5 July 2026

On Being a Christian in a Democracy

1 Peter 2:11-17

We read now from the first epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verses 11-17.

11Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. 12Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. 

13For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, 14or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. 16As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. 17Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

I am, by both conviction and nature, careful about shows of patriotism in church, but this weekend is a little different. Yesterday we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a step that led inexorably to the founding of our nation. So today I want to celebrate the United States of America: the genius of its founding principles, the greatness of its stated values, and especially the fact that we as a faith have both inspired and benefited from those principles and values. 

But to lay the groundwork for all that I want to pick up where I left off in last week’s Bible story. As many … some … of you may remember, we talked last week about the time when the people of Israel went to their leader, the judge Samuel, to ask him to appoint them a king. He warned them what kings were really like, but they insisted, and God told him to do what they said. We pick up the story there. First, Samuel anointed a tall Benjaminite named Saul. He started off pretty well, but before long, Saul’s mind began spiraling in a recurrent cycle of depression and paranoia that everyone was trying to take his throne. That’s one problem with monarchy. When all a nation’s power rests in one person, and that person’s mental health is shaky, your nation is shaky, too. Next, Samuel anointed another king, David, who worked out much better. David was a brilliant general, a clever political tactician, and a genuine follower of God (most of the time). King David beat back enemies on every side and established an empire. But before long, being an emperor went to David’s head, and since kings are basically above the law, he began acting like it. That’s another problem with monarchy: most people don’t do very well without any restraints. When a king believes that he can do anything he wants, then he will. David’s son Solomon, who assumed the throne next, again started out well. Solomon proved a wise and just king, who greatly increased Israel’s international standing. But he got to be kind of a head-case, focusing on signature building projects to his own glory, using a slave labor force. Some were for the people, like the Jerusalem temple, but most of them proclaimed his own importance. That’s another problem with absolute rulers. Before long, nobody dares remind them that not everything is about them. When Solomon died, he had become impossibly wealthy, the land was littered with brilliant monuments to him, and the poor of the land were on the verge of rebellion. Earlier in the service we read from Psalm 72, supposedly written for Solomon’s coronation. That psalm says no less than three times that the job of the king is to care for the vulnerable. Solomon had forgotten that bit. In short, the Old Testament clearly describes problems with monarchy as a system, lots of ways it can go belly up. The rest of the stories of the Old Testament Book of Kings are not really about the kings at all. Their heroes are the prophets and priests who preached accountability to the kings and tried to draw them back to their covenant responsibilities of justice for all and mercy to the vulnerable. 

By the time we get to the New Testament, the situation is quite different. God’s people are still under the rule of a king, but this time it is an emperor far away in Rome, which makes everything harder. Not only were the problems of kings magnified in the Caesars – nearly all of them were madmen and/or head cases – but there was no way for followers of God to influence the king. Our reading from 1 Peter comes from that context. Peter addresses Christians, part of a tiny sect of a tiny minority religion, and this is his advice on how to relate to the government: obey them if you can, keep your nose clean, conduct yourself honorably among the Gentiles, so that no one will have any reason to condemn you. Show honor and compassion to everyone, even the emperor, sane or not. To put it another way, in a world in which you have no official influence, all you have is moral influence: you can demonstrate through your life that you follow a higher law in your faith, and that that faith has transformed you. 

Now let’s talk about the United States of America. We’ve just explored some of the dangers of monarchy. Our founders were so well aware of those dangers that they designed a government explicitly to prevent them. First, our leaders are chosen by the people and have to report back to those people every few years to be chosen all over again – or not. This is a safeguard against lunatic or power mad leaders. Second, even when our leaders are in office, they are constrained by other branches of government with whom they share power. By and large these checks and balances have worked remarkably well. Yes, we have had bad leaders – from the mentally unsound to the morally bankrupt to the simply incompetent – but their influence has been limited, and in time we were able to get rid of them peacefully. Meanwhile, this system that protects us from bad leaders has also produced some genuinely great, admirable leaders, people like Abraham Lincoln. By making our leaders responsible to the people, we have sometimes ended up with leaders who have risen from those people and have seen themselves as public servants. Even leaders I’ve disagreed with politically I’ve usually been able to respect as people of integrity. And beyond our official leaders, America has also been fertile ground for people who, like the Old Testament prophets, have called for accountability and justice: people like Frederick Douglas before the Civil War, Frances Perkins during the Great Depression, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement. By giving all people freedom of speech, we have sometimes given justice a voice. As I say, for the past 250 years the vision of our founders has worked pretty well. We have much to be proud of.

But there is one more factor in our nation’s success that I haven’t spoken of yet. All the people I named earlier – Lincoln, Douglas, Perkins, King – were people of deep faith. That shouldn’t be a surprise. I wrote of this in my newsletter article this month, but let me say it again here. Our country has a peculiar but strong relationship with faith. On the one hand, our founders absolutely intended to keep religion from having governmental power, and they enshrined that principle in the constitution. On the other hand, the culture of the USA has for most of our history been awash with Christian influence, and that has largely been a good thing. The Christian values of humility, of achieving greatness through serving others, of self-sacrifice, and of concern for the poor, the hungry, and the imprisoned are exactly the values that create great public servants. And through such voices as Dr. King’s, Christianity has often served as the conscience of our nation. So today, as we look back on the first 250 years of our history, we not only celebrate the genius of our founders, but also the deep influence of our faith in making this nation what it has been.

And now, a bit more soberly, we look ahead. We’re currently engaged in a huge social experiment. What will happen to our democracy when the established church, which has been a primary source of its ethical underpinnings, loses its influence? Because, if current trends continue, that is our future. When people are no longer being widely taught the Christian principles of leadership through humble service, where will a new generation of public servants come from? The greatness of our nation in its first 250 years had more than a little to do with what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” Those voices have led us to reform ourselves again and again in the past. Who will be fostering those better angels in a churchless future?

I don’t know what the future holds. I’m no prophet, and “current trends” does not necessarily mean “continuing trend.” But just in case, let’s look again at 1 Peter 2, written to followers of Christ in a time when they had zero political influence. What did he counsel? 

Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge … For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor. 

When the standards of society decline, we must hold our standards more firmly. When others compromise their honor for the sake of power or even just a seat at the table of power, we choose honorable weakness instead. When it feels as if there is nothing we can do, there is still something we can do: represent Christ where we are by doing right and acting in love. I’d like to close this sermon by singing together “America the Beautiful,” and before we do that, I’d like to read aloud the second and third stanzas:

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life.

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness

And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tear!

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

BENEDICTION

Instead of a closing prayer today, and acknowledging that we live in a deeply divided United States, I would like to close by reading the final section of Abraham Lincoln’s “Second Inaugural Address,” given as the Civil War was grinding to its bloody end: 

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”