As you can see, my sermon title is in a form of a question, “A Secular Nation Under God?”  It begs two further questions.  Are we a secular nation?   And if so, does God have place in it?   The answer I believe to both is yes. And may it always be so. 

In our country’s last general election some startling facts emerged.

1.       Those who voted most for the present administration were persons who attended worship more than those who voted against it. 

2.       Even though the Democratic candidate John Kerry was a Roman Catholic, for the first time in history more Roman Catholics voted for the Republican candidate.

What was clearly the case; no election before had been so decided by religious attitudes than this one and everyone seems to be wondering why.  Easy answers are available.  Republicans have better moral values than Democrats.  Democrats are too liberal, permissive and secular.  Since the first rule in politics is to get elected, both major parties are now re-shaping their platforms high lighting religious values, but not always for the best of reasons. 

While it is also world wide, it is obvious that a great cultural war is in progress here in our Red and Blue states, and it’s a battle between evangelical/fundamentalist religions and the mainline less orthodox believers; between religious conservatives and religious liberals.  And the former seem better organized and more in number.

But at no time have our religious differences been so heated.  Extremism is in.  Diversity and inclusion are on the ropes.

In his new book, American Theocracy – The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Kevin Phillip claims we are closer to a religious take over of our country than ever before.  Jon Meacham tries to balance the religious extremes in his new book, American Gospel, by examining the delicate balance between the secular and religious values that long held this country together, but even so he is worried. 

Jim Wallis, himself an evangelical Christian, states his view in his new book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.  That book I have not read but the title speaks for itself.

Most recently, in response to the last election, forty prominent religious leaders and 40,000 other citizens sign a petition claiming that “God is not a Republican, or a Democrat.”  Hopefully that is not news to any one here.

But never before have so many pulpits stated or implied which candidates they favored, even though out right endorsement is against the law.  And if not from their pulpits, ministers have done so openly and in the media such as when Jerry Falwell declared before the last election, “It is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, every traditional Jew, every Reagan Democrat, and everyone in between, to get serious about re-electing President Bush.”

Well it is true, and I think sad, that the most prominent religious leaders known in the United States today are far to the right.  And mostly what they say is the opposite of what this church stands for. 

Let me just bring up a few quotes from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who, while we were still trying to recover bodies after the 9/11 terrorist attack went on TV.

Falwell:  “…God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

Robertson:  “Jerry, that’s my feeling.”

Falwell:  But, throwing God out successfully with help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools.  The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked…I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make than an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

Robertson:  Well, I totally concur.”

Well, that’s pretty bad and besides it is not even close to the truth.

Unfortunately other more sincere people think that way.

It is true that the moderate mainline churches so strongly identified with our country’s history, Congregationalist, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and a few others, have decreased both in membership and influence in our land. The reasons for this are varied.  But what is true is that all of these denominations are being systematically attacked by a well organized and funded conservative minorities who want these churches to return to the orthodoxy of the past, which would be less inclusive and less diverse. 

But it is not a time for these churches to move backwards.  What they all need is a more rational understanding of our faith, to uphold the prophetic tradition of justice and equality for all, that we are all made in God’s image, that we all count and we are all called to higher calling of love for one another, including our enemies.  This is the witness to make no matter our numbers.  This congregation knows that diversity is a strength not a weakness; that religious values are not narrow but meant to be more embracing. 

Jesus saw poverty, exorbitant wealth, ecology, war, freedom, how we treat the outcast, the stranger, the refugee, all as moral, spiritual issues.  His message was one of inclusion and diversity and he asked us to help bring Heaven to earth, the beloved community for all. Jesus message was and is quite a liberal agenda and we ought to not hesitate about it. But too often the downfall of liberal religion, besides its hesitancy to be judgmental, is that we have made our liberal convictions, in the words of JD Salinger, only “a nice hobby.”  Whether one agrees with the religious right or not it is clear they have made their principles clear and have exercised them.  And they have every right to do so 

Ever since the founding of such groups as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition some twenty-five years ago, extreme fundamentalist groups are gaining power. We witnessed this in our city a few years back when a Christian coalition promoted Article XII in our city charter declaring in law that gays and lesbians have no protected status in our city.  

Because our Constitution protects the “free exercise of religion” your would expect all kinds or religious movements to be formed.  Well they are and some are rather scary. 

Recently emerging is a sizeable group called the dominionists who are seeking to take control of every political office.  Some are part of so called Reconstruction Movement, whose aim is to turn our government into a theocracy, to turn back the Enlightenment of these past several hundred years, declaring this to be a Christian nation and should only be run by strict biblical laws including all of those in the Hebrew scriptures except those laws superseded by those in the New Testament!  They claim this nation was founded for Christians, to be the New Jerusalem, and to be run strictly by those who claim Christ alone as their savior.  They sound like the Taliban of Afghanistan or the hard fundamentalist of any religion.

