Two clarifications of Chapman’s argument are important here.  First, Chapman was arguing that the decline in Britain’s imperial fortunes directly affected the role of Christianity in British society, not just that a decline in empire and a decline in Christian self-perception happened at the same time.  Second, Chapman was talking about the decline of rhetoric about Britain as a “Christian nation”, not necessarily decline in Christian practice, though that was happening at the same time.

Chapman’s paper made me wonder about the American context.  Over the past several decades, there has been no shortage of people willing to proclaim the United States a “Christian nation”.  At the same time, America’s imperial fortunes have fared well.  The United States has been able to project its military, economic, and cultural power around the globe to its benefit.  Yet many (and I among them) question how much longer American imperial dominance in international affairs can last.  Economic and other troubles at home, the rise of China and other powers, the toll of the war on terror, and a host of other factors indicate that America may not be the world’s sole superpower, able to call the shots as it likes, in the next few decades.  If that proves to be the case, what are the implications for Christianity in America?  Will Americans, including conservatives, no longer talk about America as a Christian nation if our international fortunes go into decline?

I’m not really concerned here with preserving a notion of America as a “Christian nation”.  While the United States has always been a majority Christian country, it has also always been a country characterized by religious diversity and an array of levels of practice and adherence.  Furthermore, it’s a country that has cherished the separation of church and state for the benefit of both church and state.  So, while the United States may be a Christian nation in some sense, it is certainly not a solely Christian nation, as many who use the term seem to imply.

What concerns me here is not our perception of the United States (or Britain or any other country) as a “Christian nation”.  It is our perception of God and how God relates to nations.  What is troubling for me about the idea that the decline of international influence could lead to a decline in Christian self-perception is that it seems to imply a belief that God is only with the successful, the dominant, and the winners.  It seems to imply that we are only faithful Christians if we are on top and in charge.  Do we really believe this, or do we believe that God can be with the poor, the humble, the declining, and even the unsuccessful?

The temptation to equate this-worldly success with religious success is always there.  It even pops up in the historical books of the Old Testament.  There is an Old Testament trope wherein the nation of Israel is faithful, and God prospers it; then Israel becomes unfaithful and God punishes it by harming its political standing, usually through foreign attack and invasion.  Yet if we read the Biblical text more closely, we’ll see that the correlation between worldly success and religious dedication is not as perfect as we might assume it is.  The Northern Kingdom of Israel prospered under King Omri, even though Omri was wicked.  King Hezekiah, on the other hand, was faithful, and while that faithfulness may have helped turn back Assyrian attacks on the southern kingdom of Judah, it did not prevent them.

Thus, we cannot assume that worldly success means we’re doing something right in God’s eyes or that worldly failure means we’re doing something wrong.  The United States may lose its position as the dominant global, political power.  That decline, however, does not in fact tell us anything about how faithful the United States is being to the role God has accorded it in history.  The possibility of faithfulness is always there, in decline as in success.

It was only with the advent of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution that belief in unlimited progress became wide-spread.  This belief in progress certainly has much to recommend it, as it is responsible for (and caused by) the dramatic increase in life expectancy and standard of living that the human race has experienced over the past several centuries.  Nevertheless, there are also darker sides to the belief in progress.  I would like to point out two such downsides today: unsustainability and the stigmatization of non-growth.

Some forms of progress have no inherent limits.  Is there a limit to how good of a person I can be or how much I can love God and neighbors?  No.  So, pursuit of sanctification is an enterprise that is probably a sustainable one.  For many other processes, though, there are real limits to how much we can achieve.  Finite resources, the laws of physics, and other forces mean that some forms of progress cannot go on forever.  Yet modernity’s myth of progress proclaims that they can, setting up the conditions for dramatic crashes between our expectations and way of living and these limits.

I find the myth of progress as it is incorporated into capitalism to be the most potentially tragic instance of this problem.  Capitalism depends upon growth.  The economy must grow (at something like 3% annually) and individual corporations must grow (usually at much more than 3% annually) or bad things happen: unemployment, price inflation, takeovers, lack of investment, etc.  To grow, capitalism demands more workers, more resources, and more markets.  Yet to have more workers, there must be more people.  More people and the demand for more resources eventually bump up against very real limitations on the amount of resources in our world.  There’s not only a finite amount of fossil fuels, but also of many important minerals, to say nothing about the question of food production.  There are also a finite number of markets in the world.  Once Coke has entered all of the countries of the world and displaced their traditional beverages, where then will its growth come from?  We need to question the myth of progress and instead develop economic and social models that seek sustainability and not endless growth lest we set ourselves up for disaster.

The other problem with the myth of progress is that we stigmatize instances in which we do not see progress occurring.  Humans often think in binaries, so if you are not growing, then you are declining.  If you’re not going forward, then you’re going back.  Since progress is the goal (and an achievable goal for all in all manner of areas), anything but great progress is seen as great failure.  Instead of looking at decline and decay as part of natural processes, we are convinced that they only occur as the result of great failures (moral, intellectual, volitional, etc.) on the part of those involved.  This even spills over into how we treat the aged, sick, and dying in American culture.  We shunt them away from sight, for they have failed to keep progressing, and we do anything we can to avoid being like them.  Yet age, sickness, and death are all instances in which decline is natural and perpetual youth and life are an illusion.  Thus, we stigmatize those who are involved in declining enterprises, be they companies, churches, social movements, or even people’s bodies.  While I’m not going to say that decline is a good or even necessarily a neutral thing in all cases, I think it’s in many cases at least less of a bad thing than we think it is.  Only by learning to recognize and selectively reject the myth of progress can we come to have a more human and compassion attitude toward those who are not progressing.