In Whose God Do We Trust?

I am continuing my reflections upon civil religion and how a Christian is to bear witness to his or her faith in a multi-cultural nation like the United States. Here we have no state supported or government controlled religion or church. This is forbidden by our Constitution. We are a religiously diversified nation—and by law intend to remain so. To define a church and other religious entities some of the IRS guidelines consider whether or not an institution has:

• a distinct legal existence and religious history,
• a recognized creed and form of worship,
• established places of worship
• a regular congregation and regular religious services, and
• an organization of ordained ministers

By no means does that define what is the church in terms of the Bible. Drawing upon the Scriptures Article VII of the Augsburg Confession defines the church like this: 

The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.    (See also The Apology, Articles VII and VIII)                          

Massachusetts Halfpenny 1787 

So we have two distinct definitions of church, one from the so-called Kingdom of God's left hand (the state or government) and one from the Kingdom of God's right hand (the Church). Under the first definition above a wide variety of organizations worshipping any number of gods may be called church—and are in the U.S.A. These churches include Muslims who worship the god Allah, Sikhs who vaguely call their god "Vaheguru" (Wonderful Master), Jehovah's Witnesses who deny the Trinity and Scientology with no set dogma of god. There are many others.

So in this nation with the motto "In God We Trust," we are forced to ask quite simply, In whose god do we trust? The god worshipped by some majority, by some minority group or does it even matter? Given this pluralistic situation we return to my closing sentence from yesterday's blog:

However, there are times and contexts outside the fellowship of believers when public prayer may not be appropriate.

We who worship Jesus Christ as very God of very God and Son of God, affirm that

. . . there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:12 ESV

The basic guideline for all Christians therefore is that we are at all times to bear witness in word and deed to this Good News, this Gospel. We are not saved, will not be saved by Allah, Jehovah, Vaheguru or some unknown Higher Being. We cannot, we dare not and we will not compromise therefore on this issue. And we will refuse to suggest—even in our public prayers—that these other gods may or should be the object of our prayer. In that sense we are in the same position as were believers in the early church who were persecuted and murdered because they could not compromise by suggesting that Jesus was but one of a pantheon of many gods. Nor will we worship with any group of Christians whose public teachings compromise on the Gospel and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

With these principles to guide, each Christian and each Christian pastor must prayerfully ask himself if he is truly bearing witness to Jesus Christ and the Triune God by his prayers, his words and his actions.