America! America! (Should God Bless America?)

America, America,
God shed His grace on thee!
It’s time to step aside, Dear God,
And leave it up to me!
We’re really not ungrateful, Sir;
You did real fine back then.
But things have changed a lot, You see.
The world’s not what it’s been.

We’ve all gone off to college;
Learned how to read and ponder.
We’ve even read Your book, You know.
If You don’t mind, we wonder, Sir,
Why You don’t rewrite that thing –
Bring it up to date.
Your plan just didn’t work for us;
We can’t afford to wait.

Your church is doing well, though,
You’ll be proud to hear.
The brightest folks are deacons;
The temple’s free and clear.
It’s all become big biz today;
The coffers do You proud.
The Jesus group is on the tube
Whipping up the crowd.

We’ve licked the population scare,
That had us in a fright.
Land was getting scarce, You see;
Food was out of sight.
The pill has really done the job,
But in case we make a slip,
We have a way to change our minds
That’s painless, sure and quick.

You must be proud as punch
When You look down and see
How we’ve turned our fields and streams
Into productivity.
We’ve tamed our natural resources,
And we’re quite prepared to fight
When anybody tries to curb
Our growing appetite!

There is a nagging problem, Sir;
We wish You’d concentrate
On wiping our those nations
That thrive on fear and hate.
We’ve done so well ourselves,
We’re quite appalled to see
People all around the globe
Denied their dignity.

Why can’t they be like us, Lord?
Our people we have freed.
That leaves us time for helping You
Stamp out lust and greed!
How can we keep it going, Lord?
They’re shutting off our crude!
(We’ll turn our wheat to ethanol
And whip them with our food!)

Who Wrote "God Bless American?"

America's unofficial national anthem was composed by an immigrant who left his home for America when he was only five years old. The original version of "God Bless America" was written by Irving Berlin (1888-1989) during the summer of 1918 at Camp Upton, located in Yaphank, Long Island, for his Ziegfeld-style revue, Yip, Yip, Yaphank. "Make her victorious on land and foam, God Bless America..." ran the original lyric. However, Berlin decided that the solemn tone of "God Bless America" was somewhat out of keeping with the more comedic elements of the show and the song was laid aside.

In the fall of 1938, as war was again threatening Europe, Berlin decided to write a "peace" song. He recalled his "God Bless America" from twenty years earlier and made some alterations to reflect the different state of the world. Singer Kate Smith introduced the revised "God Bless America" during her radio broadcast on Armistice Day, 1938. The song was an immediate sensation; the sheet music was in great demand. Berlin soon established the God Bless America Fund, dedicating the royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

Berlin's file of manuscripts and lyric sheets for this quintessentially American song includes manuscripts in the hand of Berlin's longtime musical secretary, Helmy Kresa (Berlin himself did not read and write music), as well as lyric sheets, and corrected proof copies for the sheet music.

These materials document not only the speed with which Berlin revised this song, but also his attention to detail. The first proof copy is dated October 31, 1938; the earliest "final" version of the song is a manuscript dated November 2; and Kate Smith's historic broadcast took place on November 11. These documents show the song's step-by-step evolution from the original version of 1918 to the tune we now know.

These manuscripts are part of the Irving Berlin Collection, a remarkable collection that includes Berlin's personal papers as well as the records of the Irving Berlin Music Corp. It was presented to the Library of Congress in 1992, by Berlin's daughters, Mary Ellin Barrett, Linda Louise Emmet, and Elizabeth Irving Peters.

Death of Faith

The Christian Right and Civil Religion

by Stan Moody

It is a practice in the Maine State House of Representatives, of which I have recently been a member, to lead off the morning with a prayer and follow with the Pledge of Allegiance. On its surface, this would seem like a good start to any day.

The prayer is by invitation through the office of the Clerk of the House. If you accept that invitation, you agree to the general terms that, in order to avoid offending those of other faiths or of no faith, you will make your prayer generic.

Most pastors honor that agreement. Often, however, evangelical pastors will come to the rostrum, preach sermons in their prayers, and close the prayer with “...in Jesus' name.” Violation of the terms of the invitation is justified on the grounds that “...He who declares me before men, him will I declare before my Father in Heaven.”

Simply put, there is an assumption that God will not hear a prayer that is not ended in Jesus' name.

