The induction of the new incumbent of Steepmoor was going so well, and it should have done with three bishops present. We were singing a modern hymnette which I thought was perfectly acceptable until we got to the bit which implored God to 'win this nation back', and I found myself unable to carry on.
There is a minor theme in a lot of modern Evangelical hymnody which deals with 'the nation' and the hope that it will return to God. I've long wondered what people think this might mean. The United Kingdom is a secular state with a Christian symbolic discourse in the form of its monarchy and established Church, and I rather prefer that combination to the toxic coupling of religion and power you find in the USA or, currently, Hungary. Souls turning to Christ is one thing: the idea of a nation doing so fills me with horror, because it will not be Christ to which it truly turns but an idol of its own imagining, generated from its fears and desires. God only ever had a covenant relationship with one nation, the people of Israel, and never gave any indication that he planned another. That role passed to the nova Israel, the Church.
Which brings us to the next bit that made me fall silent. 'We are your Church, and we are the hope on earth'. No, we very emphatically are not. If the Christian Nation theme teeters on the brink of blasphemy, this jumps gaily in. Only Christ can ever be the hope on earth and to place that hope anywhere else - even in a supposedly Spirit-filled body of believers - is going to lead you down paths with flashing warning signs above them.
Surely Christians, and most particularly those who call themselves Evangelical, can't have failed to notice how questionable this stuff is? Or are they so caught up in emotion that they don't pay any attention to it, even while they sing it?
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