Is Civil Religion a Threat to the Christian Religion?

Hilton Head Island, SC – July 4, 2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Joshua 6:15-21; Acts 17:22-28
A Sermon by John M. Miller

 

Text – You shall have no other gods before me. – Exodus 20:3

 

Robert Bellah was a well-known American sociologist in the last half of the twentieth century. In 1966 he wrote a famous essay called Civil Religion in America. It became the basis for an ongoing discussion of what constitutes civil religion ever since. In a reprint years later of his long essay in a literary magazine, Prof. Bellah defended his thesis in an introductory note by saying the following: “I think it should be clear from the text that I conceive of the central tradition of the American civil religion not as a forum of national self-worship but as the subordination of the nation by the ethical principles that transcend it in terms of which it should be judged.” That sounds like something that a sociologist steeped in the world of academe would write. Many theologians and preachers took issue with the learned professor, and he was attempting to deflect their criticisms by saying what civil religion is not more than what it is.

 

Dr. Bellah did admit “the ever-present danger of national self-idolization,” when he explained his thesis. Nonetheless, he thought that civil religion, properly practiced, is a good thing.

 

It happened that four years before Robert Bellah wrote his famous essay, I spent a school year during my second year of seminary at Glasgow University in Scotland, Then, for two months afterward, my wife and I traveled throughout a dozen European countries. In many ways that experience shaped my thinking and who I am more than anything else in my life. I loved those months in Scotland and our travels around the UK and Ireland, and then the profound immersion, even if only briefly, in several examples of European states and cultures.

 

Back then it was much cheaper to cross the ocean by ship than airplane. We sailed to Scotland on the Canadian Pacific Line from Montreal and returned to New York on the Holland America line. I will never forget passing under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which then was under construction, into the New York Harbor. It was our first visit to the Big Apple. On our left was the Statue of Liberty, lifting her “lamp beside the golden door.” I felt something like an immigrant getting my first glimpse of America. As much as I had been captivated to have lived in the land of my ancestors for several months, and then to visit countries I had studied as a history major, I was thrilled to be returning to my own native land in a manner that would not have been possible were it not for that sojourn in foreign lands and that introduction to the quintessential American city. The whole venture was so enthralling that I wrote a book about it. I never found a publisher for it, and the manuscript is in a small box in a larger box at the bottom of the storage bin for our apartment. If I can find it, one of these years I’ll get it out and re-read it again.

 

I tell you all this because it is an illustration of the civil religion I felt when returning to the USA after having been away for nearly a year. To one degree or another, most citizens of all nations engage in civil religion. When Americans sing our national anthem or Canadians sing O Canada or the British or Germans or French sing God Save the Queen or Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles or the Marseillaise, they are engaging in a form of wholesome, uplifting civil religion. Patriotism is a major example of civil religion. Most citizens of most nations have at least a moderate if not strong attachment to their homeland. Properly channeled, it gives strength of character and national solidarity to the countries in which they were born or into which they immigrated.

 

  Someone who attends The Chapel regularly sent me an essay called Can America’s ‘Civil Religion’ Save the Country? It was written by a man named Tom Gjelten. He quoted Bellah’s definition of civil religion as “a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred truths institutionalized in a collectivity.” He noted that Eagle Scouts must pass a merit badge called “Citizenship in the Nation.” I am an Eagle Scout, but back in my day there was no such merit badge. There was the God and Country award, however, and I did earn that. The writer also quoted a professor of theology at Abilene Christian University, who was upset by the “Christian nationalism” of some of the January 6 Capitol Building assailants.

 

As a minister, I think there is nothing truly sacred with respect to our nation or any other, because only God and the things associated with God can be sacred. Nonetheless, there are many Americans who believe that America is sacred, and that is alright, up to a point. Apparently many who attacked the Capitol thought they were trying to restore a building which had been desecrated by what they thought (and think) was a stolen election, and it was their sacred duty to enact the sacred restoration.

 

Another Chapel attender sent me an email about The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). They recently polled a group of Americans about very recent events in our country. Fifteen per cent of them believe that current political power is controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles (which is an idea originated by QAnon.) Twenty per cent thought Jan. 6 would – quote - “restore rightful leaders.” Fourteen per cent admitted to being QAnon believers. The article also called attention to a God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, which is slated to become available on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 in September. This new Bible has the US Constitution printed in it. Whether before Genesis 1 or after Revelation 22 the article did not say.

 

We may deduce from all this that just as there are many varieties of Christian religion, there also are many varieties of civil religion. By chance the Fourth of July falls on a Sunday this year, and that may be a particularly fitting time for us to contemplate the nature of civil religion. Ordinary patriotism can be an example of the best kind of civil religion, but extremist civil religion is simply too extreme. When people turn against their government because of what they presume is a sacred obligation, especially when their actions are violent, they have stepped far beyond the bounds of valid civil religion.

 

In our first scripture reading this morning, a short portion of the story of the conquest of the city of Jericho by Joshua and his army was read. If the report is accurate, they killed everyone and every animal in Jericho, except for a woman named Rahab and her family, who assisted them in their sneak attack. Later, other such massacres are also cheerfully and triumphantly recorded.

