July 1
Divided We Fall
Deut. 10: 12-21
Americans have always created public visions or myths about our identity
as a people. They locate us in the world and history. They provide resources for
political rhetoric and they guide us in choosing our candidates. In the late 1960’s
sociologist Robert Bellah coined the term civil religion to describe these vaguely
religious visions of public life. Civil religion is the mysterious way that religion,
politics, and patriotism represent a national force. It gets very little thought, but
we live in it and appeal to it all the time, particularly on holidays such as Memorial
Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Presidential Inaugurations. For its
proponents it is a social glue that gives religious validation to our nation. For
critics it is a tool cynically used by politicians and an idolatrous form of religious
nationalism.
Civil religion plays a prominent role in our culture and will do so in this
upcoming election season. Candidates will stumble over one another in their
haste to demonstrate loyalty to some facet of Judeo-Christian tradition. Political
speeches will reference a divine judge. Prayers at major political functions will
invoke God’s presence and blessing. Despite constitutional restrictions much
mixing of religious and political practice continues. We had a prayer breakfast at
Annual Conference at which Gov. Daniels spoke.
Most Americans don’t think about civil religion. But when our nation is
under stress, or at war, or when courts attempt to chip away at cherished
national beliefs or symbols, civil religion emerges. We go through times when it
is pretty much dormant in the back of our minds, like the reality of the sun rising
and setting every day. But in times of war or economic stress it flames back up
again.
Civil religion goes by many different names. Ben Franklin called it a public
religion. Abraham Lincoln said it was political religion. Civil religion binds the
nation with sacred meaning and purpose. From the early years of the republic to
the present Americans have viewed their country in religious terms. People
believe our nation has been specially blessed by God. That means that Americans
have been blessed and Americans have a special role to play in the world and
human history.
Our selection from Deuteronomy 10 for this morning gives us the
background of the idea as Jews as the chosen people. Against the belief that the
whole world belongs to God the paradox of God’s selection of Israel as a chosen
people is felt more acutely. In civil religion this idea has carried over to America.
Puritan John Winthrop looked upon the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a city set
upon a hill in a famous sermon quoted frequently by Ronald Reagan and applied
to America. These early New England settlers thought they were people who had
been specially selected to complete the Protestant Reformation on these shores,
to create a city on the hill that would be a model for the European world. They
thought of themselves as the next chapter in American history.
Half of Americans in a survey think that the United States has had special
protection from God for most of its history. But this view is not unanimous.
Abraham Lincoln famously referred to America as “God’s Almost Chosen People.”
And Lincoln highlighted this discrepancy during the Civil War when he noted that
both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. He said that he was
less concerned that God be on his side than that he would be on God’s side in the
conflict.
The problem we face in America today is that the civil religion to which we
pay homage has become deeply divided. It no longer unites us around common
ideals. Instead of giving voice to a clear image of who we should be it has become
a confusion of tongues and competing traditions. Religious conservatives offer
one version of our divine calling. Religious liberals offer another. And secularists
argue that religion has no place. These contrasting visions lead to increased
polarity and dissension in our public life together.
Religion properly applied as the conscience of the nation has been a
progressive force in our history. Think of abolitionists fighting against slavery,
women’s suffrage groups demanding to vote, the civil rights movement, and the
call for peace and reduction of nuclear weapons. Religion always functions best
when it speaks to the state and is not a tool of it. The use of covenant language is
a powerful way of stating the purpose of our nation. But we must always beware
of claiming that God is on our side and strive to be on God’s side. And we must
surely find a way to speak civil fashion with one another in our national discourse,
because united we stand, divided we fall.