” . . . this preemptive assault on secularism with all it entails, strikes me as frightened and antagonistic.”

—Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books

“His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’”

—John 2:17 (NRSV)

No nation has ever belonged completely to God. The Jewish nation repeatedly fell into idolatry. So-called Christian nations, though influenced by Christian teaching, have erred greatly at times from carrying out the principles Jesus taught.

Today in the United States, Christians seem perplexed at secularism’s strength, as though it were something new. Secularism has existed beside Christianity since the first Christian missionaries carried the gospel to the Roman world and beyond.

In the fourth century, the emperor Constantine increasingly favored Christianity as the Roman Empire’s established religion. Before that time, Christianity grew because of the way Christians lived in a pleasure-loving, inhumane world. People were increasingly drawn to the “narrow way” which called its adherents to lives of forgiveness and compassion.

When Christianity became the “established” religion, it tended to succumb to the ways of the world and to seek power. Religious leaders like St. Francis, akin to Old Testament prophets, repeatedly called for a different kind of life, serving as role models for a return to the way of Jesus.

Christians have always lived amid secularism. Secularism wanes when Christians practice what Jesus taught and draw people to him. They are less effective when they seek power.