Permit me to begin with a confession. After writing several op-eds for Baptist News Global regarding the presidential contest of 2024, it became clear to me America’s collective decision was to return America’s First Felon to the White House. That sad outcome led me to swear off watching national political news for as long as I could. Instead, my wife and I promised to watch every episode of the West Wing and observe the moral wrestling of a “real” president until President 48 is elected. Sadly, my faithfulness could only make it until Jan. 21.
In my own defense, I hasten to say I was at least able to forego watching any inaugural activities on live television. But on day two, I did slip and saw a clip of 47’s confident conviction that God had guided the would-be assassin’s bullet through his ear rather than some other organ with what defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth has called “lethality.” (Perhaps the name of that cabinet office should revert back to its original, the War Department rather than the Department of Defense.)
Andrew Manis
This interpretation of last summer’s assassination attempt is no surprise. The theological minds of evangelicalism leapt immediately to such lessons. And many in my circles claimed that “sign from heaven” portended another Republican victory in November. It is little surprise that a presidential inauguration is the perfect venue for the theology of American civil religion to make a miraculous comeback.
But what a difference a culture war makes. For some time now, many politicians and pundits have compared the divisiveness of our contemporary culture war with the disunion of our Civil War. And what a difference between civil religious high priests of the 19th century’s culture war and ours.
Scholars of American civil religion frequently allude to presidents as the high priests of the American Civil Religion. We need not greet with one iota of surprise the Great Civil Religious Theologian’s explanation of God’s reason for saving him: “I was saved by God to make America Great Again.”
My question is this: Are we to trust the explanation of the “ways of God” by a “theologian” who never goes to church (except on such civil-patriotic occasions), who doesn’t know which end of a Bible to hold up, much less ever reads it, who never prays, who never has asked the Almighty for forgiveness, despite a lifetime of 78 years and 34 felony convictions, who was willing to see his first vice president lynched and, judging from his campaign style, never has said a positive word about an opponent or asked “What would Jesus do?”
“Has anyone ever made note of even a single time he has conducted himself in a Christlike manner?”
Has anyone ever made note of even a single time he has conducted himself in a Christlike manner? Can America’s evangelical Christians trust this high priest understands even the most basic principles of Americanism, much less the Christian or any other faith? Can we trust this president “knows what God knows and is willing to tell the rest of us what it is?”
Can we trust the “Golden Age of America” into which he will lead us?
Can a true follower of Jesus Christ describe America “as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world” or say, “America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith, and goodwill. We will be prosperous. We will be proud. We will be strong and we will win like never before. We will not be conquered. We will not be intimidated. We will not be broken. And we will not fail.”
At the very least, instead of merely boasting that he is God’s man who alone can fix America, could he not have put his sentiment in the contexts of gratitude and a vow of service: “If God has indeed spared my life, let me say so with an air of humility and gratitude, thanking the Almighty for the opportunity to serve him and the great people of the United States.”
Such nationalistic arrogance, triumphalism and self-worship was nowhere in the second inaugural speech of the Great Emancipator and the greatest theologian ever to lead our beloved country. On March 4, 1865, he referred to his first inaugural:
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending Civil War. All dreaded it. All sought to avert it. … Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. … Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God; And each invokes his aid against the other.
And in his last and greatest paragraph, this Christlike high priest pointed America toward true greatness:
With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God give us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
I fear we Americans just don’t make “civil religion” or “high priests” the way we used to.
Andrew M. Manis is emeritus professor of history at Middle Georgia State University and author of A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. He is currently working with Mark V. Puroshotham, producer and director of Mercy Pictures, on a documentary based on the book. Learn more about that project by emailing [email protected]. The views expressed here belong solely to the author and do not reflect the perspectives of Middle Georgia State University.
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