Is America Too Religious?

". . .That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

--Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for
Establishing Religious Freedom, 1786

These are the questions I set before you to ponder this morning.

After all, since Jimmy Carter, being "born again" has almost become a qualification for the highest office in the land. (Ronald Reagan courted evangelical Christians, though I never got the impression he was particularly religious himself. George Bush senior had a hard time denying his Massachusetts Episcopalian roots, but his son George W. is a confessedly "born again" Methodist. Coincidentally, Bill Clinton is also a Methodist, and while I admit I doubt his claims that he was born again, as a native Arkansasan he certainly has the rhetoric down pat. John Kerry, a Roman Catholic from the Northeast, hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in this game!)

Growing up in downeast Maine (admittedly not a hotbed of religious fervor at the time, though now conservative and fundamentalist churches dot the landscape of rural Maine), I don’t remember people talking much about their religion. Religion was much more of a private matter, at least that’s how it seemed to me, better left to one’s individual conscience. Live and let live was the order of the day. My grandmother was a convinced and faithful practicing Methodist, but she didn’t need to talk about it. She lived it.

Methinks too many (dare I say most?) of those who make a great deal in public of their religious convictions protest too much. Personally, I find it offensive to be constantly bombarded by references to Jesus Christ and to all the (mostly trivial) claims that people nowadays make on his behalf. I don’t know about you, but the word "Christian" itself more often than not sends chills up my spine, such an exclusive club "Christianity" has become. (This is unfair to Jesus, of course, and to much of Christianity and many of my good friends, but that’s how bad it has gotten for me.)

I am especially concerned by the increasing role of religion in public life, and I think you should be, too. As the words on your orders of service [from the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom] suggest, that was definitely not the intention of our nation’s founders. Where did the lie begin that the founding fathers were evangelical Christians? Jefferson snipped all the supernatural references to Jesus from his Bible, interested only in the ethical teachings. So much for the Word of God. Franklin and Adams and most of the others were deists, who believed that while God had created the universe, he was no longer at the wheel (the so-called "watchmaker" theory of the universe). They believed that while religion was important in forming character and values, it must never be allowed to interfere in the workings of government or the deliberations of the law.

Polls in recent years have shown that as many as 94% of Americans claim to believe in God. Anywhere from 77 to 86% believe in heaven. (Fewer believe in hell, only around 63%, but, excuse the mixed metaphor, that’s cold comfort.) But I wonder, what God is it that they believe in? Have they ever heard of process theology, or liberation theology? Are they aware of the highly sophisticated theologies found in the religious tradition of Islam? Do I even want to know? We rail against fundamentalist Islam, but, to paraphrase Jesus, we fail to see the log of fundamentalist Christianity in our own eye.

(Fundamentalism itself is actually a thoroughly modern phenomenon, dating from the late 19th and early 20th centurie. It was mostly a reaction to what we now know as modernity and the scientific worldview. It is more like other fundamentalisms than it is like historical Christianity. In other words, it is not some "pure" form of Christianity. But that is another sermon.)

Diana Eck, a professor of comparative religion at Harvard and director of Harvard’s Pluralism Project, has cautioned both John Kerry and George Bush to be careful about how they use religion in their political rhetoric. In an article this summer in the Boston Globe, Eck warned that ". . . both of them have been insufficiently acknowledging of the importance of religious diversity for America." She continues,

There has not been a reaching out to the Muslims and Sikhs and others-- who are very actively engaged . . . in voter registration--and [there’s] a sense that when they’re talking about religion, they’re really talking about Christians and maybe Jews. In the heat of the campaign, one is thinking in terms of groups of voters, and 75 percent of Americans identify as Christians. 9/11 spurred [Bush] to make clear that this is a country where Muslims and Sikhs need to live in freedom. But what has happen- ed post-9/11 have been the tremendous impact of the Patriot Act on Muslim Americans, and a sense of having been profiled in ways they’ve found insulting and unconstitutional. The other thing is the sense that President Bush has really cultivated Christian language and surrounded himself with evangelical Christian voices.

In response to Catholic bishops saying that Kerry should not receive communion because of his views contrary to Catholic teaching, and asking Catholics to "share their profound disappointment" with legislators who supported gay marriage, Eck says,

I think they have crossed a line. That doesn’t mean the issues shouldn’t be debated. But when the institutional church reaches into the parishes with a strong suggestion that parishioners should get [lawmakers who supported gay marriage] out of office--that is the message, even though it’s couched in diplomatic ways--I think a line has been crossed. It has to do with the role of any religious institution in relation to our public institutions. [If churches that support gay marriage did the same], that would have been crossing a line as well.

