4th of July and American Religious Nationalism

Is the US a Christian nation? Does embracing Christian nationalism part of being a Christian in America? Is the 4th of July a Holy Day?

Angela Denker is a Lutheran pastor in her article "Christian nationalism, the border and Fourth of July church in Dallas" critiques the close link of American nationalism and Christianity. She visits a megachurch on the 4th of July and informs how the 4th of July has become a religious holiday as are many other national holidays in America. How America is worshiped almost as an idol in many churches: 

When I got there for Saturday night worship, I found out that Prestonwood had a big Fourth of July celebration planned for Independence Day. Pastor Jack Graham promised at the beginning of Saturday worship that they’d be “celebrating our freedoms as a country ... and singing patriotic songs,” as well as offering a pastor dunk tank, games and refreshments in the Dallas summer heat.

When I walked in, I noticed that the arena-style worship space that seats 7,000 had been covered with red, white and blue American flag bunting. Flags festooned the stage, and most of the screen designs and backgrounds were red, white, and blue.

As Graham concluded his welcome for the evening service, he said, “We’re going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem and honoring our service members.”

I had not said the Pledge of Allegiance since elementary school, and I could not help but think of the Ten Commandments — ostensibly as influential here as the pledge. The First Commandment, as found in the Book of Exodus, warns against worshipping and pledging allegiance to a flag and not to God, but no one around me seemed to mind, so, feeling a compulsion to conform, I put my hand on my heart and mouthed the words.

We then sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and sat as the songs for each branch of the armed forces played, and veterans and active-duty soldiers were invited to stand when their branch was called, and we applauded.

The idea of American exceptionalism having a biblical justification is not new, but Prestonwood made it fresh. The church had bright and compelling red, white and blue graphics with retro black-and-white photography, a guest preacher who specializes in travel to the Middle East, and even a special song. The video montage and song came next, followed by the guest speaker. 

Source: Family Research Council

Pastor Denker contrasts this deep entanglement of Christianity and the American state with another view where love of Christ and love for America are at war. She writes about her conversation with Dean Inserra, a prominent conservative evangelical pastor. He is a Liberty University graduate and the founder of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. He is also an advisory member of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Inserra told me about a term from Southern Baptist theology that describes the current moment in American politics and religion. “In this linking of nationalism and Christianity, we are forgetting about the message of Jesus. ... When we do that, we have a gospel distortion.”

A gospel distortion is the idea that another ideal is impeding the truth of the gospel. Inserra said the gospel distortion in the SBC during and before Trump’s presidency has its roots in Christian nationalism.

“We have to be Christian first. If you are American first, Jesus will be at odds with you,” he said. “Patriotism is not a fruit of the Spirit. It’s idolatry on the Fourth of July.”

Inserra pointed to national holidays that receive as much attention in the SBC as Christmas and Easter. “I say there are different high holy days in the Southern Baptist Church. Some churches have Pentecost and Epiphany. We have the Fourth of July, the Sunday closest to Veterans Day, the Sunday closest to Sept. 11. You go to a Southern Baptist Church on the Fourth of July, you’d think you were at a baseball game, eating a hot dog.”

Ira Stoll, a conservative editor and columnist, argued in his essay, The Theology of the Fourth of July, in Time magazine, that 4th of July is a religious holiday and it was the liberal icon President Kennedy who told us that. Ira quotes three different speeches, including his inaugural address, to prove his point. 

For instance, on July 4, 1946, Kennedy was invited to speak at the City of Boston’s Independence Day celebrations. 

Kennedy began by talking not about taxes, or about the British, or about the consent of the governed, but about religion. “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense. Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American though and action,” he said

Ira contends that even if we ignore Kennedy, there is enough evidence from the founding documents and the founding fathers of America about the nature of the state that was imagined in the early years:

Whatever Kennedy’s motives were as a politician for emphasizing this point, on the historical substance he had it absolutely correct. The Declaration of Independence issued from Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, included four separate references to God. In addition to the “endowed by their Creator” line mentioned by JFK in his July 4 speech, there is an opening salute to “the laws of nature’s God,” an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the World,” and a closing expression of “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

A signer of the declaration, Samuel Adams, writing to a friend on July 9, wished the declaration had been issued earlier: “If it had been done nine months ago we might have been justified in the sight of God.”

George Washington, announcing the Declaration of Independence to the troops in a General Order dated July 9, wrote, “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country….knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.”

Ira ends his essay by saying that Americans can believe whatever they like but "the idea on which our nation was founded" was clearly religious.