Even as I believe our churches must return to our own roots, the gospel that Jesus himself delivered and lived before it was hardened into dogmatic straight jackets, it is also a good exercise if we return to the vision of our nation’s founders who risked their lives to make possible this the freest country in the world - but one now in deep trouble.  

Let me do just that this morning, to take a few moments to remind us of our religious history in this land.

First of all, even though the hard right is opposed to all forms of secularism, we do need to reaffirm that we do have a secular state, a Republic that was democratically founded by the consent of the people.  It is the very first secular government in history and we ought to be thankful for it.  Only a secular state can insure religious freedom and that is why we have never declared we are a Christian nation.  And religious freedom is what we have in abundance.  Our constitution guarantees it. 

Let me remind us how it does.  When our relationship to Great Britain no longer allowed us to freely govern ourselves, we declared in our Declaration in 1776:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.  (Therefore…)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The colonies then listed their grievances, which were many, justifying their revolution.  And then they concluded:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Notice the basis for our unalienable rights.  They are due both to the laws of nature and of nature’s God.  Further they are endowed by the Creator and equally applied to every one of us.  (Presbyterians are a little proud that the only minister to sign the Declaration was the Presbyterian, John Witherspoon.)

However, when it came time to draw up and approved the Constitution twelve years later, the language is quite secular.  Indeed, there is no mention of God in our Constitution and this was deliberate.  The preamble reads:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Constitution, as quite clearly stated, is ordained by the people.  It is our social contract and it is our responsibility.  We placed the crown of sovereignty on our own collective heads.  It is, as it were, our act of faith. 

But clearly our secular government was not constructed out of a religious vacuum.  Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, perhaps our most liberal jurist, and no orthodox Christian, made this clear when he wrote in one of his decisions that “We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

And so it was that our Constitution, the contract we agreed to among ourselves, was made “with firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence.”  And so would emerge two of our enduring mottoes: One secular, "E Pluribus Unum" Latin for "One from many", and one religious, “In God we trust.” 

But as to the later it is important to note that which God is not named.  What is meant here by deity is a reference to that Ultimate Reality that each is guided by – a reality higher than the government.  The founders use many names for that ultimate reality and avoided sectarian names.  That called it the First Cause, or the Author of all Good, or Nature’s God, or the Creator, or the Supreme Judge, and most often Divine Providence, all names that were not exclusive to a particular religious sect. 

The only reference to religion in the Constitution and all of its articles and 27 amendments, is as follows but they are very important:

In the first amendment it is stated that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

And Article six states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  Any person could run for office regardless of their particular faith or no faith.

Of course, the first amendment is the key in our secular government.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 

There has probably been no greater spiritual value written into law than this.  And because of this constitutional law, more religious freedom has been exercised in this land than at any other time in history.  Indeed without it, each state would probably decide its own religion and who could be a citizen, and we would undoubtedly be involved in religious wars which have plagued history and continues to do so in this world today. 

But the Constitution gives the same rights of worship to all. In this land, including the Falwells and the Robertsons, all are on the same equal spiritual playing field.  Religious freedom and civil liberty always go hand and hand.

Let me give you an amazing example.  Even when our government has declared a state of war, which is one of their solemn duties, we have at the same time ruled that a person cannot be forced to fight in it if it is against an individual’s sincere religious or ideological principles, even if that person is an atheist.  It is decided on a case by case basis.

This does not mean, however, that the State will agree or even allow whatever religious convictions would lead to.  The state protects one’s belief but not individual practice. 

In the United States, laws can and has prohibit practices such as bigamy, sex with children, human sacrifice, use of certain drugs, or other criminal acts, even if one claims that they are part of the exercise of their religious beliefs.  But it also means such religious practices are to be limited by our courts only to the extend necessary for the common good, only those practices that demonstrate a compelling state interest in protecting citizens from bodily harm.

It is popularly believed that we have a separation of church and state in this country and we might add a separation of church, or synagogue, or mosque, or what have you.  But there is no brick wall between religious convictions and the state.  Religion and politics will always mix in some way.   What we have is actually a separation of powers.  The state does have the ultimate power of the sword over us.  But at the same time the state acknowledges that religion has its free exercise right as well. The power religion has is primarily that of persuasion

The state rules; the religious freely proclaims.

We are free to challenge the state openly and, indeed, we are encouraged to do so.  We Presbyterians have done that many times since our country was founded. And most recently we declared that the war in Iraq “to be unwise, immoral and illegal.”  But as Professor Lawrence Tribe reminds us, “In a democracy, voting and persuasion are all we have.”  And that is what we have and must exercise when we approach and vote in our next November election.

All this in keeping with our own Christian faith.  You recall from our scripture how Jesus was asked the loaded question, “Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”  Of course Jesus knew a yes or no answer would not satisfy the crowd. No, would surely find him guilty of treason by Rome.  And yes, would anger those of his country who were already taxed to death, and also alienate those who wanted to stage their own revolutionary war against Rome, which Jesus knew would be futile.

