Israel, Hamas, and the Deep Human Tragedy of Occupation

The end of September and beginning of October saw my Global War on Terror class discussing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict during the 2000s and early 2010s (I’m teaching this class backwards – from the present back to 100 years ago.  It’s been interesting…but that’s another story for another day).  Given the events of the last two weeks, I feel like I won’t have any problem linking all of the problems we’ve been talking about to current events.  However, as I’ve watched the news over the last day, I’ve seen a lot of overly simplistic opinions about this conflict.  While I certainly don’t have any answers (okay, I do, but none that would be given any traction in American foreign policy circles), I do want to try to add some necessary background to this latest and most gruesome chapter in the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Some Background

As antisemitism increased around the world – particularly in Europe and Russia, Jews began looking for places where they could go to escape pogroms (see Russia in the late-19th and early 20th centuries), antisemitic conspiracy theories (see Protocols of the Elders of Zion, also originating in Russia), and false accusations of malfeasance based on antisemitic tropes (see The Dreyfus Affair in France in the late-19th century).  Theodor Herzl, a secular Jew from Austria, wrote the foundational text of Jewish nationalism (Zionism), Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”), in which he argued that expanding antisemitism required the creation of a state where Jews could be free from persecution.  While his preference was the creation of that state in Palestine, he also floated the idea of purchasing land in Argentina as a possibility.  

It cannot be overstated here that at this point, this conflict was not religious at all.  Herzl and other early Zionists were thoroughly secular.  Herzl himself found Jerusalem to be a backwards, premodern place unbefitting a modern people.  He also had little use for the Jews of Palestine at the time who were far too tied to religion for his taste.  Nevertheless, the historic ties to Palestine were too strong for the Jewish people to ignore and they began immigrating to the Holy Land in waves (called aliyah) beginning in the early 1880s, first from Russia, then from Europe.

Prior to 1920, when the Ottoman Empire was officially carved up by the European powers, Jews and indigenous Arabs in what was then the Ottoman province of Palestine generally coexisted.  However, once the British assumed control of territory and Jews and Arabs began espousing competing nationalist sentiments, conflicts escalated and fighting became more common.  After World War II, the British, demoralized and cash-strapped, abandoned the former Mandate of Palestine, leaving it to the newly-formed United Nations to figure out.  The UN was equally unsure (and unprepared) to deal with the mess in Palestine, and eventually the Jews took matters into their own hands.  The Israeli Declaration of Independence was read by David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, standing under a picture of Theodor Herzl on May 14, 1948.

War broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors almost immediately and continued until January 1949.  The Armistice Line of 1949 gave us the map that we basically still have today:

The Gaza Strip was more or less autonomous for a decade before Egypt put its foot down there in 1959, an unrelenting occupation that would continue until the Israeli military victory in June, 1967.  The West Bank was formally annexed by Jordan in late-1950 with Palestinians there accepting Jordanian rule.  Palestinians in the West Bank were granted Jordanian citizenship and allowed to run for seats in Jordan’s parliament.  Despite the defeat of Jordan in 1967, Palestinians retained Jordanian citizenship until 1988 when Jordan officially severed claims to the territory and recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the sole representative of Palestinian national aspirations.

While May 1948 was seen by Israelis as the culmination of decades of struggle, Palestinians saw it much differently.  Among Palestinians, 1948 is called al-Nakba (“the catastrophe”).  Palestinians living in the newly declared state of Israel were forced out and into refugee camps, marking the beginning of the Palestinian refugee crisis.  That crisis was only exacerbated by the June 1967 War.

The June 1967 War completely changed the calculus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  At the end of the war, Israel had claimed and occupied the Gaza Strip and Sinai peninsula (from Egypt), the West Bank – including East Jerusalem (from Jordan), and the Golan Heights (from Syria).  The capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan added a new religious layer to the conflict as the Old City and all of the Holy Sites are there and had, thus, been under Jordanian control for close to 20 years, and Jordan had refused to allow Jewish pilgrimage to the Old City during that time (despite a UN resolution requiring it).  When Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan visited the newly liberated Western Wall, he famously said, “We have returned to the holiest of our Holy Places, never to part from it again.”  

This sentiment was echoed and, in many cases, magnified by religious Israelis who saw it as their obligation to reclaim all of historic Palestine which they believed was given to them by God in perpetuity.  Therefore, shortly after Israel’s victory in 1967, construction on Israeli settlements throughout the territories it occupied began.  Palestinians and many international human rights organizations claim this to be a violation of international law, specifically the 4th Geneva Convention which renders it unlawful for a civilian population to be transferred to militarily occupied lands.

Six years later, the greatest intelligence failure in Israeli history (until Oct. 7) happened when Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel during Yom Kippur (October 6, 1973) to attempt to regain control of the Sinai Peninsula, especially the east bank of the Suez Canal.  When the conflict ended, Egypt survived, regained control of Suez, and eventually secured a peace accord with Israel which gave them all of the Sinai back (the Camp David Accords, signed in 1978).

A poster displayed at the Egyptian Military Museum commemorating the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The "Invincible Army" is Israel. This is, at best, revisionist history.

The next decade marked a deterioration in conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially Gaza.  Settlements began to proliferate, and Israel dispatched military units to protect them, limiting the movement of Palestinians and subjecting them to curfews, collective punishments, home demolitions, extended detentions, and excessive wait times at security checkpoints to enter Israel where many Gazans worked.  During the late 1970s and early 80s, Palestinian leadership – in the form of Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) – was in exile, first in Beirut (from which they were expelled during the Lebanese Civil War) then in Tunisia.  While the PLO was secular, the local organizations that emerged in Gaza during this time were decidedly Islamist and affiliated, at least nominally, with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gaza was a tinderbox by the time 1987 rolled around, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that what was a seemingly ordinary event (an Israeli settler was stabbed in Gaza, then an Israeli military vehicle veered into a line of Palestinian cars, killing several) spawned a massive wave of protests among the Palestinians called the Intifada (Arabic for “to shake something off.”  Here, that something is occupation).  The First Intifada was a largely nonviolent protest movement that included work stoppages, sit-ins, barricades, and throwing rocks at the Israeli military.  Israel’s often excessive responses drew widespread international condemnation and, for the first time, international attention and sympathy for the Palestinian cause.  

