What is America's civil religion and is the decision to allow Reverend Billy Graham's body to “lie in honor” in the nation’s Capitol in line with constitutional separation of church and state? The Rev. Graham died on Feb. 21 at age 99. He is the first religious figure that had the distinction to “lie in honor” at the Rotunda of the Capitol. The tradition of lying in state (for those who have served the American government in some capacity) and lying in honor is old. It started in 1852 when Henry Clay (Secretary of State, Senator and Speaker of the House) was laid in state in 1852.
An article in Washington Post debates the issue of honoring a Christian pastor in the Capitol of a secular state:
Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center for presidential and political history at the University of Virginia, said she thinks honoring someone whose primary service was the conversion of people to a certain faith with a Rotunda ceremony violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Although Graham was an adviser to presidents, Perry noted, tapes came out later revealing Graham and President Richard M. Nixon sharing anti-Semitic views, and civil rights historians have noted that Graham urged the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others not to press hard on the cause of racial equality.
“Not that he shouldn’t be lauded, but does he deserve to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol? And once you open that door, where do you stop?” Perry said. “Lying in honor should be someone who served their country. Well, how did he do that?”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit organization that pushes for the separation of church and state, wrote a formal complaint letter to Ryan and McConnell. “The fact is that Graham lived his life in service to his evangelical Christian religion, and the Bible that he believed was an infallible reference manual. He placed the Bible far above the Constitution,” the advocacy group wrote.
The advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State on Wednesday released a statement saying Graham should not have been a Rotunda honoree.
“We don’t say this to criticize a man who has died, but because the question of who should receive this rare honor warrants public discussion. … Such a high government honor for someone solely for their work spreading an interpretation of one faith offends the spirit of our First Amendment’s guarantee that government will not take actions that endorse or promote religion,” the statement read.
The office of the historian of the House of Representatives declined to give more information about the criteria used to select Graham, or other past honorees. The Office of the Architect of the Capitol, which hosted the service, said only that such services are prompted by congressional resolution or by congressional leaders.
At the private service Wednesday, Ryan, McConnell and Trump gave deeply religious tributes.
“Today we give thanks for this extraordinary life. And it is very fitting that we do so in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, where the memory of the American people is enshrined. Here in this room we are reminded that America is a nation sustained by prayer,” Trump told the crowd. “Today we honor him as only three other previous private citizens have been. Like the faithful of Charlotte once did, we say a prayer that all across the land, the Lord will raise up men and women like Billy Graham to spread a message of love and hope to every precious child of God.”
According to Pew Research data, about a half of Americans say they pray daily, while a quarter say they seldom or never pray. Trump’s own belief about God and his prayer life are not clear, though he does not attend church regularly and has said he does not ask God for forgiveness — two basic tenets of traditional Christian practice. About one-fifth of Americans say they have no religious affiliation.
Historians and Graham experts said his life spanned a period when there was more of a shared concept of American “civil religion” — in other words, that being a pious person in and of itself had merit.
Graham’s other high honors, said William Martin, senior fellow in religion at Rice University and author of the upcoming “A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story,” came in part because “of just the fact that he was calling people to be Christian. To live lives as good citizens and of service.” These were decades when the connection between those things seemed obvious to Americans — even if they unofficially agreed not to speak of things like racial segregation and gender inequality.
However, Martin said Graham was responsible for more than winning souls. He served as a kind of unofficial diplomat between the United States and foreign leaders, comforted soldiers in Korea and Vietnam, and “did more to enlarge the scope of religious freedom in Eastern Europe than perhaps any else.”
The Wednesday service, Martin said, “to a significant extent shows the difference between then and now.”
Historians also said while Graham typically delivered public prayers explicitly in the name of Jesus Christ, he became increasingly in his life more sensitive to the diversifying America. In contrast to his son, evangelist Franklin Graham, Billy Graham said decades ago that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same God, Martin said. Franklin Graham has called Islam “a very wicked and evil religion.”
Wednesday shows how America includes radically different religious bubbles. While some considered the service shocking for such a diverse nation, the country’s three most prominent political leaders chose to focus not on Graham’s secular accomplishments but on his faith, known as a sincere and humble one.
“But remember the current leadership hasn’t been remarkably hospitable to the changes” in America, Martin said.
Grant Wacker, author of “America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation,” said that although the lawmakers in the Rotunda on Wednesday focused on Graham’s religious faith, the late evangelist would have expanded on how that faith must lead people to confront societal problems.
Ryan praised Graham as “challenging us to look at the right questions.”
“Although Ryan does not say so, part of Graham’s lifelong mission was pressing people to look around at the crises on the international and national scenes and look within at the crises in their own lives, and ask what is wrong? In all cases what is ultimately wrong is sin, resulting in greed, cruelty, etc.,” Wacker wrote to the Post.
Historians, clergy of all kinds and everyday Americans have been memorializing Graham in the days since he died, sharing stories about how his multimedia, racially integrated and nonpartisan crusades changed the face of American religion. Many have shared simple stories of how his humility and clear faith converted them. Others have debated what impact he could have had on issues such as racism and economic equality if he had made them his causes. Some say he would have bemoaned how partisan U.S. evangelicalism has become, while others argue that he planted the seeds. (see Billy Graham is the first religious leader to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol. Some say he should be the last)Kimberly Winston discusses the issue with respect to American civil religion. She explains what is American civil religion and how honoring Graham is linked to American civil religion?
American civil religion is the idea that, even though the United States has no official religion and is made of up of adherents of every religion and no religion at all, there is a set of common symbols, rites, rituals and traditions that serve Americans the same way religions do for adherents. Think of the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the national anthem or “God Bless America,” a military gun salute, the honoring of veterans on Memorial Day, etc. These rituals are valued, expected on certain occasions or holidays, and they unite Americans of different backgrounds in their observance...
We have separation of church and state, so why should a preacher lie in honor in the nation’s Capitol?
That’s a thornier question. There are certainly arguments to be made for and against. Putting those aside, the tradition of publicly mourning notable Americans can buttress aspects of civil religion that bond Americans of all faiths and no faith.
“Funerals are powerful rites of reconciliation that may dispel controversy and promote a sense of public accord,” Emma Brodzinski writes of state funerals and lying in state in the Encyclopedia of Death and Human Experience. Referring to Lincoln’s lying in state — the first by an American president in the Capitol — she continues that the “grandeur” of such a setting and such a ritual can become “a restatement of American values.”
In other words, whether you think honoring Graham in the Capitol Rotunda is pandering to President Trump’s evangelical base or you think it is recognition due a man many beyond evangelicals considered great, his lying in honor is part of the American civil religion that can unite us all. (see Billy Graham, lying in honor and American Civil Religion)
