Is America Worth Saving?
Reflecting on America's 250th Anniversary
Is America worth saving? As we celebrate our 250th anniversary, this is both a provocative and important question. Yet, it needs further defining before it can be answered. As a Christian, it takes on its own complexities.
If by “save America,” the question refers to saving individuals, then few Christians would disagree with an affirmative answer. Of course, we should seek the salvation of our American neighbors. This is the mission of the church: to preach the gospel and win souls for Christ from every nation, including ours. But that is not the question I’m asking.
Rather, I’m asking, “Should we seek to save and preserve America’s institutions, structures, and culture? Are these things worth saving?” Such a question is far more controversial, both inside and outside the church. Nonetheless, I still believe the answer is a resounding yes. Before I explain why, let’s consider two common objections.
Objections to “Saving America”
First, some reject the idea of saving America because Christianity should only concern itself with saving souls. Individuals like David VanDrunen argue that culture, politics, and human institutions all belong to the common kingdom and thus cannot be saved. The reach of Christ’s redemptive work is limited only to individuals and to the church. While Christianity certainly isn’t less than saving individuals, it is also more.
The New Testament provides a much broader and more glorious view of the impact of Christ’s work. All things, in heaven and on earth, were created through and for Christ, and he is uniting all things “by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:15-20). All here does not mean all without exception, but rather speaks to all types of things. The blood of Christ’s cross is reconciling all types of things to himself. This includes things in heaven and on earth, seen and unseen. All means all. What exactly this will look like in the new creation, I cannot address here, but we must recognize that Christ’s work is more, but never less, than saving the fallen human race. Through the blood of Christ’s cross, God is making all things new.
Second, many today believe America is unworthy to be saved because she is systemically rooted in evil, racism, and every form of oppression. For some, America’s institutions, structures, and culture are too sinful to be saved. Through the influence of various shades of critical theory, the woke attack and impugn the character of our nation. One must ask, by what standard can these critics judge our nation? Many of them reject any notion of God and a universal morality. If truth is relative and all that is left is power, then America is not evil because there is no evil.
There is a universal moral standard. God is there, and he is not silent. America has never been morally perfect, and we know it. The founding of our nation was deeply shaped by Reformed thought, particularly its view of man’s sinfulness. For this reason, our nation was never intended to be a utopia. Our founders knew better. Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation recognized this as he called the nation to repent of her sins. One of the reasons America’s structures are worth preserving is its realistic and biblical view of man. Man is both uniquely valuable and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. Yet, it also recognizes that we are sinful and cannot be trusted to usher in a utopian government. Therefore, wisdom dictates that we separate powers and hardwire checks and balances into our very society. This balanced view of the fallenness and worth of man laid the foundation for both the perseverance and refining of our government for these last 250 years. For this, we should be grateful.
Why America is Worth Saving
This reality moves us to why our nation’s structures, institutions, and culture are worth preserving and saving. Not now, nor ever, has our nation been perfect. Right now, the sins of sexual immorality, abortion, and the mutilation of children often find their epicenter within our borders. These sins are worthy of God’s judgment. Yet, these evils reflect a deviation from the ideals of our founding. It is our ideals, not our betrayal of them, that are worth preserving.
America is worth saving because her ideals are good, true, and beautiful. Unlike any other nation, America has been shaped by a distinctly Christian and Protestant view of man, God, and government.[1] Our ideals of human rights, the supremacy of the law, individual liberty, limited government, and that the state cannot save us spring forth from centuries of Christian political theory.[2] America’s greatness is found in that she is, to this point, the pinnacle application of Protestant political thought. America’s ideals work because they are true. Being true to reality, these ideals produce goodness and beauty in this world.
These ideals have made the world an objectively better place.[3] American culture, as it aligns with these ideals, is worth preserving. The greatness of our nation waxes and wanes as we either embrace or reject the beliefs that formed the foundation of our ideals.
Ironically, such preservation will only come if individuals return to the beliefs that shaped these American ideals—the Protestant faith as it is applied to all of life. America is worth saving because her ideals are rooted in the truths revealed to us through the Christian faith. Preserving such truths, under the redemptive reign of Christ, is a worthwhile pursuit.
As we celebrate 250 years of the American experiment, it is right for us to be thankful to God for our cultural inheritance. It is right for us to mourn how we have failed to live up to the inheritance. It is right to petition God, and to seek through the preserving and saving of the American way of life.
[1] Donald Lutz notes that America was uniquely shaped by “radical Protestant sect
s” in The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 7.
[2] For more on this, see Mark David Hall, Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2019). Also see, Gary Amos, Defending the Declaration: How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence (Charlottesville, VA: Providence Foundation, 1989).
[3] For more on how Christianity positively changed the world see Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019); Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book that Made Yor World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012); and Steven Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2008).