Christian Nationalism and Blasphemy Laws
I believe that Christians need to be busy in restoring the dominance of the Christian faith in the public square beginning with the preaching of the gospel that captures not only the hearts of the people but the institutions that permeate our nation…. My point is that most arguments against blasphemy laws in America are bogus. There is no need to get all distraught about their existence. Blasphemy laws regulate every society. It just depends on what a nation considers sacred and profane.
I have made it known publicly that I am not a fan of the term “Christian Nationalism” (see Christian Nationalism” Dump the Term While We Still Can). I believe that the term “nationalism” evokes an association with Hitler’s Nazi Nationalism or Mussolini’s Fascist Nationalism. This expression has not been helpful in the debate over the relationship between the State and the Christian Faith. I think the tumultuous discussion over the use of this term in the past year has proven me correct. I prefer the term Christendom or Christian Nation. I do believe that the United States was once a Christian Nation, but now it is not.
I believe that Christians need to be busy in restoring the dominance of the Christian faith in the public square beginning with the preaching of the gospel that captures not only the hearts of the people but the institutions that permeate our nation. We need to make America Christian again. I believe in the restoration of the law of God as revealed in the Ten Commandments as the standard for justice and equity in our country, and I believe that this includes the first table of the Ten Commandments.
I remember the days when businesses were closed on Sunday, otherwise termed the Christian Sabbath. This was mandated by Blue Laws. They were called blue laws because the original laws in New Haven, Connecticut, were written on blue paper. I remember when there were no Muslim mosques within our national boundaries.
Whether one uses the term Christian Nationalism or Christian Nation, one of the issues that inevitably arises in any discussion of this issue is the legitimacy of blasphemy laws. For some reason, this term creates every type of negative reaction from the fear of creating a pope in America to the phobia of creating some type of tyrannical Prince ruling the Federal Government. People get all bent out of shape. It is considered a threat to freedom of speech. We are told that it goes against the Constitution and therefore is un-American.
However, blasphemy laws are inevitable. Whether a law is written on paper or is simply a social norm makes little difference. And as laws, they are enforceable. Blasphemy is exacting a penalty for verbal or written speech that disparages something considered sacred in a particular group or society. It all depends on what a group or society considers as being sacred. Ultimately, it depends on the dominant religion of that group or society.
Those of us raised in a previous Christian generation remember blasphemy laws quite well. First, in the home there were usually unwritten blasphemy laws. If a vulgar word came out of my mouth in my home, then my mother would threaten to wash my mouth out with soap. I have watched a mother do this, literally! Freedom of speech was not an absolute right in my home.
Blasphemy laws were enforced in our local community. If a group of men and women were together in a social context, and a man used a curse word with God’s name, then the other men present (who were not even professing Christians) would either verbally or non-verbally condemn the bad language because we were in the presence of women. The perpetrator of vulgarity was sent a message that he needed to refrain from speaking such language. He got the point quickly and the matter ended there. Blasphemy was not permitted.
In 1879 a Maryland law (Article 72, Sect. 189) stated that “If any person, by writing or speaking, shall blaspheme or curse God, or shall write or utter any profane words of and concerning our Savior, Jesus Christ, or of and concerning the Trinity, or any of the persons thereof, he shall, on conviction, be fined not more than one hundred dollars, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both fined and imprisoned as aforesaid, at the discretion of the court.” In 1836 Abner Kneeland was jailed for breaking the state’s blasphemy laws in the State of Massachusetts.
Today, blasphemy laws still exist but they have changed because the dominant religion of America has changed. There are some words that cannot be used without paying a penalty for your speech. Using an incorrect pronoun for a transgender person is now considered blasphemy. In Canada in 2021, Robert Hoogland surrendered himself to the court after a warrant was issued for his arrest by the attorney general of British Columbia. His crime was calling his daughter, a biological female, by female pronouns, and refusing to affirm her medical transition to become a trans male.
In 2020, if medical physicians made disparaging remarks about the covid vaccine, then they could be deplatformed from social media or fired from their jobs. They were considered guilty of disinformation. To disagree publicly with a governmental agency simply was not allowed. Statism was the new national religion, and any deviation from the pronouncement of the sacred state was blasphemy.
The old arguments for freedom of speech based on the U.S. Constitution made sense when America was a Christian nation. All free speech has limits and the Christian Faith provided those boundaries. We as a people agreed on what was sacred and what was not. Since we are no longer a Christian nation, these old freedom of speech arguments based on 1950 civic courses (Eisenhower era) are no longer useful. When the sacred becomes profane and the profane becomes sacred the blasphemy laws change. They never disappear.
My point is that most arguments against blasphemy laws in America are bogus. There is no need to get all distraught about their existence. Blasphemy laws regulate every society. It just depends on what a nation considers sacred and profane.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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How to Make and Keep Friends
Creating an environment of doing life with others is how friendships are made and kept, not just spending time together but also sharing interests, activities, and ideas. It seems as though we’ve forgotten how even to function without the screen and nurture life with other humans. Try actually living with others, inviting them into your life, and asking to be part of theirs.
How does a person make and keep friends? Well, there are at least two parts to this. First you have to meet someone, and second you have to become part of that person’s life.
After you say hello, what’s next?
One of the things I remember being difficult as a child was introducing myself to other strange children. It was very uncomfortable. Probably many adults can relate to this feeling. After you say hello, what’s next? Thankfully, I had parents who encouraged me in this skill and later in the skill of making “small talk.” And even before our family had lessons in conversation, God used an occurrence to encourage me to at least step out of my comfort zone and say “hello.”
