Sacred Cows, Black Jesus and Civil Religion
by Mel Reeves
"Dr. Wright challenged all the accepted illusions which
allow citizens of all colors, sex and ethnicity, to wrap themselves in a fake
patriotism, buttressed by a made up religion."
I heard that great humanitarian, Karl Rove criticizing Dr.
Jeremiah Wrights' sermon in which he talks about a black and poor Jesus being
crucified by the Roman ruling class. He expressed outrage that Dr. Wright would
say this. At that point it clarified for me why so many people had rushed to
call Dr. Wright's words hateful and racist. The reverend had attacked all of
America's sacred cows, including its Civil Religion, in which the idea of a
black Jesus just doesn't fit.
The theology of liberation is a direct challenge to the
philosophy and tenets of American Civil Religion. Civil Religion to paraphrase
the scholar Robert Bellah, is a
public religious dimension which is expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols and
rituals.
Civil Religion's philosophy is essentially racial and
political, rather than universal or spiritual. It has its own symbols, its own
codes, its own holidays and even its own morality. Bellah in his essay, "Civil
Religion in America" points out that the adherents of the philosophy have,
"an obligation both collective and individual, to carry out God's will on
earth. God's work will be our own." And therein lies our problem.
One of the primary tenets of American Civil Religion is
that the people who came from Europe were the new Israelites, or to be clear
"The Chosen People." These immigrants, like the Israelites of old, had made
their "Exodus" from Europe and were chosen to take over the "Promised Land."
And like the Hebrews of the Old Testament, God had granted them the right to
take over this land, by any means necessary. Some know it better as "Manifest
Destiny" and according to its tenets and of course consistent with the Hebrew
scriptures, they were compelled to take over the land of Canaan. Already
inhabited, no problem, we are the chosen people, and the Indians, well "not so
much." What followed was the resulting
annihilation and the dispossession of the Native Americans.
"God had granted them the right to take over this land, by
any means necessary. Some know it better as ‘Manifest Destiny.'"
The land which the new Israelites inhabited was hard and
unwelcoming. So they reached across the waters and again their canon of
scriptures aided them. Their black African brethren - the descendents of Ham
who had been biblically cursed (Genesis 9:25) and designated to be, "the lowest
of slaves to his brothers" - were perfectly suited for the task. When they
needed to buttress this flimsy justification for dehumanizing their fellow
human beings they used Joshua 9:23, which spoke of another curse of folks,
unfavored by God, who were to be Israel's, "hewers of wood and carriers of
water."
This is why the US government's history of conquest and
exploitation can be so easily explained away and there is so little national
angst. It was blessed, sanctioned by the Almighty, a part of our destiny. Those
others just got in our way and besides, left to their own devices they would
have done far worse. The Native
Americans would have killed one another off anyway and the Africans we
kidnapped, would have knocked one another off eventually - after all, look at
them now. So we did them a favor by
civilizing them. This kind of racist discourse is still considered acceptable
in some circles.
Signs of this religion are everywhere. All one has to do is
look at your currency, every bill says, "in God we trust." Every time you
attend an event the national anthem (the religion's hymn) is played and you
pledge allegiance to its symbol, the flag and acknowledge that it is "one
nation under God." Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it
reads in Latin, "God has favored our undertaking." It even has its own
holidays, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day.
The beauty of civil religion is that it doesn't interfere
with any specific religion, which is why conservative and right leaning
Christians have no problem with the doctrine. However, those who use a word
other than God to address their Higher Power are looked upon with suspicion and
enmity.
"Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States
it reads in Latin, ‘God has favored our undertaking.'"
Another significant feature of the pantheon of Civil
Religion are the philosophical tenets (sacred cows) that keep its adherents
from peeping behind the throne. When Dr. Wright criticized the role of "rich
white folks" or the ruling rich for making many of our lives and folks in the
rest of the world miserable he challenged the long held myth that, "you can get
rich if you work hard enough."
Poor white folks and working class white folks wanted badly
to identify with the people who bear their skin color but who are really
wealthy and run this country. They badly want to believe that they too can be
rich and take their place in the front of the line and be exploiter rather than
exploited, boss rather than bossed. Unfortunately, the Horatio Alger tale was a
cruel exaggeration and while a few actually rise above their class status, the
rest are stuck. And while working class whites may look like their richer
cousins, the truth is, they are "their color but not their kind."
While pointing out the atrocities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, as well as touching on the US failure to stand with the rest of the
world against the former Apartheid South Africa, the pastor challenged the
blind loyalty that birthed the phrase, "my country right or wrong." And this
government has been wrong quite a bit. Its military adventures dating back to
the pick pocketing of Mexico to its intervention in the Philippines to its more
recent plundering of Viet Nam and its meddling in Latin American affairs, while
deposing leaders it didn't like were not ordained by God, but were dictated by
capital's need for new markets, expansion and accumulation. And today US
imperialism is wrongfully in Iraq and yes Afghanistan as well. And nearly
always its victims have been people of color.
"Supporting the
Israeli's fits the needs and the desires of US imperialism."
Another sacred tenet states that, "thou shalt not criticize
Israel." And this is not because of a powerful Jewish lobby as many wrongfully
interpret, but because supporting the Israeli's fits the needs and the desires
of US imperialism. The Palestinians are an oppressed people and deserve our
sympathy and support as well as that of the rest of the world.
Wright even challenged the notion that white life is more
valuable than any other and challenged the idea of the sacredness of white
womanhood. He took issue with the fact that night after night, the big business
press trumpeted the continued search in Aruba for the then considered missing
young Alabama girl, Natalie Holloway. What happened to young Holloway is indeed
tragic. However the constant trumpeting of her disappearance and the daily and
almost hourly updates and attention paid to her was out of proportion. This is
so especially when one considers that the conflict in Darfur was going on, a
war was being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and a large part of the mostly colored
Third World, goes to bed hungry most nights and are being felled by preventable
diseases and scourged by new ones such as AIDS. What can one conclude from this
strange imbalance and preoccupation? 
I read several web sites, blogs and news sites in which respondents, repeatedly accused Wright of
being racist because he said, " the government gives them (poor blacks) drugs,
builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes and you want them to sing God
Bless America." Of course the song is
another hymn in celebration of the Civil Religion, but the anger directed at
him is a result of their unwillingness to believe that this government really
does give blacks and especially poor blacks, the back of its hand.
Ultimately what has some folks so up in arms, is not that
Dr. Wright was angry and seemingly hostile as many would have us believe, but
the implications of what he said. What Dr. Wright did more than anything was to
challenge all the accepted illusions which allow citizens of all colors, sex
and ethnicity, to wrap themselves in a fake patriotism, buttressed by a made up
religion, which prevents them from looking critically at their country and its
policies.
Mel Reeves is an activist based in Miami. He can
be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com.
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