That assumption fails the test of experience. When Jesus was instructing His disciples how to pray, He gave them, and us, the Lord's Prayer. Never have I heard the Lord's Prayer ended in Jesus' name. Can we assume that God does not hear the Lord's Prayer?

Are there ways for a Christian pastor to declare allegiance to Christ without violating the terms of the invitation? I believe there are.

One of the ways that I have used was to say at the end of my prayer, “...and may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer, Amen.” Thus, I have honored the terms of the invitation, have honored the God-given right of my neighbor to reject the Lordship of Christ and have sworn allegiance to the Godhead.

Thirty seconds or so later, we who claim citizenship in the very Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim, stand and pledge allegiance to a flag.

Go figure.

All this is reflective of a movement by the Christian Right toward a civil religion in America.

Civil religion is nothing less than an identification of the nation of the United States, through a revisionist history of Christian roots, with the covenant people of God. It is the elevation of America to a special role in God's redemptive plan.

It is civil religion that can declare itself as “good” and other nations or political parties as “evil,” a common tactic of the Religious Right. In order to get there, of course, we must codify Christianity into the law as our official religion through carefully selected scriptural mandates to the exclusion of other Christian principles.

The assumption is similar to that of ending prayer in Jesus' name – that God's blessings are reserved only for that nation that exhibits certain trappings of faith.
That is not biblical Christianity.

Biblical Christianity insists that the people of God are not those of a nation-state but are those of every nation, tongue and tribe, who have repented of their sins, have been reconciled to God through the substitutionary death of the risen Christ and have joined in the life of the church.

The story of the settling of the Puritans in America is a story of failure. Its ideological allegiance to the nation-state did not survive the second generation. Out of that failure, however, came the founding principles of the new nation based, not on revealed truth, but on a natural belief in reason, virtue, order and liberty.

The inherent flaw in today's concept of civil religion as advanced by the Christian Right is that it reduces faith to secular evidence. Political institutions become the arbiter of faith through wedge issues incidental to saving grace.

While there can be no argument against Christian principles as a guide to good government, the path to civil religion is strewn with corruption, deceit, cheap religious language and a clergy that shills for the state. Once endorsed, we move from the supremacy of God over nations to an unyielding loyalty to the government. The two lose their distinctive features, and the Christian falls into the idolatry of nation over the Kingdom of God.

The path to civil religion is paved with revisionist history. First, a nation must have been founded as a Christian nation. Secondly, all evil in the past must be denied. Finally, there must be an assumption that, contrary to human history, our nation can be eternal so long as certain precepts are upheld.

America fails and will fail all three.

Thought Police Strike Again!

Crumpling the First Amendment

Recently, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of eighteen-year-old Joseph Frederick, who displayed a “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner for television cameras during an Olympic torch-passing rally on a street in his hometown.

When she saw the banner, high school principal Deborah Morse crossed the street, confronted Frederick, and – in the words of the appeals court -- “grabbed and crumpled up the banner.” Morse also suspended Frederick from school for ten days.

The heart of the case lies in Morse's decision to confiscate and destroy the student's banner. In its own small way, Morse’s action falls into the ugly category of book burnings, censorship boards, and court orders ensuring that newspapers do not see the light of day.

Under the First Amendment doctrine of “prior restraint,” speech cannot simply be silenced, prior to a final determination of whether it is constitutionally protected. Rather, the rule is: Speak first, and pay damages, if necessary, later.

Morse, however, seems to have slept through this point in her own high school civics class. (Frederick may have been paying closer attention in his: He says that when she took the banner from him, he quoted Thomas Jefferson.)

The Supreme Court seems inclined to let Morse off the hook, with respect to any personal liability on her part, on the ground that the constitutional rules here were unclear.

Chief Justice Roberts asked Frederick’s attorney, “And so it should be perfectly clear to [the principal] what she could and could not do?” Frederick’s attorney replied: “Yes.” Then, Justice Scalia piped up : “As it is to us, right?” His quip elicited laughter.

Let’s suppose Scalia is right, and it was unclear whether there were grounds for suspending Frederick.

Was it truly unclear to Morse whether she could grab the banner and confiscate it?

Would it have been similarly unclear to her whether she could, say grab a paperback Frederick was holding – such as the pro-marijuana It’s Just a Plant -- throw it in the gutter, and put a match to it?

School is supposed to be a place where students' views are developed, not destroyed.

Posted by Julie Hilden on March 29, 2007 12:28 PM