In The Wake Of Religion

Monday, August 24, 2026

People bristle when the United States of America is referred to as a Christian nation.  Technically, it is not.  There is freedom of religion baked into the Constitution.  Yet, the American ethos is decidedly Christian. “Ethos” is defined, “the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution.”  That’s not religion, but it can and generally does draw from the prevailing religious sentiment of the person, group or institution.  It would only be natural for such to be the case.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Now bear in mind, when He said that He was starting a minority sect of a religion that was a tiny minority in the Roman Empire.  He was pointing out that a good religion can create an ethos for an empire even if its adherents are very small in number.  And He was right.  It took 400 years, but eventually the religion He was starting became the official religion of the empire – two empires actually, Rome and Constantinople.  Ethos created.

A religion is a very hard thing to define.  Not all religions deal with deities.  They are all vaguely “spiritual,” but that is no better defined than religion.  It’s not based on some text, lots of religions are not codified in any way – and even those that are written about are not necessarily systematically so.  Given the absence of definition it is also very hard to judge a religion – you would think.  But not always.

Consider two stories.  One, Iran is running ads offering a huge bounty on Barron Trump’s life.  Meanwhile, Hasan Piker thinks Charlies Kirk’s assassination is funny.  What do these stories have in common?  They are both born of an Islamic ethos.  Piker is far from a devote, practicing Muslim.  I am sure if you asked him to point to Mecca, he would be clueless.  Iran is simply corrupt – operating within an Islamic ethos to justify its corruption.

I cannot satisfactorily define my own religion, Christianity, let alone define Islam.  But I sure can see the ethos both religions create and what they leave in their wake.  Sure Christianity has had periods where it produced great ugliness.  But it has always reformed.  Islam on the other hand seems to follow an opposite pattern – periods of peaceful fruitfulness, yet it always seems to return to violence and hatred.

It is not hard to judge these religions if you consider the ethos they create.  We are living through a period where we see what happens if we let the Christian ethos this nation has always enjoyed slip.  It is not pretty, not pretty at all.

But the important question remains – why have we Christians failed at being salt and light?  We would not be here if that failure were not the case.