Category Archives: civil religion

civil religion, kenosis, Michael J. Gorman, modern nation-state, theosis

The Cruciform God and the Civil god

In light of this first theological conclusion, we must affirm that the “normal” “civil” god of power and might is an idol, and it must be named as such. This god is not the Lord God revealed in Jesus Christ and narrated in the theopolitics of Phil 2:6-11. The “normal” god of civil religion combines patriotism and power; this is the god of many American leaders and of many Americans generally. (This god has, of course, had many other incarnations in human history.) Most especially idolatrous in light of our exegesis of Philippians 2 is the image of God (and/or of Christ) as military power incarnate, whether in the crusades or in Iraq or at Armageddon. As the Spanish historian-theologian Jaume Botey Vallès said about the political theology that underwrote the U.S. response to 9/11, including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the god of George W. Bush (and, we might add, of many presidents, prime ministers, and kings) is a god of military might. That simply is not the God revealed by Jesus, Vallès rightly says. Neither is it the cruciform God of Paul. In other words, military power of the cross, and such misconstrued notions of divine power have nothing to do with the majesty or holiness of the triune God known in the weakness of the cross. The “civil” god, though perfectly “normal,” is not only unholy; it is an idol.

Michael J. Gorman, Inhabitating the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology, 34-35.

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civil religion

So We get to Disavow Civil Religion now?

From the Times Online:

Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

…The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

So if we have a Christology and justifies and ensures Empire, we might be selfish and kill each other? That doesn’t sound like Christianity, that sounds like state religion. Boy do I love confusing the national god and God. Especially from people who should know better, Christians and Academics.

Personally, I think we should be on God’s side. Perhaps if they re-thought the question, it would’ve come out differently?

“God is my co-pilot”, what a narcissistic theology. Now we have proof it kills.

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civil religion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, political theology

Civil Religion is :P

I’ll just say this straight up, there is not intention here to fall into Godwin’s Law: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one” and when Nazi’s are mentioned, the argument is considered automatically lost.

Nevertheless, I’ve become more convinced about the “invisible” influence of Civil religion. Often this is clearly visible to us in the Nazis:

However, I find the conflation of Nazi Civil religion and their nationalistic Faith with Christianity all too similar to American Civil religion with its own form of Faith and Christianity. We ought not confuse Civil religion and Christian faith. In years past, American Civil religion was called manifest destiny — racist colonization by another name. Today, we find this coming straight from the lips of Messianic politics — quite obvious with Sarah Palin in her closing remarks for the VP debate, asserting with McCain an American exceptionalism and moral superiority based in some sort of faith (albeit not the Christian God, and I’ve already dealt with it here some months back) and less obvious with Obama’s assertion about the state in his closing remarks on that speech about race months back.

There is so much rhetoric this election cycle, I’m getting sick. Seriously, it makes me nauseous. To so easily confuse state salvation and justice with a Christian idea of salvation and justice, and to speak it over and over through the TV — functioning like theologians for the state — will kill us and thousands around the globe. How do we as participants in the Kingdom of God — peacemakers — really compete with this or is this country simply lost?

Jesus is Lord, and therefore, Caesar (our state) and Mammon (our economic system) is not.

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civil religion, quote

Gentile on Civil Religion

There is not, however, a contradiction between the principle of the separation of church and state asserted by the Constitution, and the profession of religious faith expressed by the mottos, symbols, and political rituals of the United States. The reason is that faith in God or the Almighty as expressed in symbols and political rituals of the American nation is the manifestation of a particular form of religion, one that does not correspond to any particular religion professed by the citizens of the United States. It is a civil religion, by which we mean a system of beliefs, values, myths, rituals, and symbols that confer an aura of sanctity on the United States as a political entity, and on the country’s institutions, history, and destiny in the world.

The American civil religion has its own “holy scriptures,” the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are treasured and venerated like the Tables of the Law. It has its own prophets, such as the Pilgrim Fathers. It celebrates its own sacred Heroes such as George Washington, the “American Moses” who freed the “new people of Israel” from slavery under the English and led them to the Promised Land of freedom, independence, and democracy. It venerates its martyrs, such as Abraham Lincoln, the sacrificial victim assassinated on Good Friday of 1865, after the American nation had been subjected to the purifying fires of a cruel civil war to expiate its guilt and reestablish the hallowed nature of its unity and mission. John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. then became further examples of martyrdom for this civil religion, alongside the figure of Lincoln. Like all religions, this civil religion has its own temples for the veneration of its leading figures, such as the monument to Washington, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington Cemetery, where the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is revered as a symbol for the citizens who fell to save their nation. Finally, the civil religion has its sermons and liturgy: the presidential inaugural speeches, Independence Day on 4 July, Thanksgiving Day, Memorial Day when the war dead are commemorated, and other collective ceremonies that celebrate personalities and events in American history turned by myth into a “sacred history” of a nation elected by God to fulfill its particular mission in the world.

Politics as Religion by Emilio Gentile

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