Let the reader understand: Prior to December 1987, the Palestinians were little more than bit players in the drama that surrounded them.  They had no government, no military, no police force, and only shaky representation on the international stage.  Events happened to them, rather than the Palestinians having any power to actually shape events for themselves.  What’s more, except for the Jordanians, every nation surrounding the Palestinians was actively hostile to them in some way or another, none more so than Israel.  The First Intifiada was the first time that the Palestinians took center stage in their own struggle.  It was also the event that marked the genesis of Hamas.

Understanding Hamas

Hamas is a terrorist organization, but it’s not only a terrorist organization.  It’s a political party, but also a social movement.  It’s both an “anti-system” party and semi-democratic (when the circumstances are right).  In other words, to pigeon hole Hamas or worse, to pigeon hole “supporters” of Hamas as one thing or another misses lots of nuance.

Hamas was created in the immediate aftermath of the First Intifada and moved quickly to organize on the ground in Gaza to help those who were participating in protests.  With the PLO in exile, Hamas was better positioned to render aid and, therefore, gain popular support among Palestinians.  In 1988, Hamas published its charter which was unequivocal in its desire to destroy the state of Israel.  This message was reiterated in a pamphlet published in the summer of 1988, unambiguously titled “From the Sea to the River,” a reference to a desire to create a Palestinian state (and thus destroy Israel) from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.  However, for all of its anti-Israeli sentiment, Hamas did not carry out any suicide attacks within Israeli borders until April 1994, in response to Israeli settler violence at the Mosque of the Patriarchs in Hebron which left 29 Palestinians dead and over 100 injured.  While Hamas was planning and thinking about how best to carry out suicide attacks for several years by that point, the timing of this first attack cannot be ignored.

While suicide attacks are what Hamas is infamous for, that is not the only thing the organization provides.  In fact, most of Hamas’ yearly expenditures are allocated to social services: housing and unemployment assistance, food pantries and soup kitchens, schools and playgrounds, hospitals and medical clinics.  These services are especially important in Gaza where, after Israeli “disengagement” in 2005, Palestinians have been unable to travel outside of the territory except in extreme circumstances related to medical needs.  It’s easy to label Hamas’ motivations for providing this aid to Gazans as craven – after all, people are a lot more likely to ignore the violent aftertaste of suicide bombings when the organization carrying them out is also putting a roof over your family’s head, food on the table, and making your kids feel better when they get sick.  While there is certainly truth to this, the group is nevertheless providing vital services to the Palestinian people (and, it should be noted, with the tacit consent of Israel who allows Qatar to funnel money for humanitarian projects to the group).

Hamas has also been involved in political projects almost since its inception.  At first, its members ran for seats in professional and student unions throughout the Palestinian Territories, abided by election results, and opposed PA attempts to appoint rather than elect mayors and municipal councils as antidemocratic.  Eventually, they would run for positions on city councils, though the question of whether to participate in parliamentary elections was a much thornier one because of concerns that running for seats in a national governing body created by the Oslo Accords might mean implicit acceptance of the peace agreement which Hamas roundly panned as selling out the Palestinian cause.  

When Hamas finally came around to the importance of competing for seats in parliamentary elections, mostly to combat the corruption that was rampant in the PA, its victory in such endeavors was thwarted – not just by factions of the PLO, but by the United States as well, which supported efforts by Yasser Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, to undermine Hamas’ electoral success.  Hamas, for its part, chose to participate in the 2006 elections precisely because it hoped that its willingness to participate in the democratic process would cause international actors to take it more seriously as a representative of Palestinian national aspirations.  

Instead, the old guard of the PA (Abbas and company) watched as the US and other international actors cut off all international aid to the new government which led to massive strikes by government officials who couldn’t receive a salary.  Furthermore, as president of the PA, Abbas had the power to issue executive orders himself that undercut Hamas at every turn.  The net result was to completely freeze Hamas out of the political process which itself is currently in a state of suspended animation: there have been no presidential elections since 2005 (Abbas’ first term in office technically expired in 2009) and no parliamentary elections since 2006.  Because of Israel’s disengagement from and blockade of Gaza, the Palestinians now, functionally, have two competing governments – one in Gaza (Hamas) and one in the West Bank (the Palestinian Authority) – neither of which recognize the authority of the other.

However, it cannot be ignored that Hamas showed during the 2000s that it was willing to soften its rhetoric toward Israel when it felt that doing so would garner more support from the international community.  In 2002, one Hamas leader argued that if Israel would withdraw to the 1967 borders and agree to a long-term cease fire (at least two decades), the Palestinians would be so busy building their own state that they wouldn’t care what Israel was doing next door.  He was killed in an Israeli air strike the next year.  Hamas’ decision to participate in 2006 elections was similarly designed to show the international community that it was willing to work toward, if not peace, at least a cessation of hostilities, but that decision was met with massive resistance from the Palestinian Authority, the United States, and Israel.  The unilateral disengagement of Israel from Gaza in 2006 only exacerbated the problems in Gaza.  While Israel argues that it no longer “occupies” Gaza, it certainly controls Gaza as every border crossing, the shoreline, and the air are controlled by Israeli forces and people can only leave Gaza in cases of great medical hardship.

When I was in Israel in 2009, I took this picture along the main pedestrian thoroughfare in Bethlehem.  This is Hamas graffiti (the larger image is “Hamas” in Arabic, the longer phrase in the upper left hand corner of the picture is the full name of the organization, harakat al-muqawima al-Islamiyya, in Arabic).  

This was fairly emblematic of where the Palestinians were in 2009.  Familiarity bred contempt, and Hamas was seen more favorably in the West Bank because Palestinians there were sick of the corruption in the Palestinian Authority.  The situation in Gaza was somewhat different because Hamas was able to galvanize support after the Israeli military excursion known as Operation: Cast Lead in late-2008 and early-2009.  The Israeli Defense Forces were accused during Cast Lead of collective punishment, excessive use of force, and the use of white phosphorus weapons, which are known to cause painful burns on the skin of anyone exposed to them.  Hamas was accused of using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields and attacking civilians in Israel with indiscriminate missile strikes.  This was neither the first time nor the last that both sides have been accused of legion bad behaviors. This happens in nearly every military confrontation they have, including the current conflict.

