CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORLD

Fact: Christianity is the largest religion in the world today if we combine the many sects of Christianity—including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the thousands of various Protestant and free-wheeling non-sectarian and non-doctrinal churches—and view all of them as species of one religious genus.[1]

Fact: There are more Christians on Planet Earth today than ever before in human history.

Fact: Fewer than one-third of the world’s population, today, consider themselves Christian of one sort or another.

Fact: More than two-thirds of the world’s population today, a sizeable majority, consider themselves not Christian.

In the near future, if current world demographic trends continue, there will be as many Muslims as Christians, though both religions will be far from counting as a majority of the world’s population.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE UNITED STATES

In the United States, Christianity has always been and continues to be the dominant religion. That is the main reason why Americans are far more interested in the intersectional subject of Christianity and politics and far less interested in, say, Zoroastrianism and politics.

At the time of the American Revolution and subsequent Founding, virtually the entire United States population were Christian. The “free thinkers” who chose to identify themselves, openly and publicly, as not among the numbers of pious Christians were so few as to be almost not worth counting. If someone claimed that Americans were 100% Christian at the time of the Founding, they’d not be far from the truth.

The same can be said for the following generation of Americans, who slaughtered each other during the American Civil War and were on both sides of the slavery controversy: nearly 100% Christian.

In the more modern era, slightly more than 85% of Americans considered themselves to be Christian in 1990. By 2014, that number had dropped to about 70%. While still the majority religion in the United States, Christianity seems to be trending downward in terms of American population demographics.

So in all its long history, what can be said about Christianity and politics?

Much.

More than can be said in a short essay. But we can summarize the political history of Christianity by pointing out that Christianity has been understood, by Christians, to be compatible with or even requiring virtually every political trend that has moved through human social circles.

CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS

In the last two millennia, there have been:

  • Christian Democrats
  • Christian Republicans
  • Christian democrats
  • Christian republicans
  • Christian constitutionalists
  • Christian statists
  • Christian libertarians
  • Christian anarchists
  • Christian communists
  • Christian capitalists
  • Christian socialists
  • Christian progressives
  • Christian eugenicists
  • Christian liberals
  • Christian fascists
  • Christian feminists
  • Christian misogynists
  • Christian racists
  • Christian multiculturalists
  • Christian theocrats
  • Christian monarchists
  • Christian aristocrats
  • Christian oligarchs
  • Christian conservatives
  • Christian revolutionaries
  • Christian Scientists
  • Christian scientists
  • Christian evolutionists
  • Christian creationists
  • Christian warriors
  • Christian pacifists
  • Christian leaders of Christians
  • Christian leaders of non-Christians
  • Christians who follow Christians
  • Christians who follow non-Christians
  • Christians who saved fellow Christians from persecution
  • Christians who persecuted fellow Christians
  • Christians who saved non-Christians from persecution
  • Christians who persecuted non-Christians
  • Christian Americans who revolutionized against Christian King George III
  • Christian soldiers who, in the service of Christian King George III, hunted and killed Christian American revolutionaries
  • Christians who fought courageously to preserve legalized slavery in the name of Christianity in the 17th and 18th centuries
  • Christians who fought courageously to end legalized slavery in the name of Christianity in the 17th and 18th centuries
  • Christians who ignored legalized slavery for 17 and 18 centuries
  • Christians who saved Jews from government concentration camps
  • Christians who sent Jews to government concentration camps
  • Christians who operated government concentration camps
  • Christians who ignored Jews in government concentration camps
  • Christians who voted for Hillary Clinton
  • Christians who voted for Donald Trump
  • Christians who did not vote at all
  • Christians who were #NeverTrump
  • Christians who believe Trump is a blessing from the Christian God
  • Christians who demand the laws protect the private property of all citizens
  • Christians who demand the laws confiscate the private property of some citizens and transfer it to others
  • Christians who demand the freedom of individual choice in almost all areas of life except abortion
  • Christians who demand the freedom of individual choice in cases of abortion but virtually no other areas of life
  • Christians who think their Christianity requires them to be political
  • Christians who think their Christianity requires them to be apolitical

So, the next time someone mentions the subject of Christianity and politics, you might ask them: Which kind of Christianity? And which kind of politics?

 

 

[1] To be clear, considering all Christian sects to be mere varieties of one religion might seem obvious and unobjectionable to many modern Americans today, yet it was very objectionable and anything but obvious to Christians who throughout the medieval world persecuted fellow Christians. They tended to view the slightest differences of religious practices and doctrines as synonymous with different religions altogether. For many medieval Christians, the distinction between a heretic and an infidel was very blurred.