelical, he was critical of the silence among fundamentalists regarding social ills. In this deeply thought-provoking theological manifesto Henry states: “The great majority of Fundamentalist clergymen, during the past generation of world disintegration, became increasingly less vocal about social evils. It was unusual to find a conservative preacher occupied at length with world ills.”[9] What he finds to be the predominant trait within most fundamentalist (evangelical) preaching is an inability to articulate the social reference of the Gospel.[10] This is totally at odds with the “globe-changing passion” which characterized the early church. “Whereas once the redemptive gospel was a world-changing message, now it was narrowed to a world-resisting message.”[11] If we do not experience a rebirth of the apostolic passion, Henry warns, “fundamentalism in two generations will be reduced either to a tolerated cult status, or . . . a despised and oppressed sect.”[12]
In an interview with Christianity Today some forty-five years later, Henry reiterates his firm conviction that the church must be committed to social justice as well as evangelism. Although he gives some priority to evangelism, he states unequivocally:
If the church preaches only divine forgiveness and does not affirm justice, she implies that God treats immorality and sin lightly. If the church proclaims only justice, we shall die in unforgiven sin without the Spirit’s empowerment for righteousness. We should be equally troubled that we lag in championing justice and in fulfilling our evangelistic mandate. We should realize that the Great Commission is dwarfed and even maligned if one implies that God is tolerant of social and structural evil, that he forgives sinners independently of a concern for justice. . . The local church should identify the most grievous injustices—local, regional, and national—and strive to rectify them, in concert with all who seek to right the wrong.[13]
Back when Henry first published The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. many accused him of dabbling with the social gospel and even Marxism—even though he was one of social gospel’s harshest critics. This should not be surprising. Today, there are those on the Religious Right who similarly accuse “woke” Christians of being closet liberals or socialists. To be sure, in recent years social justice has taken on an extremely charged political meaning which often conflicts with a biblical worldview. Thaddeus Williams rightly states:
“Seek justice” is a clarion call of Scripture, and those who plug their ears to that call are simply not living by the Book. But the Bible’s call to seek justice is not a call to superficial, knee-jerk activism. . . The God who commands us to seek justice is the same God who commands us to “test everything” and “hold fast to what is good". . . . Where, then, are the boundaries? Where can we march forward together with inter-locked arms and biblically faithful hearts? And where might a vision of justice cross the line and lure us away from “the faith once and for all entrusted to God’s holy people”? These are critical questions we must ask if the church is to pierce the political atmosphere of our age without bursting into fragments and flames.[14]
These warnings are applicable to Christians on both the political left and the political right. Henry was of course critical of social gospel liberalism for replacing the gospel and spiritual regeneration with a political program and social activism. Ironically, similar tactics were being adopted by fundamentalists on the Religious Right. After decades of withdrawal and hesitancy, Henry observes, the American evangelical community has aggressively reentered the political arena. On the one hand, Henry acknowledges that Christian political engagement is both legitimate and necessary to halt the erosion of Judeo-Christian values. “Christians are citizens of two worlds, and the high price of neglect of cultural and political participation is that secular humanism or some other costly alternative will dominate the field.”[15] But Christians must also be careful to avoid a “politicization” of the gospel. “Only a church that carefully balances both spiritual mission and political participation can serve the interests both of its Lord and a democratic society.”[16]
At times, Henry gives the impression that he is simply stating in a somewhat more sophisticated fashion the argument of the Religious Right that American society has lost its ethical moorings within the Judeo-Christian tradition and is drifting toward moral anarchy. Henry does commend the Christian Right for placing the discussion of moral values conspicuously on the agenda of American political life. But he criticizes this movement for focusing almost exclusively on special interests and relying on pragmatic political methods for achieving its goals in a way that evokes legitimate fears of efforts to establish a “Christian state.” This general orientation differs significantly from that of evangelicals of previous generations:
Earlier evangelicals were concerned for public justice, not simply for special evangelical interests. They identified themselves with the whole body politic in the effort to promote civic righteousness. They championed a public philosophy and addressed national conscience. This was not simply a matter of one’s private vision of civic decency; it was a divine compulsion to speak of public affairs in the context of transcendent justice and of a universally binding social good.[17]
What is unique about Henry’s approach is his effort to articulate a public ethic (or civil theology) that informs and shapes American democratic institutions. For Henry as a moderate evangelical, the ultimate basis of goodness, moral obligation, human rights, and human dignity within a democracy is found in joining adherence to absolute revelational norms and principles of justice to a belief in the necessity of individual supernatural regeneration for true ethical conduct and virtue. Three guiding principles inform Henry’s public ethic:
an emphasis on the freedom of conscience of the individual which is the foundation of religious freedom within a pluralistic democracy;
a principled individualism which focuses on the social transformation through spiritually regenerated individuals; and
an ethical prescriptivism which maintains that there are universally binding and absolute norms or principles that derive from divine will.
