Lew, thanks for that marvelous passage from Carlton Hayes. He succinctly summarizes a tension that I was unaware of growing up as a Christian in America: What will be the frame of our lives? The nation-state or the Christian church? For me, as for most American Christians I dare say, the answer was implicitly both. The problem with that is now apparent to me and might be summarized by quoting “You shall have no other god before me” or “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other”.
As I puzzle over how to reject the statist frame and embrace the Christian frame for the life of my family here are some ideas that come to mind, (some of which we are already doing or planning to do):
- Studying the early church (our “founding fathers”).
- Learning the church calendar (and de-emphasizing polidays).
- Teaching them the Creed rather than the hideous Pledge of Allegiance.
- Emphasizing the baptism of our children over the statist rites of passage (driver’s license, high school graduation, drinking age).
- Home schooling instead of government schooling.
- Teaching history primarily as the history of God’s people rather than as a history of political power.
- Visiting historic Christian sites abroad rather than DC or other statist sites.