Let the reader understand: Much of the news coverage of Hamas over the last two weeks has created a two-dimensional caricature of the organization.  It is possible to both recognize that Hamas’ tactics are criminal and that Hamas has changed and altered its rhetoric and behavior when the situation called for a different approach.  We must also confront the fact that Hamas’ intransigence cannot be divorced from Israeli actions toward the Palestinians.  While there is no guarantee that Hamas’ stated desire to work within the system after the 2006 elections would have come to fruition, it is absolutely certain that such moderation was never going to happen after the total Israeli blockade of Gaza and American support of PA actions to undermine the group’s ability to govern following its victory.  Furthermore, simply condemning Hamas as an organization that refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist ignores the internal debates in the organization about whether that is still truly representative of the group’s position or simply a rhetorical position that it takes when strategically convenient.  

Where We Are Today

The last two years have featured both an escalation in the conflict in the West Bank and a concomitant hardening of political positions among Israelis and Palestinians alike.  Prime Minister (again) Benjamin Netanyahu, long a hard-liner in Israeli politics, has appointed far right-wing ministers to his cabinet who are openly hostile to Palestinian nationalism and even the need to protect Palestinian human rights.  Under Netanyahu, settlements have expanded in the West Bank, which has led to increasing restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement along with the expected appropriation of Palestinian land by Israelis and the demolition of Palestinian neighborhoods, villages, and farmland.  Beatings, arrests, and deaths among Palestinians have also skyrocketed over the last two years with 2023 already on pace (prior to this conflict) to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories in the last 20 years.  Attacks by Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews against Palestinians as well as Israelis excursions to the top of the Temple Mount (home of the Dome of the Rock and off limits to Jews) have also increased with little to no effort by Israeli officials to deter them.

Despite Gaza no longer being “occupied” as such, there is no freedom in Gaza.  All of the border crossings are closed to Palestinians, there is an Israeli naval blockade, and Israeli drones and aircraft patrol the airspace above Gaza.  It is, in essence, an open air prison for almost 2 million people, half of whom live below the poverty line, nearly 50% of whom are unemployed, and the majority of whom are 18 or under with few prospects for a better life.  Furthermore, Gaza’s utilities are provided predominantly by Israel (the rest are provided by Egypt) who has been known to turn off the electricity to all or part of Gaza as collective punishment for attacks by militants (a violation of international law).  Because of fuel shortages (as fuel is also provided by Israel), hospitals in Gaza often face the reality of generator power that may or may not last until either the power is turned back on or fuel supplies can be replenished.

Let the reader understand: 75 years of occupation, refugee camps, and Israeli actions that amount to violations of international law and/or war crimes have created a sense of anger, resentment, and restiveness among the Palestinians.  In The West Wing’s four episode arc related to this issue, perhaps the most important observation comes from Kate Harper (played by Mary McCormick):

However repugnant Hamas’ activities – not just two weeks ago, but throughout its history – to divorce its actions from the on-going resistance to Israeli occupation ignores important context and ties the hands of everyone who wants to try to fix this situation.  The Palestinians have ample reason to continue to be angry with the Israeli government (and their own, for that matter).  Hamas cannot be bombed out of existence as long as the conditions that gave rise to its existence remain.  Over half of the residents of Gaza are now displaced; many of them have no homes to return to because of Israeli bombardment of their neighborhoods.  Eliminating Hamas’ command and control is a short-term fix that will not solve the real problem: until the Palestinians have freedom – freedom of movement, freedom to pursue economic opportunities, freedom to have a state of their own, the anger, the resentment that birthed Hamas will remain and in five or ten or fifteen years, the children who have lost most or all of their families in the last two weeks will be the next leaders of Hamas or something worse.

The Tragedy of Occupation

As we have learned more about the Israelis who were killed or kidnapped two weeks ago, the deep human tragedy of this whole ordeal, not just the events of October 7, but the circumstances that preceded it have become terribly apparent.  Many of the people Hamas killed or kidnapped were deeply committed to peace and to advocating for a new way of doing things that would make lives better for both Palestinians and Israelis.  One of the women who was kidnapped is a leader of an Israeli women’s organization whose sole purpose was the meet women and children leaving Gaza for medical treatment in Israel to accompany them to the hospital, keep them company, communicate with their families in Gaza, and ensure that those people were safe, cared for, and not alone.  These women realized that they could not convince Benjamin Netanyahu or his government to change their policies, but they could take steps to ease the discomfort of those Palestinians who needed medical care and were not given permission to have any family accompany them.  

Hamas has set the cause of the Palestinians back not just because they have given the Israeli government, already hostile to Palestinian demands for self-determination, an excuse to respond to its actions with massive military force, but also because they have trampled, maybe irreparably, on the goodwill of Israelis who want a different path forward, one that recognizes the shared humanity of Israelis and Palestinians and the shared desire to achieve a just and peaceful resolution to this 75-year-long conflict.

Hamas would not exist if not for Israeli occupation.  Hamas’ suicide bombings would not have begun if not for Israeli occupation.  The constant threat of violence against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians is a result of generations of Israeli politicians deciding to perpetuate an unjust occupation against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  What’s more, the deep human tragedy of the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories has only emboldened forces around the world who have contempt for Jewish and Muslim people.  Antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise around the world, and the events of the last two weeks have only made them more of a threat for Jewish and Muslim populations.  We have, sadly, seen the evidence of that play out in this country with the senseless killing of a young Palestinian boy in Chicago and this weekend’s murder of a Jewish leader in Detroit.  

At times like these, we must commit ourselves to being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.  We can both abhor the actions of Hamas and call for Israel to exercise restraint in its military response in Gaza.  We can condemn the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government while demanding that Israeli civilians, many of them deeply concerned with the actions of their government, be protected from violence.  We can recognize that the actions of Israeli politicians and Palestinian militants are deeply problematic and often unlawful while speaking out against rhetoric demanding collective guilt or violence against Jews and Muslims around the world.  