So Jesus asked for a coin.  Holding it up he asked whose inscription was on it?  Caesar’s came the reply.  “Then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”  It was a clever answer to be sure.  But it was far more than that.  It even contained the seeds of revolution.  It certainly wasn’t an argument against government only what kind of government.  It certainly was not an argument against taxes for Jesus would not be against any tax that helped equalize the economy or as a responsibility we all have to support the common welfare.

What he was reminding everyone was about priorities.  He was saying that whatever we render unto the government must be thought through under our first allegiance, which is to God, who cares for all and excludes no one.  Yes there is place for the state; but no state has our final allegiance.   

This tension between the state and a person’s faith, which Jesus certainly believed existed, took an interesting twist in what Paul wrote to the churches in Rome.  In a staggering passage he wrote:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.  Whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.”  

No text in the Bible has been used more by emperors, dictators, or established governments, to keep people in their place and under their thumb than this text.  One wonders if Paul would have written this if he knew that the state would soon execute him.  But what he said about the state was in keeping with Jesus teaching. 

When Hitler was raising his ugly agenda for Germany it was just this text that kept the largely Lutheran Christians hesitant from challenging him thinking their proper realm was the spiritual realm and the state had its own separate realm and divine backing. 

The Presbyterian history regarding the role of the state and church was different and more dynamic.  Calvin, who I find was not always right, did realize that the magistrate, that is the government, had its proper role, but he also knew that our allegiance to it was depended on it being just and benevolent.  If not, we must challenge and remove it.  That is just what our early revolutionists did in 1776.

There will always be tension between government and religion but in our land, as we have just witness, it has brought about the greatest individual freedom and allowed for the greatest religious practice of any country.  But it was not with out a struggle and some times we failed our inclusive practice with our destruction of Native American cultures, the ravages of slavery, the horrors of the Civil War, and the bitterness of Jim Crow, as Jon Meacham points out in his American Gospel.

But the blessings that we all cherish in our land, even though we have not always brought these blessings to everyone, was largely due to the faith of our founders, such as Washington, Franklyn, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, among others.  What is being fermented today, especially from those of the hard religious right, is a concerted effort to have us believe these founders were orthodox Christians who would be against what our nation has now become.   But in fact, our founders were not so orthodox and their beliefs differed greatly from those whose who are singing today, ‘give us that old time religion.’

Yes these founders were remarkable, even noble men, and they knew the scriptures better that most know it today.   And most of them aligned themselves with churches but they were a diverse group theologically.  All of those I just named question current Christian doctrines, especially many of the liturgical practices and doctrines such as the trinity, Biblical infallibility, the nature of Jesus, and the means of salvation.  Some who were orthodox at least had a softer edge and were far less judgmental. 

Most of the Founders had been influence by Deism which held reason to be the key to understanding truth and that nature itself exhibited God’s providential care.  Most had left Puritanism behind and accepted Unitarian principles as did Adams.  Jefferson abhorred religious dogmatism and was considered by many as a heretic, which in many ways he was, even though he openly confessed that he thought, “the precepts of Jesus as delivered by himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to mankind.”   

Above all, these founders, as did their spouses, valued freedom of conscience and opposed all forms of religious tyranny.  Still no one held to everyone’s right to the free exercise of religion more than they.  They all believe in a future life and that in the end they could only hope that the actions of their lives, not their creed, would find favor both before their fellow citizens and their God.

The wise and multi gifted Ben Franklyn just before his death described his own faith, and with his usual wit.  It was a faith that was in keeping with many of the founders.

“I believe in one God, creator of the universe.  That he governs it by his Providence.  The he ought to be worshiped.  Threat the most acceptable service we can render to him is doing good to his other children.  That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. 

These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth…I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have…some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.”

The founders were practical men, after all they were politicians.  But they were not extreme ideologues, nor were they unaware of their own shortcomings.  But they were convinced about the need in our society of moral, religious, and graceful lives.  They believed in diversity and they were more inclusive of others than many who are religious today.  They were convinced that our essential human rights of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness are of Divine origin and are meant for every one. 

Lincoln, who was very much like the founders, would later reaffirm during another troubled time that these same sacred rights were given by the Creator for one and all.   No one, he said, “stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbrued by its fellows.” 

That we sorely need to regain the more inclusive and less judgmental attitudes of our nation founders is the message I wanted to share today, lest we forget.

I do think their views are in keeping with what this congregation has done and seeks to stand for.  I pray only that your tribe will continue.

Yes, even though you may feel at times that your ship is so small and the sea so great, may you continue to be that city, nay that congregation, built on a hill, and from this hill serve well, and with a public voice, the causes of liberty and equality as did they.

But even more, to do such as the loving founder of our faith has said, “By rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God’s what is God’s.”  Amen.  

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There have been quite a few good books out about our Founders these past several years.

Two I highly recommend that came out this year are:

American Gospel:  God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, by Jon Meacham.

The Faiths of Our Founders, David L. Holmes

Also see the August, 2006 “Cincinnati” magazine “With God on Their Side?” p 102