“It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you
It’s what you leave behind you when you go”
“Three Wooden Crosses” - Randy Travis

While many are not fans of country music, one of the things the genre does very well is tell a story through lyrics. “Three Wooden Crosses” is a tremendous example of exactly that.

I’ll admit that I was surprised that the song was only 20-ish years old, released in November 2002. It has the feel of Travis’ earlier work, and it was his first No. 1 song in nearly a decade when it topped the charts.

The lyrics describe a bus of passengers on their way to Mexico. One of the four is a preacher, and he shares the Gospel story with a prostitute on the bus. As part of that sharing, he puts his Bible in her lap for her to consider.

A tragic accident occurs, and three of the four in the bus lose their life.

The resolution of the song is that the prostitute is the only one who survives the accident, and then chooses to turn around her life and raise her child in faith.

Her child shares this story from the pulpit while showing the congregation the Bible that was given to his mother years previous.

The emphasis placed in the song’s lyrics about the Bible in question was that it was a “blood-stained Bible” before the accident, meaning it’d accompanied the preacher through some trials and tribulations before he placed it in the woman’s hands.

There are some interesting connections between a Bible and an American flag - each of which seem to have followings that want to present both as pristine and unblemished.

That’s simply not the reality of the Christian faith nor the history of America.

There are blood stains, torn pages, frayed edges, and plenty of other unsightly damage in both the metaphorical Bible of our faith as well as a symbolic flag to represent our country.

However, the two items are also very distinct and different.

Right now, there is an ever-louder contingent of the populace that believes that the United States and Christianity have always been - and should always be - intimately tied together.

It’s a vocal minority that also happens to have some strong sway in elections, pushing candidates to the front who align with that thought.

Except it’s not true.

America’s first settlers came to the country for religious freedom - and that included multiple religious expressions, not only Christianity.

In fact, many of the most notable Founding Fathers - Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe, Madison, for instance - were Deists. They still associated with a Christian church because it was often a social and political center for a community, and in many small communities, that remains the case, but they actively did not participate in the rights and rituals of the Christian religion, such as baptism, communion, and confirmation.

Most weddings among the Founding Fathers and their children were performed by a justice of the peace rather than taking place in a church as well.

I’ve had the chance to study under some incredibly wise Biblical scholars in the time I was taking seminary classes and working in youth ministry and taking classes to enhance my work. One of my former professors once told the class, “There is nothing that activates the casual Christian more than a perceived threat to their role as a cultural norm.”

It is ironic that one of the first major religious culture wars in this country was actually against the very evangelical-based denominations that now seem to dominate the “Christian” message in politics and in media.

The established Christian churches initially in the United States were among historical denominations, such as the Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran and Quaker faiths. The push of the Baptist and Pentecostal movements across the country led to a significant culture war among Christians. Heck, the remnants are still there as many of those in evangelical denominations do not consider Catholics “true Christians.”

The simple fact is that those who attempt to motivate Christian voters into a frenzy through a perceived threat to the Christian faith have been often shown to be acting in bad faith.

Quite frankly, Christianity is not under attack in the country.

While white Christians are no longer the majority of the nation’s population, as was the case as recently as 20 years ago, Christians of all races and denominations still make up two-thirds of the entire population, according to a 2023 study by PRRI.

Christians are not just a majority in the country - believers constitute a supermajority.

That said, in a country founded on the principle of religious freedom and with major Founding Fathers having alternate rather than Christian beliefs, perhaps the fact that putting Christian-focused bills into law and monuments on public grounds receives kick-back shouldn’t be surprising.

There is a movement away from traditional churches, and that has been noticed by mainline denominations across all racial profiles. The number of white Christians who claim to be unaffiliated with a denomination has nearly doubled in 15 years.

That isn’t something that should be cause for national alarm; it’s something that should drive mainline denominations to reflect and react.

Those who identify as unaffiliated are twice as high among those who are 18-29 as those who are 65-plus, though both groups saw notable upticks in percentages from 2006 to 2023.

When interviewed about political leanings and religious belief, significantly more young people stated that they were willing to tell a stranger their political affiliation than their religious one. One reason given was that religious affiliation will lead to an assumption about political leanings.

We have never been, and will never be, a country where there is complete unity on all political topics.

Presidents have been assassinated for their support of one ideology or another. A Civil War, still the most bloody conflict in which the nation has ever participated (more than 600,000 military fatalities of just over 30 million inhabitants of the entire country), was already fought over a divide in the country once.

For number reference, a Civil War that had a similar death rate among the population in the current United States would leave more than 6.5 million American military members dead. Considering there’s only 1.3 million active military personnel in the country, that is a pretty daunting number.

Young people would rather identify their party first because there are negative associations of what a Christian Nationalist would believe about seclusion from the world, other faiths, and other races and cultures.

To be blunt, if you are led to believe any political party is acting on behalf of your religious beliefs, run.

The intention was put into the Constitution’s Bill of Rights to protect Freedom of Religion, but also that the acts of the government and the acts of the church should not influence one another.

Jesus took a whip and cleared out those who were selling items outside the temple, attempting to make a buck off those who felt the item they were buying would get them closer to God.

Political parties have been preying on the same mentality for decades, convincing religious followers that if they voted for them, the religious beliefs of the group would be protected/enhanced/enforced on a political level.

In a country that was founded based on freedom from that exact thing, how likely is it that if Jesus were to crack that whip now, he’d be swinging at the exact politicians, influencers, and others who are trying to push faith and religiosity as a cure-all for society’s ails rather than encouraging working together with our neighbors - both those who look and believe as we do and those who do not?

The Bible in the song isn’t a pristine, perfect Bible because it’s been through times where sharing that faith required sacrifice, put the reader in danger, but more than anything, it was used.

Unfortunately, many who proclaim what they say are Christian fundamental beliefs would struggle to show any wear on their Bible, and that should say all we need to know about their motives.