The excessive and terrible violence of Hamas’ attack on Israel two weeks ago must be roundly condemned.  However, that attack did not occur in a vacuum, and if we ignore the context of occupation and Israel’s policies that continue to violate the basic human rights of the Palestinian community, we cannot, will not be able to prevent another such tragedy from happening.  The United States must exhibit some real leadership and pressure the Israeli government to put an end to actions that are detrimental to a real and lasting peace.  What Hamas has done is unconscionable.  However, only one side here has any real power to end this conflict: the side with a functioning government and a powerful military.  Israel alone has the capability to end this violence once and for all.  The leadership in Israel right now has no desire to do so.  Unless and until there are real consequences to their continued oppression of the Palestinian people, this cycle of violence will continue and more people – innocent Israelis and Palestinians – will pay the price.

Why Evangelicals Suck at Sociology and Other Musings about Faith, Race, and the Way Forward

 The other night, I was on the phone with my best friend who was telling me about how she pissed off a bunch of rich white people in a Sunday School class at a suburban Baptist church which shall remain nameless.  How did she manage to piss folks off?  She suggested that acting like Jesus shouldn’t require folks to “pray about it.”  It should require people to, ya know, Act. Like. Jesus.  Either you believe that Jesus said to help the poor, visit those in prison, and care for the widow and orphan or you don’t.  No prayer necessary.  

The “Let’s pray about it” of it all gave rich white folks an excuse for inaction, to escape discomfort.  And so my best friend called them on it.  I told her (after I nearly fell off my couch laughing because...of course her Enneagram 8 self couldn’t keep her damn mouth shut) that I would have given anything to be there--if only to shout a hale and hearty “Amen!”  Needless to say, she hasn’t been back.

After a semester in which I walked my History of Religions class through the history of White American Christianity from the colonial era to the present, I have come to several conclusions--all interrelated.  I hope by the end of this blog post, all of these conclusions will coalesce into an explanation of why one group has a serious problem with the idea of “critical race theory” whatever they think THAT means (spoiler alert: they don’t have a clue) and why literally no one else does.  It’s an answer that applies to all sorts of issues--poverty, church sex abuse scandals, racism, xenophobia, etc.  

This blog post is directed at White Christian Americans.  It examines the history of White Christian America.  I don’t want anyone to get the impression that this is a condemnation of Christianity as a whole; it is not.  What it is is a call to repentance from White folks who have overwhelmingly benefitted from 400 years of American history which have overwhelmingly privileged those with light skin.  But first, a few threads to pull….

Premillennial Dispensationalism and Evangelical Fatalism

Uh oh….I just introduced a couple of $64,000 words into the discussion, didn’t I?  Fear not!  They aren’t quite as scary as they seem...except I have to introduce another $64,000 word now too.  Oops….Eschatology (the study of the end times) has always played an interesting role in American Christianity.  Prior to and, in places, after the Civil War, postmillennialism was de rigueur in most of the United States.  

Postmillennialism assumes that Jesus instituted his Kingdom on Earth before his death and through preaching, conversion, and evangelism Christians could create an environment in which Christ would return AFTER a millennium (1000 years) of Christ’s perfect Kingdom on Earth.  This was a pretty positive view of society--Christians living in harmony with each other.  So it’s easy to see why postmillennialism died off pretty quickly after the Civil War.  After all, the whole point of the Civil War was the DISharmony among people.  

After the Civil War, a wave of pessimism swept through American Christianity and premillennialism took over as the eschatological position of most American Christians.  Premillennialism argues that the world will continue to deteriorate (as it is a result of a sinful and fallen humanity) until Christ comes back to implement his millennial Kingdom.  One of the most popular iterations of premillennialism is dispensationalism.  Dispensationalism was popularized in the United States by C.I. Scofield and his Scofield Reference Bible.  

In essence, dispensationalism argued that God’s people had moved historically through a number of eras or dispensations (the number varies, though Scofield himself held to 7 dispensations).  Regardless of how many dispensations one acknowledges, everyone agrees that we are in the 6th dispensation--the age of grace.  At the end of the age of grace comes the Rapture (the bringing of all believers to Heaven) and the Tribulation (the earthly era of chaos and calamity for all non-believers in the hopes of bringing them to Christ).  Only once God’s wrath has been visited upon the non-believers will Christ’s 1000 year reign come.  Everyone with me so far?  Okay, good.

Premillennialism sees the problems of our current times as proof of an inherently fallen world that no one can fix because they are beyond humanity’s ability to fix; only divine intervention will set everything to right.  Because of its preoccupation with the sinfulness of man, it’s no surprise that many premillennialists are also Calvinists since Calvinism holds to the doctrine of original sin--that is, that Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden has been visited upon all of humanity and so only God’s grace which we do not deserve and cannot earn can save us.  More on this later….

The problem with premillennialism and Calvinism is that they both lend themselves to a certain degree of fatalism when it comes to confronting social issues--things are bad because people are sinful, and we can’t make them better so why try?  During the Civil Rights movement, Billy Graham exemplified this position when asked for his reaction to Martin Luther King’s speech at the March on Washington in 1963 (the “I Have a Dream” speech).  Graham said, “Only when Christ comes again will little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.”  

When “a personal relationship with Christ” Becomes an Idol

Much of White American Christianity, and definitely White American Evangelicalism, maintains the importance of being “born again.”  The idea of a conversion experience (first mentioned in John’s Gospel and perhaps most famously portrayed in Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus) is at the heart of many a church narrative.  Indeed, this is one of the four parts of the so-called “Bebbington Quadrilateral” which lots of folks point to as the defining characteristics of evangelicalism.  

I don’t put much stock in the uniqueness of any of the 4 things on Bebbington’s list to the evangelical experience, so we won’t go into them here.  But the idea of “asking Jesus into your heart” and Jesus as a personal savior is rampant in American Christianity.  Fun fact, as an aside: I do not consider myself “born again.”  I was never “saved.”  I simply don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe Jesus was important, so there was no reason to ask him into my heart when he was already there.  Just another reason I make a TERRIBLE evangelical.  But I digress….

The idea of a personal relationship with Jesus is not bad on its face; like most idols, it only becomes problematic when it assumes an outsized place in a person’s life.  Here’s the problem, then.  When one’s Christianity becomes about “my” salvation and “my” personal relationship with Christ, any outside factors become unimportant.  “My” sins have been forgiven, so I’m good, but the rest of you?  Yeah, you’re on your own.  AND, as we’ve already discussed, humanity is inherently sinful and we can only save ourselves by accepting God’s undeserved grace.  So when any social issue is raised, the response is typically, “Well, I’m not a *insert social problem here* so this isn’t my problem.”  

