In the aftermath of the terrible events of September 11, God has suddenly become popular. In every city, village, and hamlet across the land, bumper stickers, marquee signs and banners proclaim “God Bless America.” At sporting events, political gatherings, worship services, and civic meetings everyone is singing “God Bless America,” our new national anthem. How does God Bless America? What do we mean by this phrase that has united the lips and hearts of so many Americans?
Many layers of meaning pack this pithy phrase. For some it is a prayer of affirmation that welcomes God’s smile upon the land of the free and the brave. For others the blessing is a recognition that God endorses and supports our military ventures. The phrase can also be a plea for divine blessing–please, Lord God, give us a divine OK.
From camp fire circles to civic parades the words may also be an invitation for spiritual guidance–pleading for God to help us find our ways in these dark days. Or perhaps we are thinking of protection, imploring God to protect us from future terrorists attacks. And I suspect that for many of us, especially in recent days, it is a cry to aid the suffering, beseeching God to comfort those pained by injury, loss, or ethnic profiling. Regardless of its meaning the phrase has evoked some of our deepest emotions that blend God and country together.
In some ways the words, “God Bless America” are packed with meaning. To receive God’s blessing is the ultimate congratulation-- filled with divine sanction and solidarity. We surely can not find a higher, better blessing.
But in other ways it is empty slogan that we can fill with any meaning. What do we mean by bless? Do we mean the people? The government? Are we asking for warm heavenly fuzzies or truly seeking divine guidance? The bland meaning easily invites distortion. It can, in fact, become idolatrous if we use the phrase to justify anything our nation does. When that happens “God” shrinks to a socially constructed puppet that merely reflects our human fears and feelings.
A tribal god smiles favorably on everything its nation does. When god becomes a national mascot, god cheers military action in the name of justice or anything else that is politically expedient at the moment. And while it may feel good and reassuring to us to believe that we are God’s pet nation, other countries have their own tribal gods cheering them on as well. Thus a multitude of wars turn into “holy” conflicts with tribal gods applauding on both sides of the trenches. Peoples and nations alike hunger for divine approval and blessing and those inclinations easily lead to national idolatry in the name of god.
In these times when public piety is surging, Christians must be careful to distinguish between the god of American civil religion and the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. The God of the New Testament Jesus sends the rain on the just and the unjust. This God urges us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to render to no one evil for evil, and to leave vengeance to divine hands. This God teaches us to forgive 70 x 7, and even on the cross, in the midst of torture at the hands of terrorists, said “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
The God of the Christian faith “so loved the entire world” that he sought to redeem it. For this God there is no east and west, no political borders, no pet nations. The Kingdom of this God is a global family that transcends national boundaries. This is the God who blesses the poor in spirit, the outcasts, the stigmatized, the impoverished, and those who suffer. This is the God who walks in the valley of the shadow of death with all who are traumatized with fear. Is this the God we worship when we sing God Bless America, or is it a tribal god, the golden calf of American nationalism?