Civil Religion

The following is from Keith Drury. I think it is a very interesting post about civil religion.

The greatest blessing of the Barak Obama Presidency may be delivering Evangelicals from a tendency toward civil religion. 94% of white Evangelicals voted against Obama so it might be easier to find deliverance under a President evangelicals didn’t elect.

By civil religion I mean a kind of nationalism that poses a universal god-above-all-gods whose name is “god” or “the Almighty” or Providence” who has a special relationship with our nation and has given us a special calling to spread freedom, democracy and our way of life across the world with missionary zeal. Civil religion is "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation" which uses symbols and language of religion to persuade citizens to support and sacrifice for national policy.

In civil religion the state is sanctified by quasi-religious symbols and language. It offers sacred symbols (flag) sacred text (Constitution), sacred places (Gettysburg, Potomac River, Arlington) temples (‘hallowed halls’ of congress), and sacred rituals (the inauguration). It integrates real religious symbols and rituals too (Bible, prayer) and presents nationalism in such a way that a nation’s citizens believe in the national god that is above and beyond their own religion’s gods. It is all done in a way that when a President mentions “Providence” leading our nation we think he really means Yahweh or the Holy Trinity but he doesn’t. In its worst form civil religion presents the god-of-America as the god-above-all-gods, the sort of commander-in-chief of all religions who presides over all religions and has a special calling to America.

Some Evangelicals consider civil religion as innocuous as Israel did its Baal worship—“just something you do here in this land.” It is the Anabaptists like the Mennonites who have been the noisiest at scolding us for civil religion. They label it outright idolatry—a temptation to give fidelity to another god besides the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I think the coming years might be a good time for a discussion about civil religion among evangelicals. I think this because Obama is probably the most skilled priest of civil religion in my entire lifetime. Since most Evangelicals already distrust Obama maybe we’ll be more careful about swallowing this “god” who is not really the One True God but a competitor for our faith and fidelity—the god of civil religion is a nationalized totem-god designed to unite citizens. He is a god who never has any judgment or condemnation for us but faithfully sanctifies the actions of the state and calls for a loyalty that places “no other god before me.”

Maybe the coming years could turn out to be a blessing for Evangelicals—we might rethink our tendency toward to civil religion and thus cast off this competing god?

Interesting stuff to think about.

For those of you really wanting to dig deep into the idea of civil religion, this article by Robert Bellah is probably the most widely read.

Training Update:

10 miles easy at Lake Zorinsky in about 80 minutes. I'm tired and seem to have resprained my ankle. I'll probably need to be off running for a few days.