This response assumes that each of us lives in our own little bubble and that the problems outside of the church mean nothing to those in the sanctuary.  This insular way of thinking is a big part of King’s critique of his White Christian brothers and sisters in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”  A “personal relationship with Christ” is the theological brother of “rugged American individualism.”  As long as people see their actions as divorced from the consequences of those actions on those around them, they can absolve themselves of any necessity to take action to solve social problems.

Evangelism vs. Evangelicalism

So, I’ve snuck in another $64,000 word…which might actually be the root of a $64,000 question: what the hell is evangelicalism?  Well...no one really knows.  Or at least, no one can really define it.  The aforementioned Bebbington Quadrilateral lists being born again, activism, a belief in the Bible as the ultimate authority, and a belief in the importance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to redeem mankind.  George Marsden, one of the preeminent historians of American Christianity, once glibly defined an evangelical as “anyone who likes Billy Graham.”  When I was in Cairo, an evangelical was anyone who wasn’t Orthodox or Catholic.  However, lately evangelicalism has taken on a political tinge: An evangelical is a white person who votes Republican.  By the way, the literature review it would take to look at all of the definitional issues on evangelicalism would take PAGES.  Go Google it.  You’ll find all sorts of sources to walk you through the various approaches to defining the word.

I have this thing about definitions.  I think they’re important.  But defining evangelicalism is no easy task.  The problem is that different groups, different points of view result in different definitions.  At its heart, evangelicalism should be about the evangel (Greek for “good news”--what we would call, in English, the Gospel).  And, in the early history of evangelicalism, that is what it was about.  Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield are considered some of the precursors to modern evangelical movements in the United States.  However, with the ascension of religious folks into public, often political, life since the mid-20th century, the term has taken on an irredeemably political meaning as well.  And--precisely because I believe definitions matter--this means that evangelicalism should now be viewed as a political movement, not a religious one.  

What I believe should take precedence here is not evangelicalism which is an increasingly ideological and troublesome term, but evangelism.  “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  If this is the backbone of the Christian witness, then let’s get back to that.  Let’s also remember that the whole purpose of calling ourselves “Christian” is to follow Christ, to live out his example.  That’s the whole point of our baptismal covenant (“Buried with Christ in baptism; raised to walk in the newness of life.”).  We are followers of Christ.  We should look to his example in the Gospels (the evangel) to show us the way forward.  

Care for the least of these, be peacemakers, help the poor, the widows, and the orphans.  THIS is the way of the Lord.  Preach the Gospel all the time; when necessary, use words (NOT a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, to whom it is often attributed.  He also, while we’re killing St. Francis quote dreams, did not come up with the so-called “Prayer of St. Francis.”).  The evangel was--and is--revolutionary.  The last shall be first, and the first shall be last turns the balance of power in society completely on its head.  If we stick to evangelism, we might just get a lot farther as Christians than getting stuck in the constant cycle of arguing about whether Jesus was a Republican or a Democrat.

Why Evangelicals don’t do Sociology

A couple of weeks ago, one of my fellow teachers posted on Facebook, regarding all of the anti-Critical Race Theory legislation being passed around the country, that as history teachers, we cannot, nor should we shirk our responsibility to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly of our nation’s heritage.  One of the pastors at the church she attends commented (predictably) that racism was about the inherent fallenness of mankind and anything that looked at class-based theories put kids on a slippery slope toward Marxism.  

It was at this point that I realized that the primary disconnect between evangelicals and sociologists such as myself.  When people who have made an idol of a personal relationship with Jesus, who believe that all of the bad in the world is the result of the fallenness of man, only see social problems through an individualistic lens, they cannot, will not, see the social forest for the individual trees.  As a sociologist, I don’t have the time to look at each individual’s actions, beliefs, or level of sinfulness.  It’s simply impractical.   Sociology is the study of society, of social groups.  Sociologists must necessarily transcend the individual level in order to get anything accomplished because 7 billion case studies would be...a LOT.

When evangelicals look at racism, they see their own lives: “I’m not a racist.”  But individual racism is only the tip of the iceberg.  Restrictive housing covenants, criminal codes regarding drugs that unfairly target minorities, literacy tests given only to Blacks trying to register to vote, redlining and predatory lending practices, food deserts, underfunded schools, and the hyper policing of Black and Brown communities are among the things sociologists talk about when we talk about structural or institutional racism.  Falling back on the individualist view of sin and social problems absolves evangelicals of looking at how generations of white folks have benefitted from policies that not only helped them, but actively hurt minority communities.

This individualist vs. structural divide informs a number of social debates in the United States.  Sex abuse scandals are a result of the sin of those who have abused their power, not the misogyny that permeates complementarian doctrine or the structures and institutions that enabled that abuse to happen in the first place.  Gun violence is the result of the sinfulness of the individual gunmen, not the structures of toxic masculinity, the glorification of militance as manliness, and the idol of “individual protection” that lead people to act out in such ways.  Poverty is the result of individual choices, not the generational passing down of wealth (or the lack thereof) that affects an individual’s starting point in life.  Evangelicals simply cannot see the world in sociological terms because they have a blind spot to the interconnectedness of people groups, social problems, and the very real fact that nothing, not one thing, in life exists in a vacuum.  

When my best friend pushed back against the idea of “praying about it” before helping the poor (the context of this particular discussion in Sunday School), she was challenging the idolatry of a personal relationship with Jesus.  Before anyone can act or address an obvious social problem, they should pray about it as an individual because their salvation, their sin is paramount.  This is a total subversion of the Gospel message.  Jesus didn’t pray about whether he should help the poor; he just helped the poor.  Jesus didn’t pray about whether he should heal the leper or help the lame to walk or the blind to see; he simply did it--even when doing so was sure to irritate the religious leaders of his day.  A more truthful response would be “I don’t want to do this because it makes me uncomfortable.”  Not spiritually satisfying, but certainly more truthful.

