Stanley Hauerwas is always good for a thought-provoking/outrageous comment or two. Here is a classic example from a lecture for the Princeton Forums on Youth Ministry:
I assume most of you are here because you think you are Christians, but it is not at all clear to me that the Christianity that has made you Christians is Christianity. For example:
- How many of you worship in a church with an American flag? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
- How many of you worship in a church in which the fourth of July is celebrated? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
- How many of you worship in a church that recognizes Thanksgiving? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
- How many of you worship in a church that celebrates January 1 as the “New Year”? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
- How many of you worship in a church that recognizes “Mother’s Day”? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
I am not making these claims because I want to shock you . . . but rather to put you in a position to discover how odd being a Christian makes you.
One of the great difficulties with being a Christian in a country like America—allegedly a Christian country—is that our familiarity with “Christianity” has made it difficult for us to read or hear Scripture.
Of course, the point he is making is that a lot of what passes for Christianity in the English-speaking world today is nothing more than thinly veiled worship of contemporary Western (read ‘American’ values). Or, to put it another way, he is reminding us that as Christians we are called to be resident aliens and to abandon the soothing lie that there are such things as Christian nations. For those of us who are Orthodox, that means rejecting the notion of a symphonia between church and state.
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