"What we do on Memorial Day is an outward sign—a sacrament—of what lies at the heart of America’s soul." Chris Matthews’ observation, made on his NBC program the Sunday before the day on which America honors those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation, points, with its language of "sacrament" and "soul," to what scholars term civil religion.

In a recent column of Spectrum online, James Coffin addressed the problems raised when we mix nationalistic symbols and commitments with Christian faith and worship. Discussion of civil religion takes us to the other side of the same coin: Do our commitments to the nation or civil community take on religious dimensions? If they do, is that a problem?

The term civil religion goes back at least to the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Historian George Marsden defines it as "attributing a sacred character to the nation itself."

Almost no one—even on a Fourth of July—would, when asked about denominational affiliation, reply "civil religion." But the case for a functional if ethereal reality of such a thing can be made by looking at some of the typical components of a religion.

For example, religions typically have a set of beliefs or "creed" (in the loose sense). The creed of American civil religion would include the basic values of democracy and liberty. It also includes the conviction that the United States is a chosen nation with a millennial mission to defend and spread those God-given privileges throughout the world.

Growing out of the Puritan vision of restoring a pure Christian community as a "city on a hill" to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ, the conception of America as a redeemer nation gradually came to be cast in more secular and political terms. In the nineteenth century, it became the nation’s "manifest destiny" to spread its way of life "from sea to shining sea," undeterred by an overscrupulousness about the rights of those who might stand in the way because, after all, the advance of America’s uniquely blessed civilization would spread the blessing to all peoples. Abraham Lincoln’s more nuanced version saw the United States as the "last, best hope of earth." If representative government and human rights failed here, they would be doomed for the entire world.

Yet, as recent history demonstrates, it is not mere secularization of the nation’s "redeemer" role that has been at work, but also the investing of America’s mission to lead the world to democracy, freedom, peace, and justice with sacred meaning. President George W. Bush has defined America’s war on terrorism in terms of the nation’s millennial mission. The "call of history" has come rightly and uniquely to this nation, charging it to "rid the world of evil" and guarantee for the world that liberty which is "God’s gift to humanity."

In addition to beliefs, behavioral requirements—or a "code"—almost always figure in a religion. In American civil religion, the code includes civic duties such as voting, social reform to implement the creed of democratic equality by extending it to excluded classes, and "the last measure of devotion"—fighting and dying in the nation’s wars.

Religion also entails worship symbols and rituals, or a "cultus." Here we may see sacred objects such as the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, and the flag; sacred rituals such as the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem; the sacred time of holidays such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day; and finally the sacred space of the memorials on the national mall and the Capitol building rotunda.

The analysis could be taken further and deeper but in the end we would be left with the same questions, the most important of which may be whether civil religion, which most Americans seem to hold unconsciously or semiconsciously alongside a particular denominational identity, can coexist with allegiance to Jesus as Lord.

The New Testament exhorts us—and thus makes it a religious duty—to pray "for kings and all who are in high positions" (1 Tim. 2:1-3), to "honor the emperor" (1 Peter 2:17), and be subordinate to governmental authorities (Rom. 13:1-7). One hedge against turning this kind of civic responsibility as Christian duty into a supercharged religious nationalism that merges America’s agenda with God’s would be to utilize Martin Marty’s distinction between the "priestly" and "prophetic" forms of civil religion.

In brief, the "priestly" form blesses and glorifies the nation as it is, assuming a superior morality and divine backing for its rulers’ purposes. It tends toward the "my country, right or wrong" stance. Civil religion in the "prophetic" mode looks to the transcendent values in the nation’s creed—democratic equality, human rights, justice, mercy—as the standard to which the practice of its people and rulers must be held. Its outlook can be summed by quoting the nineteenth-century statesman Carl Schurz: "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."

Yet the follower of Jesus takes guidance from a standard beyond even the loftiest ideals of the nation. Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), with our allegiance to a risen Messiah who has full authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18).

While our citizenship in the Messianic kingdom leads us to recognize the ordering function of civil authority, it also commits us to the way of compassionate community, nonretaliatory love, and suffering servanthood revealed in the Jesus story and vindicated by his resurrection. In the end, Chris Matthews is right: violence for the cause of liberty is at the heart of America’s civil religion, and honoring those who not only died but killed for the cause is an appropriate sacrament. The gospel presents us with a choice between the way of Jesus and faith in "the courage and might of our military" that President Bush celebrates as means to liberty and redemption for the world.

Where does all of this leave us in relation to "civil religion"? John Howard Yoder said it well twenty years ago with words that reflect the particularities of that time yet easily translate to the present. He noted the possibility that "civil religion" could simply refer to "our caring Christianly about public life." However, what is usually meant, he pointed out, "is the religious undergirding of national interests at the expense of the wider righteousness," and that, "even if the name of Jesus be invoked over it, it is idolatry. . . ."

We call a nonviolent man "Lord" and in his name rekindle the arms race. We call a poor man "Lord" and with his name on our lips deepen the ditch between rich and poor. We call "Lord" a man who told us to love our enemies and we polarize the globe in the name of Christian values. . . .

The challenge of civil religion is not a fact, to which we could choose whether to say "yes" or "no"; it is an agenda. Is God, above all, our help? or are we God’s servants?
—The Priestly Kingdom, 194–95

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