Furthermore, the obsession with the inherent sinfulness of people (the Calvinism of it all) and the fact that said sinfulness is so deeply entrenched that only the second coming of Christ can serve as a corrective (the premillennialism of it all) means that evangelicals can simply throw up their hands and say, “See?  We can’t do anything about it!”  Again, this is a complete subversion of evangel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  He didn’t have a lot of patience for those who wanted to preserve the status quo.  He wanted his disciples to go and change the conversation.  He upended the status quo just as surely as he upended the money changers’ tables in the Temple.  At no point in his ministry did Jesus throw up his hands and say, “Oh well….Guess that’s just the way it is.”  If we claim to be followers of this Jesus character, we shouldn’t do that either.

If White evangelicalism is a corrupted movement, then what should we do?  How, then, shall we live?  We should live out an example in the image of Christ.  We should love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, upend the status quo when it inhibits progress (which is almost all of the time), and confront structural factors that maintain White supremacy.  We should be comfortable with discomfort, ready to confront our own biases, and accept that life has been unfairly good to people who won the genetic lottery.

Comforting the Afflicted…or Not: On Donald Trump’s Failure to Prop up the American Civil Religion

Anyone who has followed any of my blogs or heard my rants about the Pledge of Allegiance or patriotic worship services knows that I have quite the love-hate relationship with the American Civil Religion.  In the worst of times, it can be used to perpetuate jingoistic, often xenophobic, nationalism.  However, in the worst of times, it can also be used to unite the country when faced with a major crisis.  Unfortunately, under President Donald Trump, this is not happening.

So, what exactly is the American Civil Religion?  In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.”  The American Civil Religion is the lowest common denominator faith that allows us, as Americans, to create a national identity.  It has its own priests, prophets, sacred symbols, hymns, holidays, and scriptures.  Furthermore, there are two types of civil religion: the priestly and the prophetic.  The prophetic civil religion is my favorite!  This is where non-conformists who push the envelope and press this country to live up to its higher ideals spend all of their time.  The bad news for the prophets of the civil religion is that their life expectancy is not terribly long: Bobby Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. would have all been considered prophets of the civil religion. 

The priestly civil religion, on the other hand, is the semi-official embodiment of the civil religion.  Its primary purpose is to unite the country in times of national crisis.  The president is the head of the priestly civil religion, and in normal times, the priestly civil religion’s most frequent expression comes at the end of presidential addresses when the president says something like, “God bless you, and may God continue to pour out His blessing on the United States of America.”  However, the priestly civil religion truly shines in the darkest of times.  Turing times of trouble, times of tragedy, presidents become "consoler-in-chief."  If it is the prophetic civil religion's job to afflict the comfortable, in times of national crisis, the president's job as the high priest of the civil religion is to comfort the afflicted.

Examples of the president using his office to unite the country during times of tragedy are legion and cut across partisan divides.

President Reagan after the Challenger explosion:

President Clinton after the Oklahoma City Bombing:

President Bush after 9/11:

President Obama after Newtown:

So ubiquitous is this function of the American presidency that it even shows up in fictional White Houses, including the Barlet administration in The West Wing:

All of these speeches have one thing in common: the presidents giving them were speaking at times of great tragedy or crisis in the United States.  These speeches are not political, but spiritual.  They are meant to bring Americans together, to reassure in times of uncertainty.  Past presidents have excelled at this function of the presidency.  President Trump?  Eh, not so much.  I have worried about the status of the priestly civil religion since his inauguration.  The results have been mixed at best.  During wildfires and hurricanes, President Trump's reaction has largely been predicated on whether the locations afflicted by such natural disasters supported him.  Florida?  Plenty of sympathy to muster.  California and Puerto Rico?  Maybe not.  However, nowhere have President Trump's deficiencies in this area been quite so clearly evident as his response to our current national, indeed global, crisis: the coronavirus pandemic.

From the beginning, the president has struggled to provide moral leadership in this crisis.  Focused more on the economy (at least as far as it affects his reelection prospects) and self-aggrandizement, President Trump has not shown much in the way of empathy or unity.  He has occasionally said the right things in briefings, only to return to attacks on political opponents or the media on Twitter later in the day.  However, nothing so starkly brought the president's inability to fulfill the role as high priest of the American Civil Religion into focus as today's Coronavirus Task Force briefing.  Peter Alexander asked the softest of softball questions of the president.  For any other president, the result would have been similar to a Sam Show at bat last season for Cowgirl Softball:

However, President Trump saw the fat curveball hanging up in the zone over the heart of the plate and...whiffed.  Big time.

As my high school debate coach, and now colleague, Michael Patterson would say, "A trained monkey could do this."  Any response would have been better than this response.  Hell, a "No comment" would have been better.  A normal president would have taken this opportunity to offer sympathies to those who have lost loved ones due to this virus, or even to offer condolences to Alexander who lost a colleague at NBC News today because of the virus.  He might have highlighted the ways in which Americans are coming together to help each other.  He could have used his platform offer his appreciation to the doctors, nurses, grocery stockers, and other ordinary Americans who are the heroes of this pandemic.  Instead, President Trump lashed out at Alexander, calling him a nasty reporter and mocking NBC News at large.  Y'all....A. Trained. Monkey. could have done this.  President Trump could not.

One of the things I'm interested in regarding this presidency is the health of the American Civil Religion when it's all over.  I fear the patient may be on life support right now.  At the very least, the priestly civil religion is in very real trouble.  While I have major misgivings about the civil religion, I can nevertheless say that I recognize its worth--when applied well.  The civil religion can galvanize the nation, especially in times of hardship.  Especially when the president succeeds in his role as the high priest of the civil religion, which is...usually?  Until this president.  While I believe the prophetic civil religion is alive and well during the Trump presidency, I'm unsure of its staying power without the priestly civil religion as its inevitable foil.  One cannot truly exist without the other because they keep each other in check; it is the nature of things.  Donald Trump cannot fulfill the expectations of the priestly civil religion.  What's more, I'm not sure he even knows such expectations exist.

