The Presidential Inauguration is coming up in a little more than a week now, and there is lots of buzz concerning the events surrounding the our 44th President of the United State, Barack Obama. I personally know a lot of people who are going to the inauguration; there should be untold millions of people there. It will be very exciting no doubt, but I for one would not want to deal with those crowds and all that goes with it. It will be tough getting into the city, and it is a city that is always tough to get into. But for those brave souls who make the pilgrimage, it will surely be an event to remember.
I did receive an invitation in the mail to the inauguration of Bill Clinton, but I did not go. I need to find it and frame it, as it was very nicely done with the Presidential seal and all. I am sorry to have missed out on history, but again, all those people. I have been traumatized by crowds after five trips to Disney World, trips to the mall at Christmas and attending losing Razorback Football games. Anyway, I am more than happy to selectively watch the events from the comfort of my living room, where I can take a nap or eat something if I want to.
But I am interested; it is a big event that only occurs every four or eight years, sort of like the Olympics, but with more pomp than circumstance. I did a little reading about the inauguration event itself, and ran across a few interesting tidbits, first from Andy Rooney of CBS:
The first president to ride in a car at his inauguration was Warren Harding in 1921. The thing I read didn’t say what kind of a car he rode in. I think I remember it as a Packard, although it may have been a Hupmobile – maybe or even REO. The first inauguration broadcast on radio was Calvin Coolidge’s in 1925. That may have been the most interesting thing Coolidge ever did. Harry Truman had the first televised inauguration in 1949. I don’t know how many television sets there were in 1949. I know we didn’t have one yet. I think we got ours in 1951. My father used to sit in front of it and watch anything they put on. Some people still do, of course. My favorite President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first inauguration lasted the longest. He had 73 bands and floats and horses and what they called “pachyderms” – elephants. It lasted more than four hours (Andy Rooney, cbsnews.com, 01/04/2009).
So I don’t know if there will be elephants, I guess it would be inappropriate as there will be enough republicans there already, but maybe some tigers or lions might be nice. Of course everyone is not happy about all the hoopla, and especially parts of it that they find offensive or at least insensitive. What could be such an offender in something that is really only for show? The story is in USA today this past week:
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office will he add on, “So help me God,” like every president since Chester Arthur in 1881? (If you think George Washington started this, check with historians). Odds are he will, as a man who says he values his Christian faith. So, barring any long-shot success by atheist Michael Newdow — in court next week to knock all mention of God off the Capitol steps on January 20 — the controversy remains with the invocation and benediction. In 2001, at George W. Bush’s first inauguration, both pastors — Graham’s son, Franklin, and Texas pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell — prayed specifically in Jesus’ name. That triggered criticism of religious exclusivity at a civic celebration. (USAToday)
Evidently, the phrase “So help me God” is offensive to atheist, or at least some atheist, I suspect there are many who don’t care. I can understand the insensitivity, but with the mess this country is in I think if there is an outside chance that a deity somewhere can help the man, what does it hurt? David Waters of the Washington Post has an interesting take on it in his article this past week:
In their 39-page lawsuit seeking to prohibit religious figures and phrases from Barack Obama’s inauguration, the plaintiffs made a number of interesting complaints but none more colorful than this one: “Interlarding those ceremonies with clergy who espouse sectarian religious dogma does not unite, but rather divides, our citizenry.” Interlarding? Rick Warren is a big guy but he’s not that big. Of course, attorneys for atheist Michael Newdow and other plaintiffs were using the term metaphorically, arguing that mixing (interlarding: to insert something foreign into) petitions to God and other “explicitly religious dogma” into the secular ceremony violates the Constitution. I suspect there’d be a lot more sympathy for the suit if Obama had invited a Muslim cleric and a Wiccan priestess to deliver the inaugural invocation and benediction, rather than well-known Christian clergy Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery. Or if Chief Justice John Roberts was planning to ask Obama to close his oath of office with the words “So help me Jesus” instead of “So help me God.” And I suspect the lawsuit would have generated less condescension if it had been filed by the Freedom Forum or the National Council of Churches, rather than two dozen atheist and humanist individuals and groups led by the infamous Newdow, best known for his lawsuits challenging the interlarding of the Pledge of Allegiance with the phrase “under God.” When Chief Justice Roberts asks President-elect Obama to put his right hand on a Bible and swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution “so help me God,” is the United States of America declaring that God exists? Does the inclusion of clergy prayers and oaths to God in the inauguration of the president mean that the new government officially endorses theism and rejects atheism? If not, do the words “so help me God” mean anything at all? (David Waters, Newsweek/Washington Post, JAN 5 2009)
Good questions. One has to wonder if these words really do mean anything at all. It all seems harmless to me, but then again I am in the majority, I am a believer in God Almighty, my rights do not seem to be violated, I cannot relate to how those who are offended must feel. On one hand, if Obama is taking the oath and it is his pledge, then he has the right to call upon whatever deity or entity that he wishes for help, because he is sure going to need it. But on the other, if he was asking for guidance from Allah, it would not offend me, but I would probably think that it was unecessary to his duties as President. Of course, the phrase “so help me God” seems so very generic that the only ones that possibly could be offended are those who have an issue with the concept of God, and those people do exist and do have rights. Atheism is often the religion of the angry agnostic.
