Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

by Brian Zahnd

In a culture that venerates materialism and militarism, the only way to truly follow Jesus is to be countercultural. Sure, the prosperity gospel extols materialism and the religious right celebrates militarism, but these are nothing but attempts to smuggle the idols of Mammon and Mars into Christianity. A synchronistic religion that attempts to amalgamate Jesus and American values may be popular, but it’s unfaithful to the Spirit who calls the people of God out of Babylon.

If Christianity is not seen as countercultural and even subversive within a military-economic superpower, you can be sure it is a deeply compromised Christianity.

The project of Christendom—trying to “Christianize” the world through complicity with Caesar—has come to an end. Secularism has triumphed over Christendom. This is obvious in Europe

and is becoming increasingly apparent in North America. The Religious Right may not know this yet, but it will soon enough. Christendom is dead...but Christ is risen. What may appear to some Christians as a loss is actually an opportunity for the church to return to its radical roots. Tying the gospel to the interests of empire had a deeply compromising effect upon the gospel, as seen in the sordid history of the church being mixed up with imperial conquest, colonialism, and military adventurism around the world. If secularism helps bring that to an end, I can only say, hallelujah!

It’s not the task of the church to “Make America Great Again.” The contemporary task of the church is to make Christianity countercultural again. And once we untether Jesus from the interests of empire, we begin to see just how countercultural and radical Jesus’ ideas actually are. Enemies? Love them. Violence? Renounce it. Money? Share it. Foreigners? Welcome them. Sinners? Forgive them.

The ways of empire are to be utterly foreign to those who worship and follow Jesus of Nazareth. The priorities of a superpower will inevitably be the antithesis of those found in the Sermon on the Mount.

What about patriotism? Is it permissible for a Christian to be patriotic? Yes and no. It depends on what is meant by patriotism. If by patriotism we mean a benign pride of place that encourages civic duty and responsible citizenship, then patriotism poses no conflict with Christian baptismal identity. But if by patriotism we mean religious devotion to nationalism at the expense of the wellbeing of other nations; if we mean a willingness to kill others (even other Christians) in the name of national allegiance; if we mean an uncritical support of political policies without regard to their justice, then patriotism is a repudiation of Christian baptismal identity. It is extraordinarily naive for a Christian to rule out categorically the possibility of any conflict between their national identity and their baptismal identity. But it’s precisely this kind of naiveté that is on display every time a church flies an American flag above the so-called

called Christian flag. Or perhaps it’s a bit of unintended truth-telling.

When we confuse the nation with the church, it may not do any particular damage to the nation, but it will do irreparable harm to the church.

When we reach for the sword of violent power, we let go of the cross of Christian discipleship. To be Christian implies an intentional attempt to imitate the one who would rather die than kill his enemies. Whatever it means to be Christian, it would clearly preclude maintaining a trillion-dollar war machine. I’m sure the Joint Chiefs of Staff would agree that you cannot run the Pentagon according to the Sermon on the Mount.

Every story is told from a vantage point; it has a bias. The bias of the Bible is from the vantage point of the underclass. But what happens if we lose sight of the prophetically subversive vantage point of the Bible? What happens if those on top read themselves into the story, not as imperial Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans, but as the Israelites? That’s when you get the bizarre phenomenon of the elite and entitled using the Bible to endorse their dominance as God’s will. This is Roman Christianity after Constantine. This is Christendom on crusade. This is colonizers seeing America as their promised land and the native inhabitants as Canaanites to be conquered. This is the whole history of European colonialism. This is Jim Crow. This is the American prosperity gospel. This is the domestication of Scripture. This is

making the Bible dance a jig for our own amusement.

Reading the end of the Bible as though Jesus ultimately renounces the Sermon on the Mount and resorts to catastrophic violence is a reckless and irresponsible reading of the apocalyptic text.

in the metaphorical picture of a triumphant Christ riding a white horse, the rider is drenched in his own blood before the battle begins, and the rider whose name is The Word of God prevails with a sword from his mouth, not a sword in his hand.

Jesus destroys the devil by calling us out of rivalry, accusation, violence, domination, and empire, into heaven’s alternative of love, advocacy, peace, and liberation—this is what the Bible calls the kingdom of God.