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Pontifex Maximus (Obama’s Religion, pt 1)

Written by Christopher Brenna : November 20, 2008

After the election, I was reminded of a speech Barack Obama gave some months ago, a portion of which I had tucked away in the drafts waiting to be posted on my very taciturn blog. I pulled it out today because it is apt for those Christians who’ve been caught up in the fervor of Obama’s victory:

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason…Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”

This is a perfect exposition of the central doctrine of the religion that William Herberg called “The American Way of Life” and what Reinhold Neibuhr called “the civil religion of America.” That religion in one word is “democracy.” Obama’s novel augmentation of this concept becomes clear when we remember what President Eisenhower said: “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith—and I don’t care what it is.” What Obama is making explicit here is what Herberg believes is the shift from “religions of democracy” to “democracy as religion.” No longer is religion conceived as a necessary symbiote with which the natural tenets of a democratic society co-exist. Though we still believe that “to have faith” can properly have no object in America, what Barack Obama has advanced here is the permutation we have anticipated since our founding. Here, religion only has value as it can be universalized according to American values. This must inevitably lead to a leveling of the distinctions between religions that ultimately vitiates all religions. If all religious beliefs must conform to democratic principles, then religion has not constructed our democracy’s values, democracy is our religion. Freedom of religion need never be challenged; the religious have abrogated religion in service to democracy.

Barack Obama has positioned himself as the most perfect expression of the hero of American civil religion. The American way of life is itself the common belief of Americans in idealism. We form a spiritual structure around the ideals we cling to in a way no other people group does. We apply this idealism to everything: free speech, home ownership, getting a raise, educating children, eating a hamburger (or not), etc. Everything in an American’s life has a moral value, and because that creates enormous pressure on us as individuals, we gravitate toward symbols of our idealism to reduce our cognitive dissonance. And because we are so idealistic, “[we] tend to confuse espousing an ideal with fulfilling it and are always tempted to regard [our]selves as good as the ideals [we] entertain.” Though not a quixotic individual (despite what his detractors say), the force of our president-elect’s rhetoric has appealed primarily to our ideals for what America should mean and what a president should look like. The panegyrical frenzy of this post-election day is an expression of the religious ecstasy enrapturing the denizens of the civil religion, the parochial qualities of our formal religions adumbrated by the refulgent catholicity of the personified ideal. And lest I appear partisan, suffice it to say that McCain was not an anti-hero, but simply a rival for the same seat.

We have separated church and state so successfully that the state is now a church. A nation desires unity in what it values most deeply, and a system that functions both to organize those beliefs into a coherent rubric and to disseminate a sanctioned constellation of valid actions. Democracy is that system, not the aggregate of our variegated religions. Even if parts of Christianity were allowed into the public realm (as they ostensibly are), we would be allowed only the disembodied ethic and not the theology driving the ethic. More importantly, the supremely sanctioned act, the most cherished sacrament of democracy which needs no other religion’s support, is exercising the right to vote. The sanguine glow on the faces of Obama supporters these days is the radiance of a common desire to realize our ideals compressed into that single, cathartic act of voting.

So why didn’t I vote? Quite simply, because my religion is specific. A peculiar God chose one man, Abraham, to form a people he would favor above all others, with whom he would have direct contact. He nurtured personal encounters with only a few of them, episodic theophanies giving way to a sustained revelation of his presence in Jesus Christ. Jesus chose twelve men to confide in, three were his closest friends. He died once, in an obscure corner of an empire that has been gone for centuries, in an age where the only way of documenting such a life was word of mouth and papyrus. For centuries, people have had ineluctable encounters with his Spirit, often unable to explain or translate what they experienced. And this same group of people, serving the same God, is being asked to universalize their beliefs by abandoning the experiences that created them?

Democracy has demanded an impossible thing from us.

Author Bio: Christopher Brenna is a graduate student in History of Christianity at Luther Seminary and holds a master of divinity from Bethel Seminary. He was a member of Missio Dei in the early years, but now lives in Rochester, MN.




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Comments

Viewing 11 Comments

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    I think this speaks to the absence of practical theology in the American church. We think we do "theology" when we have Bible study, not when we are buying clothing or walking in the park or helping someone out. Once we realize that everything should have a theology behind it, then our eyes are opened to the competing theologies that have been holding us back, hypnotizing us, and trying to shape us into something other than a Christ follower.
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    Well said, Thom. I wonder if that's why I sense such restlessness in my own church community about Bible Studies... "not another one, sheesh". I need to learn how to talk about theology in a way that becomes embodied, that incarnates. And maybe we should all start adding new pages to our theology books, sections like "agri-ology" between anthropology and ecclesiology, and "petrol-ology" after (or within) hamartiology.

    You've got the wheels a'spinning in my head now. :)
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    It is probably worth noting that it was Walter Rauschenbusch's project to Americanize Christianity and Christianize America. And no one's a bigger proponent of the American civil religion than his grandson Richard Rorty.
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    Mark, I agree that democracy has become a religion in and of itself, an American Idol with few competitors. And at that level, I increasingly respect your "no-vote" practice. If democracy weren't so darn idolized in America, or if you were in a less democracy-worshipping country, would you then vote?

    This definitely worthy of an entire post, but could you unpack what a "no-vote" theology of church engagement of the state might look like. I mean, is petition-signing okay? School-boards? Would you vote in school board meeting? Transportation planning meetings? City hall meetings? Meeting with legislators, mayors, city councilors, and bureaucrats to advocate on issues of justice? There are far more ways to be political than these sorts of things, for the church of God, and indeed these are the acts that would be on the periphery rather than the center of church political life, but still it's my own conviction that many of these activities are good and cool ways to seek the shalom of our cities (Jer 29) and speak out for those who can't speak for themselves (Pr 31:8).

    I acknowledge that this is, like all ethics, far more nuanced than just a quick list of good and bad actions, so what's the steering vision behind whatever degree of engagement you endorse/practice?
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    I didn't write this...but perhaps Chris (who wrote it) could respond before I weigh in on your question. :)
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    D'oh! :) Teach me to blog surf during my lunch break.

    Well, I 'spose my ambling questions applies to you, too.
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    Why wait for school boards, transportation commitees, city hall, or any other bureaucrat before something is done. If you see something that needs addressing in a Christ-like manner, just do it. I say, "screw the government." Just simply ignore it. To place any hope in it is idolatry.
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    Well said Chris, I look forward reading the rest of this article.
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    Amen. I look forward to your next installment Christopher and to Mark's and the rest of youall's thoughts on this subject. You say it far better than I have tried to over the years. And you are all younger than I which gives me hope.
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    Someone has said that Bush was easy to dislike and so it was easy for the parishioners of some churches to to speak against the Empire, but what will happen now to the distrust of Empire and the revitalized language of allegiance to Christ alone when the candidate they voted for assumes office?

    Good post. It is much appreciated.
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    Sorry, I hadn't thought to check the comments on this post until just now. In answer to your questions, BDRhodes, I would say keep asking those sorts of questions. Those questions are complex, difficult to answer, involve prayer and Christian community, and reliance on the Holy Spirit. The questions you asked, and the questions like it, are theological and ethical. Much more difficult to answer, categorically, than "Who should I vote for?"
 

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    November 21, 2008 at 4:27 pm

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    November 26, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    [...] Pontifex Maximus (Obama’s Religion, pt 1) Pontifex Maximus (Obama’s Religion, pt 1) [...]

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