So help me God. It on the surface sounds like a personal plea, and it sounds like a desperation euphemism for “holy crap I am in trouble.” It sounds like something if not appropriate at least understandable for the beginning of a big undertaking. And for the record, not every Christian is interested in shoving God down the throats of the atheist. I could care less; it is a waste of my time and energy. I also don’t think such a trite phrase has any kind of theological punch to it, and whether or not it is uttered will not make two hoots in hell of a difference five minutes after it is uttered to anyone but the likes of Michael Newdow. It is too vague to have any significance except at the most basal level of our cognition. I am also way OK if he decides not to utter it, as it means nothing theologically except on the most surface of levels.
So as we begin a new thing on the 20th in this country, our lectionary text this morning is also about beginnings, in fact it is about the ultimate beginning, the creation of the world. The text simply begins at the start with an assumption, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And the rest of the book deals with creation in once sense or another as God is always up to something new. And maybe this is a very appropriate text this morning, because at the heart of the society and religion encroachment issue is the old creationism vs. evolution, which has even hit the high courts in America.
The creation science account is not science of course, but religion. In its most basic form God literally created the world out of nothing, ex nihilo, by his spoken word (fiat) in seven literal days. He purposefully directed the whole thing by command or decree, just as it reads in the book of Genesis. Some would say that if you count all those begats, then the world is 4,000 or so years old.
On the other hand, evolution which is not intrinsically atheistic, suggests that life as we know it evolved over time from more primitive to less primitive species. And the prevailing scientific model suggest that there was a cosmic “big bang” that got the whole mess started. We went from one extremely dense particle to keeping up with Ben and Jen in a few billion years, say 15 billion years. Both of my explanations are overly simplistic of course, but the point is that the creationism vs. evolution debate has been key in the main streaming of civil religion in this country. And maybe that is what the Michael Newdows of the world find disturbing. It is not simply the phrase “so help me God,” but all the baggage that goes along with it, which is honestly pushed by some very pushy people.
And even for us believers, this co-mingling of government and religion is something to be concerned about as well. This concern is not just the domain of the atheist. There are many stories in the news of religion impinging upon secular and societal structures, sometimes known as “civil religion.”
There are many stories in the news of religion impinging upon secular and societal structures, and that is what is defined as civil religion. The whole issue of school prayer, the posting of the Ten Commandments in federal court houses in Alabama and elsewhere, the lawsuits concerning “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance which Newdow is also involved are but a small example of the ongoing struggle to institutionalize Christianity into state functions.
It seems like we have confused the two domains throughout the annals of history. And that same history is replete with dismal examples of the resultant impediment when church and state have unnecessary fused. After all, there is no war worse than a holy war, and the middle ages were called the “Dark Ages” for a reason. Yet it is very popular today to zealously narrow the barriers between church and state in the name of God and country, in the name of patriotism, in the name of loyalty. It seems that many people are threatened, and they must publicize references to God not merely as an evangelistic attempt, but because they feel like it is an act of national security to incorporate religion into our society. And on some level, many people believe the war on terrorism is a war of Christians against Muslims.
So we have to pray in school, we have to plaster the Ten Commandments everywhere, we promote faith-based initiatives, and we have to have the manger scene at the state capitol, because we are threatened by the declining presence of these ubiquitous icons of our faith. If we lose these battles, we lose the war, we believe. Many believe that our country and its people are going to hell in a hand basket and in a hurry. They think that if we don’t promote our faith in public venues, then others might not believe as we do; they might not otherwise know what we stand for; they might not experience our faith any other way, and we might lose our rights as Christians, but most of all we might lose power and lose our voice and influence. And besides, it is easier to wear our faith on our sleeve or on a wall of a building than it is to practice the law of love.
The problem for me is that Baptist are at the heart of every one of these fights, be it a courthouse in Alabama or a football stadium in Sante Fe, Texas. And ironically, it is the most anti-Baptist thing we can ever be about. Because our heritage is one of soul competency and liberty. Baptist have traditionally, historically been about one thing– about Religious Freedom. This part of our constitution was more associated with the early Baptists than anyone else. Baptist alone preached religious freedom first, freedom of conscience, the right to believe freely as one wills. The Puritans and others made their pilgrimage to this country as English Separatists looking for such freedom, but in turn persecuted those with Baptist leanings. The tormented became the tormentors. That persecution is what led Roger Williams out of Massachusetts and into Rhode Island, where he founded a town called Providence and founded the First Baptist Church in America which still stands to this day. Others wanted religious freedom before Baptists, but the Baptist wanted it for not just themselves, but for everyone. Baptist leaders insisted that this right to free religion be granted in the constitution. And there were people listening.