 

Many of the Israelites took civil religion to extreme. Surely God did not command them to carry out such atrocities. Surely God also loved the Canaanites as much as the Israelites. Civil religion ought not to be a threat to true biblical religion, but there is a lot of religion in the Bible which is not true, in the sense of being proper or acceptable or laudable. A country is much stronger if its citizens are genuinely patriotic, but if they are xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, or racist, they are neither patriotic nor biblically religious.

 

In Hebrew, the word for the English word “nation” is goy, either g-o-i or g-o-y. The Hebrew plural is goyim. In the past or in the present when Jews sometimes referred to goyim, it may be a mere statement of fact; goyim are the peoples of all the nations. Israel has also always been a goy, but usually the word is associated only with “Gentiles,” and Gentiles are all those who are not Jews. So sometimes to Jews goyim are simply everybody else, and sometimes goyim are them, which means “Not Us.” In like manner, to those who are not Jews, Jews may just be Jews, but they may also be identified with deliberately pejorative or highly negative words, much like the “N” word for Blacks. Thus “civil religion” can be either very civil or very un-civil.

 

When the ancient Israelites thought God wanted them to conquer Canaan by bloodshed, they engaged in one of the worst kinds of civil religion. When they were called upon to be “a light to the nations,” a light to the goyim, as Isaiah insisted they must be, they were at their best. Because there were Jews, eventually there were Christians, and because there were Jews and Christians, eventually there were Muslims. As long as they all got along well with one another, they practiced praiseworthy civil religion. When they fought with one another, and even killed one another, they practiced the worst kind of civil religion.

 

Nations are basically a good thing, so long as they are a good thing. But when any nation lords itself over other nations, when they turn their nation into an idol, they make it, by definition, a false god, which is what, by implication, an idol is.

 

Since 1921, when the British crown established Northern Ireland as a separate “nation” of the United Kingdom, unionists have been the Protestants who supported being part of the UK and who rejected being re-united with the Republic of Ireland. Unionists believed they represented true patriotism. It was their civil religion. Now Catholics have a small majority in the population of Northern Ireland, and they want to unite with the South once again. What should proper civil religion dictate? Is their changing civil religion a threat to Northern Irish Christianity?

 

China is quickly snuffing out democratic vestiges in Hong Kong. Prior to Britain ceding Hong Kong back to the Chinese, Hong Kong civil religion was pro-British and pro-democracy. Is the “old” civil religion a threat to the “new” civil religion?

 

Stephen Decatur was an officer in the United States Navy at the turn of the nineteenth century. At twenty-five, he was the youngest man to be promoted to captain in the history of the Navy. He fought in the Barbary Wars with the Moroccan pirates in the earliest years of the new century, on “the shores of Tripoli,”  then in a quasi-war with France after that, and finally in the War of 1812. At one point in his career, when it became evident that either he or his commanders had made a mistake in ordering him to do something which was politically and ethically questionable, he made an ambivalent  statement which has been recalled many times ever since. In a speech in Norfolk in 1816, he said, “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong.” Because he did not explain it further, you can interpret that statement in any way you want. I take it to mean we must stick with our country whatever it does, and I find that a lofty but unwise sentiment.

 

After Jesus of Nazareth, the apostle Paul was the most important man in the New Testament. He became the apostle to the Gentiles, the missionary to the Goyim, and most of us are Goyischer Christians, not Jewish Christians.

 

On one of his missionary journeys, Paul went to Athens. When he was walking through the Athenian Areopagus (which you can still walk through), he saw many statues of Greek gods and goddesses. Then he came to a statue which had this inscription: “To An Unknown God.” The Greeks were a remarkable people in culture, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, science, and religion. In religion, they tried to cover all the bases with as many deities as could be conceived. Paul managed to find the replica of a god who had no Greek name and no Greek job description. The civil religion of the ancient Greeks was far more positive than negative, and that statue was probably there as an indicator of that truth. So Paul used the statue to preach a sermon about the God of the Jews, whom he probably called Adonoy, “the Lord.”

 

Civil religion, like the Christian religion, may lead us to do things which are either noble or ignoble, correct or contemptible, terrific or terrible. If civil religion is what it should be, it is a great bulwark for national integrity and unity. If it takes the wrong path, it can lead to injustice, iniquity, and massive national and international injury.

 

Laws are being passed in certain states throughout the country to prevent Critical Race Theory from being taught in public schools. Is that noble patriotism, civil religion of the highest order, or is it subversive civil religion gone terribly wrong? Is it unwise to hide the dark truths of our nation’s past from impressionable youth? Would it not be better to impress them with how misguided some of our policies toward non-white citizens were, so that they can help revise those policies in their own behavior?

 

On balance, the history of the United States of America has benefitted the majority of the American people and a majority of the peoples of the world. But we are more likely to say that about ourselves than the peoples of other nations are to say it about us. And the same is probably true for every other nation that ever existed; they think of themselves more highly than others think of them. If  nations are going to exist (and they shall always exist), each nation shall have a higher opinion of themselves than the opinion of those in other nations.

 

God has never been the progenitor of any nation, including Israel or America, despite what either of them thinks about themselves. Nations come into existence because a certain people or peoples decide to unite themselves into a sovereign state for their own protection and advancement. But God is always prepared to bless every nation that makes itself a blessing to other nations. At its best, civil religion is an important factor in making that happen. At its worst, civil religion turns the nation into an idol, and its adherents worship at the altar of the state instead of the altar of God.  

 

God bless America, land that we love. Have a fabulous Fourth!