Death of Faith: The Christian Right and Civil Religion

Christian Right is seeking to move toward a civil religion

in America — nothing less than an identification of the nation of the United
States, through a revisionist history of Christian roots, with the covenant
people of God. It is the elevation of America to a special role in God's
redemptive plan.

It is
a practice in the Maine State House of Representatives, of which I have recently
been a member, to lead off the morning with a prayer and follow with the Pledge
of Allegiance. On its surface, this would seem like a good start to any day.

The
prayer is by invitation through the office of the Clerk of the House. If you
accept that invitation, you agree to the general terms that, in order to avoid
offending those of other faiths or of no faith, you will make your prayer
generic.

Most
pastors honor that agreement. Often, however, evangelical pastors will come to
the rostrum, preach sermons in their prayers, and close the prayer with "…in
Jesus' name." Violation of the terms of the invitation is justified on the
grounds that "…He who declares me before men, him will I declare before my
Father in Heaven."

Simply
put, there is an assumption that God will not hear a prayer that is not ended in
Jesus' name.

That
assumption fails the test of experience. When Jesus was instructing His
disciples how to pray, He gave them, and us, the Lord's Prayer. Never have I
heard the Lord's Prayer ended in Jesus' name. Can we assume that God does not
hear the Lord's Prayer?

Are
there ways for a Christian pastor to declare allegiance to Christ without
violating the terms of the invitation? I believe there are.

One of
the ways that I have used was to say at the end of my prayer, "…and may the
words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your
sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer, Amen." Thus, I have honored the
terms of the invitation, have honored the God-given right of my neighbor to
reject the Lordship of Christ and have sworn allegiance to the
Godhead.

Thirty
seconds or so later, we who claim citizenship in the very Kingdom of God that
Jesus came to proclaim, stand and pledge allegiance to a flag.

Go
figure.

All
this is reflective of a movement by the Christian Right toward a civil religion
in America.

Civil
religion is nothing less than an identification of the nation of the United
States, through a revisionist history of Christian roots, with the covenant
people of God. It is the elevation of America to a special role in God's
redemptive plan.

It is
civil religion that can declare itself as "good" and other nations or political
parties as "evil," a common tactic of the Religious Right. In order to get
there, of course, we must codify Christianity into the law as our official
religion through carefully selected scriptural mandates to the exclusion of
other Christian principles.

The
assumption is similar to that of ending prayer in Jesus' name — that God's
blessings are reserved only for that nation that exhibits certain trappings of
faith.

That
is not biblical Christianity.

Biblical Christianity insists that the people of God are not those of a
nation-state but are those of every nation, tongue and tribe, who have repented
of their sins, have been reconciled to God through the substitutionary death of
the risen Christ and have joined in the life of the church.

The
story of the settling of the Puritans in America is a story of failure. Its
ideological allegiance to the nation-state did not survive the second
generation. Out of that failure, however, came the founding principles of the
new nation based, not on revealed truth, but on a natural belief in reason,
virtue, order and liberty.

The
inherent flaw in today's concept of civil religion as advanced by the Christian
Right is that it reduces faith to secular evidence. Political institutions
become the arbiter of faith through wedge issues incidental to saving
grace.

While
there can be no argument against Christian principles as a guide to good
government, the path to civil religion is strewn with corruption, deceit, cheap
religious language and a clergy that shills for the state. Once endorsed, we
move from the supremacy of God over nations to an unyielding loyalty to the
government. The two lose their distinctive features, and the Christian falls
into the idolatry of nation over the Kingdom of God.

The
path to civil religion is paved with revisionist history. First, a nation must
have been founded as a Christian nation. Secondly, all evil in the past must be
denied. Finally, there must be an assumption that, contrary to human history,
our nation can be eternal so long as certain precepts are upheld.

America fails and will fail all three.