Baptists really began with the quest to be free to worship and believe as they wanted. Liberty permeates our story. Baptists believed it every person’s right. Baptists first emerged into history in England, experienced intense persecution, fled to America, again experiencing intense persecution, advocating free-decision making and worship choices for all, and this gift was one of the finest gifts to human civilization in history. Early Baptists believed that moral and spiritual duty was only possible in the context of freedom. If religion is based upon coercion, then it is wrongly motivated. Liberty of conscience fuels the Baptist engine of freedom. It was the distinctive core value of our heritage, a heritage 400 years old this year, as John Smyth and Thomas Helwys started that First Baptist Church of Amsterdam in 1609.
Today there are many threats to this liberty of conscience, this freedom of religion. There are those who would legislate their brand of religion and force compliance on the rest of us. There are those who dangerously blur the lines of separation of church and state, those who seek to authoritatively dictate what we should believe, and suggest what we should think. They imply with arrogance that they know the truth of God, and we will have hell to pay if we don’t conform. And they threaten us with the label of unchristian or un-American.
The most difficult thing about Baptists who think this way is that it flies in the very face of the only reason that Baptists are historically significant. And that significance is a belief, put simply, that every individual is responsible to God in matters of conscience– not to the state, not to the church, not to creedal statements, not to the Baptist Faith and Message any version any year, not to pastors, not to denominational leaders, not even to one another. True faith is voluntary, and any person, anytime, anyplace can choose the spiritual direction that their life is to take. God expects no less– God may rejoice or grieve over decisions that we make, but he does not dictate the details and the ultimate thrust of an individual’s existence. This was the message of John Smith, Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams and John Clarke, John Leland, of E.Y Mullins of George W. Truett. It was the work of early Baptists that led one man to write the following:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorized only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect. It was signed by the hand of Thomas Jefferson, in 1802 (Usconstitution.net/jeffwall).
You see, the truth is we don’t have to stamp a Christian message all over our public buildings or our schools or our events, because God has already stamped his image somewhere much more important: namely, all over us. And his image is not one written in stone and displayed on walls, not one blasted out over PA systems at sporting events to captive audiences, but one that is written on our hearts. And we won’t have to worry about a non-Christian society as long as we have God’s image burned in our hearts.
And if you don’t know the power of having God’s image not on a coin but instead engraved upon your heart, let me tell you a story. We broadcast our chapel service everyday at the hospital into patient rooms. Every day at precisely 8:30 we broadcast the 10 minute service. Many people, many hundreds of people have stood in our chapel in my 24 years and delivered the devotional. After a while, we noticed that even when the camera was off, the outline of Jesus from the stained- glass window appeared as a shadow in the viewfinder. Technicians told us that because the camera never moved, the image was burned into the camera, and was indelibly etched into the camera’s chipset. On or off, the image of Jesus was there. Not the image of Stan or anyone else who has ever stood there, but the image of Christ.
You see, the image of God is burned in us as we render to God the things that are God’s. And when the image of God is burned into us, the world is changed. King James threw Thomas Helwys in prison for his Baptist views, where he died. But in the next 50 years, tens of thousands who read his Short Declaration of the Mystery of Antiquity followed his message and sought the liberation that came with becoming a Baptist. It was a movement that could not be stopped.
It is a waste of our time and an unchristian like disrespect to force our message on others through government and societal structures. You see, we don’t really fear God being forgotten in our society, we fear that we will be forgotten. And neither one will be forgotten as long as we do not forget God and render unto God the things that are Gods. Because when God’s message is burned into our hearts we love one another and love our enemies as ourselves. We serve the least the lost and the last, we go the second mile, we turn the other check, we stand firm but never fight back, we practice meekness of heart and humility in all our affairs, we make peace, we seek justice and practice mercy, we change the world, we re-write history. The prophet Jeremiah foretold of a time when writing those commandments on stone and on buildings would cease and give way to something much better, with incredible results:
After that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a woman his sister, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 33:31
Because the truth is, all the places we would transmit the name of God are at best poor substitutes for what we are really hungry for. Because all we are doing is feeding our fear with a frenzy. Buildings come and go; schools change administrations and policies, and even the faces on our coinage changes. Barack Obama will not be President forever, and we may someday elect a President who is another faith. What the world needs is not another preachy “I told you so” by way of a forced message, but people who make a difference every single day. People, who walk the talk, people who have been transformed by the grace of God, who have his law written on their hearts in a way that screams out to everyone around. People whose image in on God’s coins, people whose live bear his fingerprints. People who don’t offend, manipulate, intimidate, coerce or fight with those different from themselves, but are inclusive and tolerant of all people just as Jesus was, people who are bearers of Good News. And if we can’t spread the Good News to receptive hearts by any means other than our government, so help us God. Amen.