Rededication

     “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, / the people whom [God] has chosen as [God’s] heritage” (v. 12). So says the writer of Psalm 33, and so claim many Christians in our day who are willing to distort the words of scripture for their own political and ideological ends. Let me state categorically: the nation the psalmist refers to in verse 12 is not the United States of America. And it never will be. Our Constitution prohibits it.

     Last weekend a sizable crowd gathered on the National Mall for a prayer rally called “Rededicate 250,” part of the festivities surrounding the US’s semiquincentennial (say that three times fast). Except for one orthodox rabbi (and, arguably, the president), every speaker and performer at the event was a Christian, most if not all of the evangelical variety. They promoted a Christian nationalistic view of our country, claiming that the US was founded on Christian principles and that many of the founders spoke and wrote and acted out of their profound Christian faith. While it may be true that elements of the Judeo-Christian ethic form part of the background of our laws and customs, and that some of the founders were indeed devout Christians, the Christianity they professed was quite different from that which was on display on the Mall on Sunday. It is also true that some of the most influential of the founders of our nation were Deists who were more committed to human rationality than divine inspiration.

     Besides, from the earliest colonial times, America has been inhabited not only by Christians of various stripes but also by Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and those who follow Indigenous spiritual practices. Sure, Christianity was (and is) the majority religion, but it was (and is) not the only religion, and the framers of the Constitution were careful to protect, simultaneously, religion from government overreach and the government from takeover by religious factions. It’s a system that has worked for 250 years, and it’s a system that many Christians would be happy to get rid of immediately if not sooner.

     At the rally, on a video from the Oval Office, President Trump read from 2 Chronicles 7, a favorite text of the Christian nationalist movement. It reads, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chr 7:14). In its proper context, this is God’s response to Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. It was spoken to a people who were firmly committed to a theocratic form of government—a form that is also reflected in Psalm 33:12’s mention of the nation whose God is the Lord. To take these ideas out of their ancient context and try to impose them on the stubbornly secular context of modern American society is to do violence to the text and the Constitution both.

     It’s fine to hold prayer rallies. It’s fine to encourage people to read their Bibles. It is not fine to claim that the words of the Bible, written several thousand years ago in a vastly different setting, prove that our nation in 2026 is God’s favorite and white evangelical Christians are God’s chosen people. That is not acceptable from either an American or a Christian standpoint. On the American side it violates the First Amendment’s clear separation of church and state. On the Christian side it violates the biblical prohibition of idolatry and Jesus’s declaration that no one can serve two masters. He was talking about God and money as the two competing powers, but “money” is easily replaced in this scenario by “nation.” To paraphrase him, “You cannot serve both God and country.”

     If we have to make a choice, and I firmly believe we do, I choose God. Not the malleable and partisan God of Christian nationalism and American civil religion, but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God Jesus called Abba. The God who calls us out of all our idolatries and “isms”—racism, sexism, capitalism, communism, nationalism, and so on—and into the light of Christ. God calls us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. And God doesn’t ask to see our papers or demand ideological conformity; God simply asks for obedience based in love.

     If we’re going to rededicate ourselves, let us rededicate ourselves to that kind of loving obedience. Let us truly humble ourselves and seek God’s face. Let us be proud and patriotic Americans but also committed followers of Jesus. And let us get those two things in the right order.