Reconciling our nation under God

This Independence Day I seek a way to talk about God and America that does not make God sound like a Republican or a Democrat. There must be a way to lift up for praise and gratitude the way America separates church and state in a way that strengthens them both.

The American belief about religion, to say this simply, is that although religion must be separated from the laws of America, it should not be separated from the people of America.

The history of the world before America is a history of furious debate about which religion should be the official religion of the state. Could Muslims be full citizens in Hindu India? Could Catholics be full citizens in Protestant Northern Ireland? Could a Sunni Arab be a full citizen in a Shia Muslim country? Only in America was religion completely eliminated as a way of defining our citizenship. Do not forget that this took time. As late as the mid-19th century many states still had official state religions. Ultimately, however, as the separation of church and state took root in our laws and culture, both religion and patriotism flourished. Religion returned to being a way to salvation from sin and not a means to the acquisition of political power.

The American relationship to religion also allowed religion to inform our citizenship with values that have their origins in religious belief. Religiously-based morality prevented the state from being the highest institution forming our values. When the state was immoral, it was religiously-based morality that called America to accounts. Nowhere in our history is the role of religion as critic of the state clearer than in our struggle for racial equality and civil rights for all Americans. The Civil War was a religious crusade. Martin Luther King always saw the civil-rights struggle as a divine command to make American law conform to religious belief. He said simply and powerfully, "I just want to do God's will." King was following the abolitionist Frederick Douglass whose religious beliefs helped inspire the Civil War's anti-slavery crusade. He famously said, "One and God make a majority."

The foundation of these moral crusades was the religious belief that we are all created equally by God. America's founders could have rejected this religious belief as a sectarian religious doctrine that had no role in our body politic, but it did not. From the Declaration of Independence, it was clear that America was founded on the religious belief that our rights do not come from the state but from God. We are not given civil rights; we are endowed with them by our creator.

In addition to the religious critique of America when it violates God-given rights, religion also contributes to America by teaching us not to rely on the state to create public order and compassion. There are not enough police to keep us all in line, so we must all learn how to keep ourselves in line. This process of creating a moral citizenry is accomplished by institutions that educate us all to act in a way that God commands and America requires. Religious institutions also forge a vital link in the safety net that lifts up people who need help. In many communities the local soup kitchens and food rescue organizations and shelters are run by religious institutions. This is how we make America safe and kind. These religious efforts do not replace state agencies and welfare assistance, but they augment them, and in so doing they remind us that we should not ask what America can do for us but what we can do for America. Ronald Reagan believed that, "Without God, democracy cannot and will not long endure." And George Washington summed this up: "It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible."

I would not go so far as Washington and Reagan. I believe that one does not have to be religious to be good in America. However, I agree with them that religious Americans are doing good and America builds her moral core around their goodness.

I appreciate and lift up for praise the contribution of religion to the building of American character, but I do remain skeptical of those who believe that the Bible and America fit together seamlessly. God is not a paid employee of the United States. In Isaiah 40:15, 17, God, through the prophet, scolds all who would attempt to make God the PR agent of the state,

"Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing ... All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity."

That is what one nation under God means to me.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including "Religion for Dummies," co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman.)