Yesterday, throughout the hours marking the inauguration of our forty-seventh president, the blessings of the Almighty were extensively and repeatedly invoked. Those attending the ceremonies, indeed the viewership around the globe, were undoubtedly – at least momentarily – struck by the manifestation of the religious fervor which seemed to grip our national leaders. While the sincerity of their prayers is not to be questioned, one may wonder what sentiments or expectations passed through their hearts and minds as they uttered and responded to them.
We Americans are sensitive to the faith, or lack of faith, others may have. We would consider it bad form, if not outright offense, to pass judgment on how others pray, or don’t pray. To the extent that we have one, our shared religion is what’s referred to as a civic religion, the limited tenets of which have generally to do with belief in a deity and afterlife, the reward of virtue, natural law and justice. The practice of this religion typically is manifested on civic or national holidays such as Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, as with yesterday, the inauguration of a President. On these occasions it is common for speakers to end their oratory with the words: “God bless America”.
When I hear this this rhetorical climax I often ask myself if it and others like it in which the name God is invoked are petitions or demands. Are they hortatory or imperative? The grammarians among you will recognize the former modality as one of exhortation or appeal, and the latter as one of instruction. Given the confusion and agnosticism about him in our secularizing culture, one might understandably wonder are those offering these prayers supplicants begging God’s mercy or taskmasters ordering his compliance. Or are there words merely scripted perorations included peremptorily in deference to our civic religion?
Perhaps these questions are farfetched. However, perhaps not. Consider the casual – and presumably unconscious – manner in which we exclaim “Oh, my God” when we are encountered by or alarmed by some unexpected development. It is a mindless habit. But what does it imply about our understanding of and relationship with our Creator? Do we know what we are saying? Are we reverent or irreverent? Is the absence of reverence irreverence? Is there a middle ground?
For anyone interested in the role of civic religion in our lives, this last question is worth pondering. If we are not reverent, are we necessarily irreverent? With morality we have morality and immorality. But we also have amorality. With faith we have faithful and unfaithful. But we also have faithless. Morality and faith, it would seem, have middle grounds. But what about reverence? To repeat, is the lack of reverence necessarily irreverence?
One could argue that the absence of reverence for God is due to the absence of knowledge of God and therefore cannot be considered irreverent. But, our civic religion and our natural instinct recognize the existence of some deity. What’s missing isn’t the lack of natural awareness, but informed instruction.
At yesterday’s inauguration ceremony there was a genuine sense of reverence. Could this be indicative of a burgeoning religious revival in our nation? Let us hope so. And – to be hortatory about it – let us urge donors in the nation to direct their philanthropy to churches, synagogues and mosques that cultivate this renaissance. It is in such a way that the Kingdom will advance.
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