As Walker puts it, Henry envisions a divinely established moral order which is characterized by a free church in a free state, “or to put it more plainly, a non-confessional state with a robustly religious civil society with regenerate persons acting based on transformed consciences.” He adds:
[Much] of what passes for Christian reflection on religion and politics often omits the most important aspect inherent to Christianity’s understanding of humans as political actors: Regeneration. Much Christian reflection on religion and politics wants the husk of Christian “values” while ignoring the kernel of regeneration. And this is what’s at the heart of Henry’s vision for social engagement. Henry understood that conversion underwrites the distinctiveness of a Christian social ethic; that apart from regeneration, persons and the society they inhabit will inevitably regress into a moral free-for-all.[18]
Henry shows how the partisan politics and ideologies of both liberal progressivism and Christian nationalism undermine democratic institutions. He emphasizes that a healthy democracy is dependent on a healthy church, and vice versa. However, he notes that evangelicalism has increasingly become identified not by its theology, evangelism, or a holistic gospel but by its politics. This politicization of evangelicalism has a corrupting influence on both the church and society. Citing Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who had also been chief prosecutor for the Nazi war crime trials, Henry reminds his readers of how Christians in the land of Luther – “seemingly God fearing, well-meaning humans”—eagerly gave themselves to Nazi nationalism and deteriorated into “vicious beasts.” Moral decay in America, he warns, could similarly spread like cancerous growth.[19] Today, says Russell Moore, “evidence is mounting that a significant amount of secularization is accelerated and driven not by the ‘secular culture’ but by evangelicalism itself.”[20] This has tragic consequences not just for our democracy but also for the mission and witness of the church. As Moore further states, “what if people don’t leave the church because they disapprove of Jesus, but because they’ve read the Bible and have come to the conclusion that the church itself would disapprove of Jesus? That’s a catastrophe.”[21]
In my next two posts, I will further unpack Henry’s perspective on the religious and moral foundations of democracy. In part two I describe Henry’s views on the present crisis of American democracy. In part three, I summarize his regenerational approach to social change and the renewal of the American republic.
[1] Schiess, The Ballot and the Bible, 1-2.
[2] Walker, “A Forgotten Protestant Pluralist,” 2.
[3] Henry, Has Democracy Had It’s Day?, 2.
[4] Ibid., 4.
[5] Stevens, The Conspiracy to End America, 140.
[6] Cheney, Oath and Honor, 367.
[7] Stevens, The Conspiracy to End America, 39.
[8] Ibid., 38.
[9] Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, 18.
[10] Ibid,, 26.
[11] Ibid., 30.
[12] Ibid., 10.
[13] CT, “Interview with Carl F. H. Henry: A Summons to Justice.”
[14] Williams, Confronting Injustice, 3, 5.
[15] Henry, Has Democracy Had Its Day?, 38.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Henry, “New Coalitions,” 27.
[18] Ibid., xi.
[19] Henry, The Christian Mindset in a Secular Society, 42-43.
[20] Moore, Losing Our Religion, 37.
[21] Ibid., 45.
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