A public leader is elected to represent not just the people of a single church, but the people of many churches and the people who voted for that person who don’t consider themselves religious. The idea that a church should say a public figure doesn’t represent all of our doctrines is not what America is about. . . . The big gamble of America, and it’s one that’s worked, is that the free exercise and non-establishment of religion has been the key to effective religious life.

And how do others, for example Europeans, view American religiosity? Justin Webb, a correspondent for the BBC living in Washington, is amused and concerned. He writes in a dispatch,

       My wife and I do not believe in God.

       In our last posting, in Brussels among the nominally catholic Belgians, unbelief was not a problem.

       Before that in London it was not remotely an issue. With the sole exception of one friend who is an evangelical Christian, I don’t recall a single conversation with anyone about religious matters in the years I lived and worked in the capital.

       Our house in London was right next to a church. We talked to the tiny congregation about the weather, about the need to prune those rose bushes and mend the fence. But we never talked about God.

       How different it is on this side of the Atlantic. The early settlers came here in part to practise their faiths as they saw fit.

       Since then the right to trumpet your religious affiliations--loud and clear--has been part of the warp and weft of American life.

       And I am not talking about the Bible Belt--about the loopy folk who live in log cabins in Idaho or Oregon and worry that the government is poisoning their water.

       It’s not uncommon to see White House functionaries hurrying down corridors carrying bibles. A friend who works in the press office of 10 Downing Street tells me that--even in these difficult times--such a sight would be highly unusual.

Why don’t I find this reassuring?

Is America too religious? Or, is it just possible that we are still not religious enough? What if, rather than scrutinizing the biblical Book of Revelation for clues to the coming of the rapture, or God forbid for justifications for waging war in the Middle East, we began to heed Jesus’s simple injunction to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself? Or followed his summary of "the law and the prophets," "In everything do unto others as you would have them do to you"? What if we tried to live up to the prophet Micah’s call to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God?"

What if we tried to live more closely in line with the Hebrew Bible’s calls for sharing and periodically redistributing wealth (a truly radical idea), for caring compassionately for widows and orphans and for "the stranger who sojourns among you"? What if we really took seriously the call of Amos to "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream"?

I dare any of us to consider such ethical ideals from our Judeo-Christian heritage and to conclude that we are "too religious." We are not yet religious enough. We are for the most part not kind enough, not generous enough, and not compassionate enough. We care too much for ourselves and not enough for others. As it has always been, too much of what passes for religiosity is a charade or a smokescreen to keep this awful truth at bay and to maintain the status quo. The principalities and powers that Jesus warned us about 2000 years ago are still holding sway, and unfortunately they’ve even co-opted Jesus himself in their efforts to keep it that way.

I say this not to make us feel guilty, but to make us aware that most of what passes for religion in this country in the 21st century isn’t religious in any deep and meaningful way at all. It is profoundly un-religious and even anti-religious. It is not interested at all in changing the world, and that’s really about all Jesus himself cared about. That’s why he got himself killed, not because he was content with the way things had always been. Jesus was too "religious" for his own day, and would be too "religious" for ours. In spite of all the appeals to him in America today, I don’t think Jesus would be too happy about how his worldly message of radical egalitarianism has been watered down and softened up.

Too many Americans are convinced that God is only on their side. When we have become truly religious, we will realize that God is on everyone’s side and no one’s. As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote, "It is not toleration and consideration which allows Jews, Catholics, and Protestants [and today we would have to add, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Muslims] to live at peace with one another and to work cooperatively for the welfare of the community to which they belong. It is rather faith in one universal God who is not at the disposal of any or all these groups. . ."

May we come to a new and deeper appreciation for the Constitutional protections which not only allow us to worship as we please in this country, but which also warn us against the dangers of preferential treatment for any particular religion or interpretation of religion. May we ever stand vigilant against false claims made in the name of true religion. And may we strive to live more religious lives ourselves, seeking always to become those better people we are called to become and know that we can be. Amen.

Readings

Matthew 7: 3-5
The Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty
By the Rev. Charles S. Stephen, Jr., Minister Emeritus, First Unitarian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska:

       "There is nothing new in the attempt by religious groups and spokespersons to seek to influence government. Freedom of religion means at least this: that religious groups and individuals are as free as anyone else to participate in the affairs of political life. That is an easy issue; indeed, there is no issue. . . .

       "The question is not: should religion and politics mix. They do mix; there is no question about it. How could it be otherwise? The difficult issue is how much mixture--it is how to keep the religious zealots at bay--it is how to maintain a pluralistic, tolerant, secular society when political leaders tend to blur the line between religion and government, when some political leaders wrap themselves in religious garments.

       "The difficult issue is one of longstanding for a free and secular society: how does a free society treat those, like many of our fundamentalists, who, if they were to achieve political power, would curtail many of the freedoms we now take for granted, including those freedoms that emerge from Jefferson’s and Madison’s great experiment, the separation of church and state."