Right now, the nation needs a high priest more than ever.  These are uncertain times.  Coronavirus hospitalizations are testing a health care system already stretched too thin.  Social distancing and self-quarantining are causing major sectors of the American economy to teeter on the brink of collapse.  Churches, mosques, and synagogues have closed their doors.  Schools are closed indefinitely.  American society, American life as we know it, has disappeared--overnight, it seems.  We NEED a national leader who can reassure the people that we're in this together, that all of this uncertainty won't last, that we will come out of this crisis stronger and more united than ever before.  President Trump had the opportunity to do that today.  Instead, he chose the lowest of low roads, becoming the anti-priest of the American Civil Religion.  We may still achieve all of the things the high priest might have reassured of us.  But if we do, it will be in spite of, rather than because of the influence of the president.  And from the standpoint of the civil religion, that might be the real tragedy.

It’s Not Me, It’s You: How I (Finally) Broke Up With the Professoriate

It was around this time last year that I was told my contract at Oklahoma State University would not be renewed for the upcoming school year (read: this academic year).  This was not a surprise to me.  I had a pretty good idea of what was happening.  Oklahoma’s budget crisis is pretty well-documented, and when you get right down to it, I was a victim of that crisis.  While I was a visiting professor (non-tenure track), I was still salaried with benefits which means I was more expensive to employ than the lecturer who replaced me and is considered contract labor which means he’s paid by the course and OSU doesn’t owe him any benefits.

While I knew I wouldn’t be teaching at OSU this year, I was still *kind of* attached to the idea of being a professor.  I applied to a bunch of jobs, and I got a couple of Skype interviews, but as time passed, I started to doubt whether that was what I really wanted to do.  Part of the reason for this is that, frankly, there are few job markets as terrible these days as the academic job market.  Consider:

•        According to the American Association ofUniversity Professors, over 75% of all university faculty are adjuncts (paid by the course with no benefits, sometimes teaching at 2-3 different institutions in larger cities)
•        If you didn’t go to the “right” school, your chances of getting a tenure-track job diminish significantly
•        There are far more newly-minted PhDs than tenure-track job openings
•       In religious studies (my field), it’s estimated that there are an average of 150-200 applicants for every tenure-track job available.

The flip side of this, especially for non-tenure track folks of all stripes, is that to be competitive in this horrendous job market, one must have a full CV—journal articles, a book proposal accepted by a major publishing house if not a book, presentations at major academic conferences.  However, when you add the teaching and student interaction piece to the puzzle, there aren’t a lot of extra hours in the day.  Just take my life for the past five years.  During the school year, I spent: 

•       10-13 hours per week lecturing, depending on whether I had three or four courses to teach
•       8-12 hours preparing for class (lecture preparation, creating Power Points, finding ice breakers, making sure I had what I needed for students with learning disabilities, tracking attendance in upper-division courses)
•       6-8 hours in office hours
•     2-4 additional hours of meetings with students who couldn’t make it to my office hours
•        5-8 hours trying to wrangle my e-mail inbox—more when I had 400-plus students in a semester

 So, without any craziness or unexpected problems, that’s 31-45 hours per week just dealing with teaching responsibilities.  37-40 hours was pretty standard for me.  That means that any research, publication, writing, etc. I needed to get done would have to be done at night or on the weekends.  AND….we don’t get paid for journal articles; we barely get paid for books; and because most places can’t pay for travel expenses, conference attendance ($2000-3000 per conference for the big ones) has to come out of a professor’s own pocket. 

It was at one of those big conferences that my perspective actually began to change.  I was at the contingent faculty breakfast at the American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting in San Antonio last November sharing stories about the crazy things college students do (because war stories are always a thing when you get a bunch of professors in a room together), and Whitney Cox, a delightful religious studies professor from the University of Houston, looked at me and said, “Why aren’t you working with student-athletes?”  While I had privately entertained the notion, I had yet to give voice to such an idea, so I was curious as to why she mentioned it.  She told me that not only had all of my stories been about student-athletes, but I seemed to genuinely enjoy working with them.  She was right.

However, change came slowly.  Spending five years in a PhD program, reading and absorbing and spitting out again all of the knowledge you can about a subject, writing a dissertation in which you take an original stance on a topic, teaching from a position of authority about a particular subject—all of it creates the illusion of “scholar” as self.  Having that taken away from me at OSU created a bit of an identity crisis.  If I’m not a scholar of Middle Eastern political movements, of Islamism, of the world’s religions, then what am I?  I gradually came to see that “what” I am was actually pretty immaterial; the more important question was “Who am I?”  And once I arrived at that conclusion, it unlocked a whole new set of possibilities.  Who I am is someone who enjoys walking beside college students as they try to figure out what they want to be if they grow up.  I am someone who loves to see the light come on for college kids—academically, vocationally, relationally.  And I am someone who has a soft spot especially for student-athletes, an underestimated and underappreciated segment of every college campus. 

I started working with student-athletes as an undergraduate tutor at Academic Services for Student-Athletes at OSU.  This is a group that either grabs you and doesn’t let go, or annoys the living daylights out of you—there isn’t much in between.  They grabbed me.  I tutored student-athletes at Wake Forest and Baylor during graduate school.  I’ve had over 300 of them in class in the five years I taught at OSU.  They are a microcosm of a college campus—some are first generation college students; some have parents with graduate degrees.  Some are lazy; some have great work ethics.  Some know what they want to do if they grow up; some don’t have the slightest clue.  Some come from two-parent households; some grew up with single parents.  But they are all far braver than I could ever hope to be because their every success and failure is splashed on the sports page for everyone to see and critique.  They have big personalities, but also big insecurities, especially about their academic abilities.  They were often allowed to skate by in high school and thus don’t have the tools necessary for success at the college level.  But they are just competitive enough to rise to any challenge placed before them. 

So, I’m sorry, professoriate, but we’re done.  And believe me, it’s not me.  This is all about you…you with your terrible job prospects and soul-sucking free labor; you with your complete absence of a work-life balance; you holding me back from what I really love.  I’ve found a better place, a better fit.  I’ll be over here hanging out with student-athletes, helping them navigate college and adulting.  Don’t get me wrong, it was fun while it lasted, and I learned a lot, but this relationship had grown toxic and it’s time to part ways.  No hard feelings, I hope, and I know I’ll still see you around, but we’re through. 