I remember visiting a church as a child with my family, and none of the children talked to me. It was the worst feeling ever. Afterward I determined that I would not let that happen to others who visited my church. The Lord used that terrible experience to give me compassion for others and the courage to introduce myself to new people.
Looking for the “lost” and seeking them out is what Christ does to us.
Meeting someone is the first step in making a friend. If you are shy or uncomfortable around new people, sometimes a good starting point is finding someone else who looks left out and lonely and focusing on serving them. This can help you forget how awkward you feel. Looking for the “lost” and seeking them out is what Christ does to us. He came from his place of comfort to serve the lost and make them friends of God.
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Feed My Sheep
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Friday, September 10, 2021
A shepherd is not called to offer pop psychology. Self-help only heals the wound of the daughter of Zion lightly. The only thing under heaven that will nurture the sheep is the Word of God. That is the food God’s people desperately need if they are going to grow.“Come and have breakfast,” Jesus said to His disciples when He appeared to them for the third time after His resurrection (John 21:12). In all His resurrected glory, Jesus condescended to invite His friends to a meal, and it’s in this context that we read about Jesus’ final conversation with Simon Peter.
Jesus asks three times, “Simon, do you love me?” The standard interpretation of this passage is that just as Simon Peter had repudiated Jesus three times—denying even knowing Him, let alone loving Him—Jesus counters with this threefold interrogation: “Simon, do you love me?” But there’s at least one other possible interpretation for this repetition. Specifically, perhaps what we find here is the principle of emphasis by repetition.
To make a point emphatic, Jesus often prefaced His words by saying, “Verily, verily,” or “Truly, truly, I say unto you,” before a profound teaching. We see this again and again in Scripture whereby the truth of a statement is given emphasis by repetition. The Apostle Paul says, “Let him be anathema . . . anathema” (Gal. 1:8–9). The seraphim cried to one another before the throne of God, “Holy, holy, holy” (Isa. 6:3). And the cry is heard in Revelation, “Woe, woe, woe,” when God’s wrath is revealed (8:13).
Whatever the interpretation, whether it’s linked to Peter’s denial or the principle of emphasis by repetition, this is a text that every church member and pastor needs to hear.
Perhaps one of the most common and favored metaphors in Scripture for the people of God is the metaphor of sheep. We immediately think of Psalm 23, where David draws from his own experience as a shepherd and attributes to God the qualities of a shepherd: “The Lord is my shepherd” (v. 1). This metaphor carries over to the New Testament, where Jesus declares Himself to be the Good Shepherd (John 10).
How fitting it is to liken God and His Messiah to the role of the shepherd. Anyone in Palestine would have known how dependent sheep were on their shepherd. To be honest, it bothers me a bit that the people of God are compared to sheep. It’s not really a very complimentary metaphor if you know anything about sheep.
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O Beard, Where Art Thou?
This article, with all its bearded banter, has nothing negative to say to you. We agree with Shakespeare that “he that hath a beard is more than a youth,” but not when he continues, “and he that hath no beard is less than a man” (Much Ado about Nothing, 2.1). For if you walk according to your God-given and God-matured masculinity, you are a bearded man, whether you have hair on your face or not. To understand that statement, consider the wonder of why God made beards.
Joab’s charge to play the man still endures, immortalized in Scripture. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:13).
Joab, facing enemies from the front and from the rear, took some of his best men and faced the Syrians ahead. The rest of his army would turn with his brother, Abishai, to meet the Ammonites to their back. Here we find the iconic words of Joab to his brother:
If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him. (2 Samuel 10:11–13)
This battle scene, equal to the best of Braveheart, Gladiator, or 300, began, if I may comb things out just slightly, with a man’s beard. Or, to be precise, the beards of several bushy men.
Sheared Like Sheep
David had sent several bearded messengers to meet the newly crowned King Hanun of the Ammonites, who succeeded his father, Nahash. David expressed his condolences for the deceased Nahash by dispatching these warm-chinned chums to “console [Hanun] concerning his father” (2 Samuel 10:2). Nahash had remained loyal to David — the neighboring kings kept the peace between each other. David’s delegates extended, as it were, the right hand of good will to Hanun.
A hand Hanun would not shake.
Led by the folly of suspicious counsel, the princes of the Ammonites convinced Hanun that these servants did not come to comfort but to conquer. “Has not David sent his servants to search the city and spy it out and to overthrow it?” (2 Samuel 10:3). And this is where things get rather hairy for the king. How should he respond?
He decides to shame David’s men and make them a spectacle. “Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Samuel 10:4). He left multiple cheeks exposed.
Like sheep, Hanun sheared these men. These trees lost half their leaves; these lions, half their manes. When David heard of the barber-ous deed, he sent to meet them because they were “greatly ashamed.” The king acknowledged their humiliation and told them, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return” (2 Samuel 10:5).
And what would David do next? Touch a man’s goat, and it’s time for court; touch a man’s beard, and it’s time for war.
Still Waiting in Jericho
In the twenty-first century, we might miss how hostile this act really was, how deeply shaming for an Israelite man in that day. If King Hanun cut off half of our beards today, it would be considered less shameful than strange. Also, not very effective — for each could just shave the other half off and still fit in with society. So why did this razor cut them to the heart? Why wait outside Jerusalem until it grew back? One historical commentary states, “What may seem like a ‘prank’ was in fact a direct challenge to David’s power and authority, and precipitated a war between the two nations” (336).
And beyond its spitting upon David’s outstretched hand of peace, consider the prominence of the beard in Israel.
First, in Israelite culture, the beard served as a sign of mature masculinity. All Israelite men grew beards; God commanded it: “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27).
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