Flynn Hagee 2
Make no mistake – Michael Flynn’s assertion that the United States should be of “one religion” poses an even greater threat to Christianity than it does to democracy.
Elsewhere on Insight are several articles describing the remarks, context and injustice posed by the former National Security adviser to President Donald Trump. To recap, retired general Flynn – convicted of lying about his association with a Russian ambassador and later pardoned by President Trump – stated during the "ReAwaken America Tour," a conservative conference held in San Antonio, Texas: "If we are going to have one nation under God – which we must – we have to have one religion." Mr. Flynn cited as his authority Jesus’ words from Matthew 5:14: “‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.’”
CNN reports: “That's when Flynn triggered a wave of backlash with his suggestion America should have one singular religion. ‘One nation under God, and one religion under God,’ he said. ‘I don't care what your ecumenical service is or what you are.’"
The backlash predictably has focused on the United States’ time-honored tradition of the separation of church and state, codified most clearly in the First Amendment to the Constitution:” “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Politically the backlash against Mr. Flynn is spot-on. However, what concerns me even more is that so far there has been no public objection to his blatant misinterpretation of scripture from religious leaders because his remarks show once again how seriously far-right corruption has damaged Christianity in America.
The passage he quotes has nothing whatsoever to do with establishing Christian supremacy. If anything, Matthew 5:14 is the antithesis of Mr. Flynn’s remarks. Its context is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in which he offers his followers a set of behaviors that counter the prevailing culture of their Roman oppressors. Where Mr. Flynn would have his warped form of Christianity pre-eminent in the United States, Jesus taught his followers to behave in ways that most likely would perplex the civil leaders of their day. Jesus’ admonition was a call to personal holiness, to the kind of non-violent non-cooperation with injustice that inspired Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount were meant to establish new ways of living out faith that subverted the dominant paradigm of military power which enforced the blasphemy that Caesar was God. Being a “light of the world” doesn’t mean the kind of power over others that Mr. Flynn’s outrageous statement asserts. Being a “shining city set upon a hill” depicts a spiritual summit attainable only by self-negation and service to others, not the self-aggrandizing exclusion of all other beliefs.
There have been others in the past who’ve attempted to create the kind of state-mandated religion that Mr. Flynn proposes. Europe endured centuries of religious wars; those wars were the very dangers that Founding Father James Madison sought to forestall in writing the Bill of Rights. Most recently in human history, the political philosophy of Nazism rose to cult status under Adolf Hitler, and the same thing is happening with the far-right stranglehold on American politics and evangelical Christianity.
Even as we recognize that followers of Jesus are commanded to go into the world and make disciples (Matthew 28), Jesus himself cautioned against the evil of zealotry in Luke 9:49-50:
“John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.’” (NRSV*)
Decades of ecumenical and interfaith work that exemplify these words have eased much pain, reducing hunger, poverty, and deprivation. Yet Mr. Flynn and those misguided souls who applauded his words would have us commit the very atrocities of religious persecution that have plagued humans since the dawn of civilization.
There is only one way to counter the hijacking of American Christianity by Michael Flynn and those of his ilk: we must become an authentic version of the “shining city on a hill” that Jesus envisioned. Everywhere oppressive forces in our society sow division, we must work for unity without uniformity. We must speak out forcefully whenever our faith is misappropriated, yes, even at the risk of the kinds of insults and death threats that are happening ever more frequently. Now is a time when followers of Jesus will be sorely tested as to whether we truly will follow his teachings in a world gone mad. Let us pray that we, like our mothers and fathers in the faith, will have the courage to stand up to falsehoods that beget evil and point instead to the true light of Jesus Christ.
* New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible. Copyright 1989, 1996 by the Christian Education Committee of the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.