Washington – Seeking to revive a dispirited nation, President Obama on Tuesday (Jan. 20) told Americans to get religion — civil religion.
“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things,” Obama said, quoting St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, in one of the few explicitly Christian references in his address.
Although at times Obama adopted the cadences of the black church that he called home for 20 years, he borrowed little of its content.
Instead, Obama’s inaugural address, like that of previous presidents, drew heavily on what scholars deem America’s civil religion:
the transcendent ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence and other foundational documents.
Those ideals are often assumed — but not always said — to be divinely inspired or granted. On Tuesday, Obama seemed to channel the spirit of President John F. Kennedy, who reminded a nation in 1961 that “the rights of man come not from the genorosity of the state but from the hand of God.”
“The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit,” Obama said, “to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
America’s civil religion has been a fixture at inaugural ceremonies since George Washington’s, when the peaceful transfer of power at the high altar of American politics takes on an almost sacred air. Obama drew on Washington and other American icons as exemplars of banding together for the common good, a key tenet of civil religion.
“Throughout his speech he is challenging us to be `We the people,”‘
said the Rev. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, professor of African-American studies at Colby College in Maine.
But Obama’s unique personal history and the perils of the present moment added new elements to America’s old time religion, said Martin E.
Marty, the religion scholar and former professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
“In talking about civil religion, you make a great deal of the power of the nation to do things,” Marty said. On Tuesday, “there was a twist; it wasn’t that the nation is perfect … but that we have failed to live up to our ideals.”
Author and religion scholar Diana Butler Bass said the speech’s strain of modesty was a break from the past.
“This is very different from what you would have heard in the civil religion of the 1950s, which was a more jubilant exultation of American rightness, that we’re a chosen people,” Bass said. `This speech had much more of a `We’re an almost-chosen people.’ This is the kind of civil religion that Lincoln is famous for.”
The speech was also, she said, a classic example of the liberal Protestant tradition that Obama embraced through the United Church of Christ, a view of “an American future that is based on humility and inclusion rather than triumph and elitism.”
Though Obama said American ideals “still light the world,” he suggested they’ve been hidden under a bushel as the government tried to keep its citizens safe from terrorist attacks. American beliefs — particularly tolerance and diversity — are more effective than American bullets in fighting terrorists, Obama said.
“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers,” he said.
Despite a handful of overt religious references, Obama’s nod to “non-believers” reflected the journey of a man whose parents were religious doubters, who didn’t find faith until he was an adult, and whose extended family practices diverse religions.
“The fact that he mentioned non-believers leads me to think that he is cognizant of not leaving us out,” said Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition of America.
Brown was also heartened at Obama’s pledge to “restore science to its rightful place,” a veiled reference to criticism that religious ideology trumped research during the Bush administration — especially in the field of bioethics.
In a further break with his predecessor, Obama told “the Muslim world” that “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Still, the bulk of Obama’s speech was addressed to Americans. The challenges may be new, he said, but the “values on which our success depends … are old.”
“This is the source of our confidence,” the new president said, “the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.”
By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service
Copyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted January 20, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I was very glad to hear him mention non-believers. I hope it will end the non-believer = un-American trope that’s become common over the past decade.
posted January 20, 2009 at 8:00 pm
“We are a nation made up of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, as well as non-believers,” he said.”
Yes he did and I was so pleased to hear it today while I was watching his speech. He certainly did show his liberal Protestant tradition, and his UCC beliefs. How refreshing!!! He realizes that this nation isn’t JUST what some believe..a “Christian” nation, that all contribute to it and even us “non-believers” have and do contribute to this nation too.
The RR has had too much power… thinking that they are always RIGHT. Guess again, folks.
posted January 20, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I thought it was a great speech that made a lot of important points. And I expect we’ll be asked to make some sacrifices for our country, something Bush never asked but he and his GOP’rs arranged it so the poor and middle class made a lot of sacrifices. Let’s rejoice on BHO and hope a lot of things get put more aright.
posted January 20, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Let’s rejoice IN President Obama.
posted January 21, 2009 at 5:47 am
“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things,”
That is so true. What is more childish than to divide your nation and govern based on splitting out 51% of the people and making them afraid enough to vote for you? What is more childish than setting up the tax system so it rewards your rich friends and penalizes everyone else? What is more childish than being hit by one person you can’t catch, getting mad and attacking a whole different bunch of people who can’t get away from you?
I’ve been reading about how the crowd erupted at the sight of our helicopter taking Bush off into the sunset and that was certainly one of my happiest sights of the day.
President Obama is trying manfully to bring the nation together. We’ll see whether the Republican congresspeople, reared in the hate-mongering of the last eight years, are capable of recognizing what the electorate said and meeting the President over half way.
posted January 21, 2009 at 9:31 am
There is a difference between belief in a Supreme Being and the following of the doctrine of organised religions.There is no proof that a divinity exists or that such a being would be benign and well disposed to mankind. There may well be dragons living in the centre of the Earth, it is difficult to disprove but Obama cannot rule the Nation on the basis of the unproven. Not all religious doctrine is about goodness and not all atheism is about badness.The fables of Aesop are just as valid in moral teaching as some religious texts but the ethos of most of the organised religions seems to be more about power and politics and self aggrandisement of the heirarchy than about goodness.All things religious are not automatically good or automatically of benefit to the nation.
posted January 21, 2009 at 9:37 am
Amen
posted January 21, 2009 at 11:36 am
It is an awesome moment when two men who have been and have reason to be bitter enemies transfer the leadership of what is surely still the strongest nation on the world and in many ways the hope of the world (and here and there the bane of the world). I admit to a sigh of relief after it was over and another one when the day, with all that public exposure, was over.
He was being honest. Let us hope he keeps on being honest about his administration and about our country. It sure is a treat to hear honesty from our president!
And of course in the 1950′s racism was still raging so we had far, far less to brag about than we pretended.
posted January 21, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Complicating all this is the issue of war crimes. Many around the world think the US committed war crimes of one sort or another, and pressure may build pretty high for the US to try some very high level people in the Bush administration. I think President Obama doesn’t want to make a hard situation messier that way but sometimes you have to do what’s right even when you really want to solve other problems instead.
I am glad Israel seems to have gotten out of Gaza on Bush’s watch because they are quite likely guilty of very serious war crimes (but aren’t they all serious?) and since most of that killing was done with American weapons and since America supplies most of their munitions and we didn’t demand or even request they stop I wonder if there isn’t complicity on our part in a whole other set of war crimes there. I sincerely hope President Obama takes a more responsible approach when the situation arises again even though it may be political suicide. But I understand the American people are coming to see the errors of our ways in the Middle East so maybe it wouldn’t be suicide after all.
posted January 21, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Civil Religion, I would want to be known for that, its no religion at all secular or worldly in nature. Sad indeed.
One of the atheist religious commented, amen.
posted January 22, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Quote: Obama’s inaugural address, like that of previous presidents drew heavily on what scholars deem Americas’s Civil Religion: the trancedent ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence, and other foundational documents.
It is these ideals that my generation was brought up to believe, and out of them came Martin Luther King who said we are free to be who we are in America, and he gave his life to put racisim away. Our Churches still went along with it, but our Constitution said otherwise.
Obama said, “the time is come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that nobel idea passed on from generation to generation, the God given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve to fulfill their full measure of happiness.
President Obama means every one of these words, and they will be met in our future.