While the United States has never had an official national church, America has, until quite recently, favored a generic religious framework for daily life. National and local political assemblies often begin with a general prayer. Civic officials have been solemnly sworn into office touching a sacred text. Blasphemy and cursing were at least uncivil even when not illegal. Sunday was universally observed as a day of rest. Stores, factories, and schools were closed. Traditional family life (mom, dad and the kids) was quite legally favored. Fornication, adultery, and other non-marital sexual activities were illegal. Divorce was certainly difficult if not entirely discouraged. Co-habitation was unspeakable. While outright murder is still illegal, abortion and assisted suicide are no longer unthinkable. Thievery along with slander and libel is still punishable by law.
All of these measures and offenses were either encouraged or discouraged by the millennia-old Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, memorized by school children at American Sunday schools since Plymouth Rock first felt the step of an arriving pilgrim. America has longed observed this basic Judaeo-Christian framework of ethical behavior. Yes, America has been an undeniable Christian nation, in theory if not always in practice, for most of its history. Injustices toward Native Americans, the enslavement of Blacks and exploitation in the working place have certainly marred America’s right to be labeled the New Jerusalem. But, for the average American, the moral worth of daily life, for most of history, has been measured by the individual’s adherence to the fundamental moral outline discerned by Moses on Mt. Sinai millennia ago.
Appreciation and observance of this perennial, countrywide standard of living has recently received the label “Christian Nationalism” and is sadly perceived as a threat to basic American freedoms. Yet the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, the Decalogue, call it what you will, are not only Divine Revelation analogous to the items in the Nicene Creed. The Ten Commandments are as well, basically and simply, the Natural Law, more akin to the Law of Gravity than to Canon Law. Perhaps most major civilizations through the ages have arrived at a similar code of conduct. Divine worship, marital fidelity, and private property are universally respected notions. The absence of such standards has traditionally marked the fall of nations rather than their ascendency. This is a serious lesson Americans must take personally and nationally. Neglect of the Natural Law, again call it what you will, has its consequences. Moses was no fool; nor was God wasting His time at Sinai.
There are many today who understand Christian nationalism to be the promotion of Christian views in order to achieve prominence in political and social life. These earnest believers would seek to establish an exclusivist version of Christianity as the dominant moral and cultural order throughout the nation. And in some instances this may be true. Yet it would seem that those who founded the United States were not so much interested in promoting a Christian religion as in preserving Christian morality. The fathers of the Church and certainly the philosophers of the Middle Ages all agreed that conduct is moral “if it preserves one’s own life or if it furthers the life of others.” Aquinas indeed thought so. Any conduct that goes against the human life of another or fails to preserve one’s own human life is immoral. It is this broad Christian context that has guided American society both personally and legislatively for over two centuries.
Christian Nationalists as well as many other believers and conscientious citizens rightly see America’s traditional pro-life, pro-family, pro-private property framework to be threatened by the anti-life, anti-family, and anti-private property influences permeating Western society today. Certainly legalized abortion, assorted co-habitations, and the tolerance of inadequate housing all indicate a failure to preserve and protect both individual life and family life, so central to both the Ten Commandments and the Natural Law. Christian Nationalists long for that “holy city, a New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” as envisioned in Sunday’s first reading. Other Christian believers mourn today’s woes but console themselves pondering words from Sunday’s second reading: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Still other Christians persevere in the faith, guided by Jesus’ words from this Sunday’s Gospel: “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This indeed is Christ’s “New Commandment” which tersely yet profoundly condenses Moses’ stone tablets. All America must ponder anew both the laws of nature and the Words of Revelation if the nation’s founders’ weighty insights are to be preserved.
