American Religion? Peter Leithart Over on the Fir…

American Religion?
Peter Leithart

Over on the First Things web site, Michael and Jana Novak offer some Independence Day reflections on the meaning of a nation being “under God.” They trace Lincoln’s claims about the “new birth of liberty” and “nation under God” to Washington and Parson Weems, Washington’s biographer, suggesting that Lincoln’s Gettysburg address echoes Washington’s words like “mystic chords.”

Quoting from Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, in which the first President identified the God of the Exodus as the God of America, and named him “Jehovah,” they conclude:

“To understand the public religion of America from its beginnings until now, it is essential to study the language, the conceptual structure, and the presuppositions about world order that quietly and ‘on deep background’ formed the minds of Washington, Lincoln, and all successful leaders who have been able to touch most deeply the soul of the American people.

“This same public religion, which is accessible to atheists and agnostics in their own fashion, should always echo in the minds of children, as in grown men and women, so that the spirit of liberty may thrive forever, beyond the power of any Caesar to add or to subtract.”

But what sort of public religion is this that honors the Jehovah of the synagogue, and is accessible to “atheists and agnostics in their own fashion”? It is certainly not Christianity, which knows only one God who is accessible through the one Mediator Jesus. It’s the American religion, which is all religions and none.

Worse, the Novaks’ public religion provides no bulwark against the power of Caesar, since it is nothing but American Caesarism. Its Scriptures are the Declaration and the Constitution, its sacraments fireworks and the flag, its prophets Lincoln and Washington, its church, if not its god, America herself.