All the best,

Stephanie

Why I Don't Do "Patriotic" Worship Services

I call myself a politically incorrect patriot.  It’s a much easier designator that “someone who has studied the American civil religion and finds it a dangerous thing with which to engage.”  There are a number of reasons why I have taken a stance that is often at odds with the prevailing expectations of patriotism in the United States.  Admittedly, one of those reasons is that I’m a contrarian at heart and coming of age during the “War on Terror” has made me weary of blind patriotism.  However, there are also theological and sociological reasons for my stance.  The theological becomes especially important around this time of year when worship services on the Sunday closest to the July 4 holiday take on a certain patriotic tone.

I want to be clear about something from the outset here: this is not a new thing.  It’s not some grand political statement about our current president.  If I want to make grand political statements about our current president, I do it on Twitter.  You can check; I’m not shy.  I was against patriotic worship last year (and the year before that and the year before that, etc.) when Barack Obama, who I voted for, was president.  I’m anti-patriotic worship this year with Donald Trump, who I definitely DIDN’T vote for, in the White House.  The conflation of the American civil religion with Christian theology is troubling, and I really don’t want anything to do with it.  Let me explain.

Last fall, I taught a seminar course on the American civil religion.  In the description for the course, I invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous statement about pornography: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.  The term “American civil religion” only really finds traction in an academic setting.  Try to explain it to the average American, and you’re likely to get a blank stare until you start describing the sorts of things included in the civil religion:

• Priests and prophets: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, King, Kennedy—either one
• Sacred places: Gettysburg, Arlington National Cemetery
• Hymns: the National Anthem, God Bless America
• Holidays: July 4, Memorial Day, Flag Day  

At this point, most folks will start nodding along when I describe the civil religion, but it’s not just what the civil religion is, but what it does that can be problematic.

The difficulty with the civil religion is that it often has been and continues to be conflated with actual religion.  This problem started at the very founding of the colonies in the New World.  The Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, included, as did the Motherland of Britain, an established church.  What that means is that the state and the civil magistrates were able to enforce church discipline and tax monies collected in the colony went to the support of the church.  Thus, the religion and the civil religion were, for all intents and purposes, one and the same.  The continued into the colonial era when eight of the 13 colonies had established churches.  After independence, the Constitution would include only two references to God: forbidding a religious test for federal office and, more famously, protecting the free exercise of religion and forbidding the establishment of a national religion in the First Amendment.  However, the individual states were allowed to maintain their established churches, and Massachusetts did until 1831 when it formally disestablished the Congregationalist church, making it the last church to disestablish.

We still see vestiges of this historical mixing of religion and civil religion throughout our places of worship, however.  Many churches have an American flag at the front of the sanctuary along with the Christian flag (and woe betide any minister who attempts to remove said American flag).  Churches offer patriotic-themed worship around Memorial Day and the 4^th of July.  My theological problems with this are two-fold: first, if Pentecost taught us anything, it’s that the message of Christ is available to everyone, everywhere, of every language, tribe, and nation.  To plant our flag (literally and metaphorically) on the mountain of American Christianity does a disservice to that message.  Second, idolatry becomes a real problem.  Wrapping Jesus in an American flag often bastardizes the message of Christianity and sets up the flag, the country, and the leaders of the country as objects of devotion at best, worship at worst. 

"Anthem" by Five Iron Frenzy, from the album Upbeats and Beatdowns

Don’t believe me?  Allow me to share what Robert Jeffress, one of the “court evangelicals” as John Fea calls them, has been up to lately.  Last Sunday, his church (First Baptist) in Dallas hosted “Freedom Sunday.”  I’m not sure exactly what was being worshipped, but I don’t think it was the risen Christ.  Yesterday, he and his merry band commandeered the Kennedy Center for an uber-patriotic celebration of the July 4 holiday that included—no kidding—the First Baptist Church-Dallas choir singing a song called “Make America Great Again.”  While this is obviously the marriage of God and country taken to an extreme conclusion, it is not abnormal.  In fact, according to a survey done by Lifeway, the Southern Baptist Convention’s research outfit, 53% of Protestant pastors said they think that their congregations sometimes seem to love America more than God.  Love or devotion to something other than the Almighty is the very definition of idolatry.

Is it any wonder, then, that someone who has studied the American civil religion would be squeamish about it?  The sociological implications of the civil religion are equally difficult to stomach.  It is often weaponized against those who don’t follow the party line (like politically incorrect patriots).  This has been seen as recently as last fall when Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem before San Francisco 49er games as a protest against the state of race relations in this country drew outrage from all over.  In fact, it may have killed his football career, proving that violating the civil religion is more injurious to a public figure than domestic violence or other criminal activity.  Furthermore, minorities in general have been left out of the civil religion.  Richard Hughes’ book Myths America Lives By lays out the various myths that have informed the civil religion as well as Black critiques of those myths.1  Such critiques are easy to find because the civil religion is so often blind to its own faults.

So about my own politically incorrect patriotism.  I don’t do patriotic worship services, for one.  I also don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance (or put my hand over my heart while it’s being recited).  For one thing, I don’t pledge allegiance to a symbol, regardless of what that symbol stands for.  My true allegiance is to my faith, though I am eternally grateful to have been born in the United States.  I’m also not wild about the “under God” of it all.  It wasn’t in the original, it only reinforces the “America is a Christian nation” trope, and it was really about the Cold War.  Nor do I put my hand over my heart when I sing the National Anthem.  This is where my contrarian side really comes out.  After 9/11, this became one marker among many of who was a “true” patriot and who wasn’t.  That’s stupid.  First, I don’t really feel the need to prove my patriotism to anyone.  Second, this is a ridiculous standard by which to judge one’s patriotism.  If Muhammad Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers could have done it to blend in and avoid suspicion, it’s not a great measure of patriotism.  Does it have meaning and value to people?  Yes, of course, which is why I don’t lecture others on what they should do.  It just doesn’t seem particularly meaningful to me.

This is but one politically incorrect patriot’s attempt to explain why I don’t do patriotic worship services without getting into the weeds too much.  Far be it for me to tell others what they should do.  My church had a partially patriotic worship service today.  That’s fine.  Plenty of others did too.  I just choose not to participate.  Because I’m a contrarian.  Because the civil religion gives me pause.  Because the slide to idolatry is far too easy.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”—Romans 12:2

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1 Richard T. Hughes, Myths America Lives By (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2004).