Jim Newton/CBF Miss.
BJC Director Brent Walker speaks at Northside Baptist Church, Clinton, Miss.
CLINTON, Miss. (ABP) — A Baptist religious-freedom expert is warning that the spike in American public religiosity that has resulted from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the current war in Iraq have created a nation where patriotism could “quickly morph into an idolatry of nationalism.”
Brent Walker, executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, recently told a Mississippi audience that the rise in public piety can end up being anti-Christian. “In times of national crisis and war, we often see a rise of civil religion — a merger of piety and patriotism — where the love of country becomes secularized religion and Jesus is relegated to a deputy secretary of defense,” he said.
Walker called for a renewed commitment to the principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state in the address at Northside Baptist Church in Clinton.
Walker based his message on the story of the “trick question” the Pharisees and Herodians used to try to trap Jesus (Matthew 22:15-22). In response to the question “Is it lawful to pay a poll tax to Caesar?” Jesus dropped a bombshell that silenced his critics. He replied: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”
Walker observed that Christians in today's world “are citizens of two realms — the country in which we live and the kingdom of God.” While Jesus used a coin — a denarius — as an object lesson, Walker used an American quarter and stressed that Christians today are confronted with both sides of that coin. One side of the U.S. quarter says “In God we trust,” while the other side says “E Pluribus Unum” — Latin for “out of many, one.”
“Faithful discipleship and responsible citizenship requires us to grapple with the tension between the two sides of the same coin,” Walker said.
Walker said there is a heightened tension between patriotism and piety in America since the terrorist attacks. “This dualism has always challenged us, but perhaps never as much as during the last four years,” he asserted.
When Americans say “God bless America” in a spirit of triumph, it assumes that “God is on our side,” Walker observed. “It is not a pious prayer but is a patriotic boast. When we pray 'God bless America,' we should also pray 'God bless the whole world: no exceptions.”
Walker said that the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” ensures religious liberty in America and requires separation of church and state.
Every day should be a “National Day of Prayer,” not just the one Congress designates on the first Thursday in May, Walker said. “It is not the government's job to tell us when, or where, or what or for whom to pray, and certainly not in public schools,” Walker said.
He warned that there is a bill in Congress that would encourage churches to endorse parties or candidates for political office while maintaining their tax-exempt status. Walker described the bill as a “divisive and corrosive idea [that] would turn our pulpit prophets into political puppets.”
Instead, Christians must be just as concerned about religious liberty of the Muslim, Mormon, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Hare Krishna and adherent of any religious faith as they are concerned for their own religious freedom.
“I worry about how we will treat Muslims and others of Arab decent on our soil as we continue to wage war in Iraq and fight terrorism,” he said. “We must respect, defend and stand up for those with whom we disagree and pray for our enemies as Jesus taught us.”
Walker said later in an interview that he agreed completely with an anonymous comment written on a card and dropped into the church's offering plate that said, “Politics degrades the pulpit.”
Although the comment might have been meant as criticism, Walker said, its writer accurately described his point in the message.
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