My first music director job in a church was in a tiny Baptist church in a blue collar Houston suburb. It wasn’t exactly my dream church job, but they generally treated me well and gave me a shot when I was desperate to get out of waiting tables. Like many Baptist churches in Texas, this wasn’t exactly the kind of place to let a civic patriotic observance like the the 4th of July go by without fanfare.

I had already adopted a personal position against patriotic displays in worship, but nobody asked, and in my mid-March interview I didn’t even think of needing to bring it up. So I was taken aback when the pastor, let’s call him Bro. Jerry, made it clear that he wanted to make sure we started off July 4th worship with a “great song about America and stuff.”

“Uh…umm…well…I…maybe,” I eloquently replied.

“Yeah, maybe that ‘glory, glory alleluia’ one.”

I shuddered. The theology in “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is terrible. So on the spur of the moment, I tried to come up with a compromise.

“Umm…well…maybe America the Beautiful? Yeah, I think America the Beautiful would be better.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

And so America the Beautiful became my token patriotic hymn during the three years I served this little church. I would dissociate at the piano, and the people would sing to their god with gusto. After the last Bb major chord died out, and in this carpeted sanctuary it didn’t take long, someone would lead us in the pledge of allegiance, before which I would always fake a coughing fit and have to excuse myself momentarily. for Bro. Jerry could launch into one of his annual 45-minute sermons about how America was a Christian nation, and how all those soldiers in all those wars didn’t die so that we could have a mosque at ground zero.

The “amens” abounded on those Sundays, let me tell you.

At the time, “America the Beautiful” did seem to be a better choice than just about any of the other hymns in the God and Country section of the ’91 Baptist Hymnal. It’s something of a prayer, and contains that “God mend thine every flaw” phrase that captures a more realistic view of the US than others do.

But over the years, my support of this song as the perfect patriotic compromise has waned. I’ve decided that this simply isn’t a text that belongs in Christian worship.

1. Who or what is the subject of this text?

In Christian worship, our triune God is always the subject, or the exercise can no longer be called worship. America the Beautiful is not about God, nor any particular aspect of God’s story. It is a hymn of praise to a country, the beauty of its terrain, the nobleness of its founders, the militaristic greatness of its armed forces, and the loftiness of its utopian ideals. Some call this an earnest prayer to God. How can this be, when it is clear the text is addressing

“America! America!”

2. “A thoroughfare for freedom beat / Across the wilderness.

A thoroughfare for freedom that came at whose cost? I think the Fox animated sitcom “King of the Hill” illustrates my point pretty well.

Ick.

No hint of Manifest Destiny is appropriate for Christian worship.

3. “Crown thy good with brotherhood.”

Some would claim, in the words of Alexis de Toqueville, that “America is great because America is good.” The theological implications of this philosophy are disastrous. Neither we as American people nor the governments we concoct are worthy of special grace because of our innate goodness.

4. “O beautiful for heroes proved / In liberating strife”

The church’s job is always to preach the great Alternative to war, not to glorify those who supposedly wrestled American freedom through bloodshed. Even if we do believe in the just war theory, it’s time the American church stopped turning a blind eye toward the stark reality of the American revolution. The brilliant historian Mark Noll says this about whether this war was justified (1):

“Only one population in the colonies clearly was justified by classical Christian reasoning in taking up arms to defend itself—the half-million or so enslaved African Americans who were held in bondage as the result of armed attacks upon peaceful noncombatants.”

5. “O beautiful for patriot dream”

It’s hard to ignore the parallels between the city on a hill Jesus names in the Sermon on the Mount, and the fantasy land of stanza 4 of America the Beautiful. Our country, no matter how prosperous, is not the solution to fallen world problems. For the church, America can never be the “city on a hill,” because it’s impossible for a government to embody the light given to God’s people through Jesus the Christ. America does not enjoy a special dose of God’s grace and favor. God is not uniquely on our side. The church is the light of the world, the only Christian nation in history.

For me, the position has become clear. I’m not going to be singing this one anymore, in worship or any place else. America can be beautiful, but it can also be quite ugly. It’s light will burn out, perhaps sooner than we all imagine. And when that happens, I pray there will still be a light, a shining city on a hill, that illumines the world.