Photo Courtesy of Richard L. Bryant
America-Jesus
In a recent issue of "The Pen," a liberal newsletter, the writer posed the question, "Which founding father said this?"
"The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to our people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state."
He then wrote, "No, it wasn't Thomas Jefferson, nor Alexander Hamilton, nor James Madison either. Benjamin Franklin, no way.
"No, it was Adolf Hitler, the founding father of Nazi Germany, from his first radio speech to the German people, in his newly appointed position as Reich Chancellor, on January 31, 1933."
The writer claimed that President Trump rarely ever read the Bible but he kept by his bedside and read nearly daily the speeches of Adolf Hitler. The writer gave the first Mrs. Trump as the source of his information.
For the fun of it, let's presume that the conservative religious leaders are right that America was meant to be a Christian nation. And we can ignore whether or not Hitler influences President Trump more than Jesus does.
Which Christian faith should we build our nation upon? I've heard Mr. Trump likes Norman Vincent Peale and his "Power of Positive Thinking." Mr. Trump's personal chaplain tends to that kind of thinking. Anyone who knows of Karl Barth's theology – particularly his concept of humanity's inherently sinful nature – would die laughing at the shallowness and selfishness of that theology and would never go along with using Peale as the focus of the new theocracy.
My own denomination developed in parallel with and is organized very similarly to the U. S. government. I would be tempted to hope that the theocracy built on John Wesley's viewpoint of grace above all would be just right. But we United Methodists would have a problem. Those of us from the more liberal schools of theology would put a theocracy together one way. Those from a more conservative seminary would put it together another. The conservatives would not be satisfied with our theocracy nor we liberals with theirs.
And what of our Lutheran or Roman Catholic citizens? Their denominations are already the state religion of many European countries. They'd be ready to go right now as far as establishing their denominations as our national theocracy.
Guess what, folks? There ain't none of us that would be happy with someone else's denomination being in charge of our nation and having the privilege of the last word theologically and politically.
Why do you think the forefathers wanted to avoid a national religion and chose a secular state in which all religions had equal freedom? They saw how the religious wars in England tore it up over the centuries and still roils under the surface between Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics. The KKK in our country and some of the white supremacist militias with similar theology have used violence against Catholics, Jews, and people of many ethnicities in our lifetime. These radical right religionists would never accept Jesus talking about how God will judge us on our treatment of strangers, the sick, the hungry (Matthew 25: 31-46) or doing unto others as we would have them do unto us (Matthew 7:12).
"Our kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said (John 18:36). Too many people forget that.
I'm partial to allowing religious freedom and not requiring everyone to abide by my religion. That's America to me.
The Rev. Jerry Eckert of Port Charlotte, Fla., is a retired clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual Conference.