The President's Religion
Sermon
Together In Christ
Sermons and Prayers For the Christian Year
(Note: This sermon was preached on November 4, 1984, two days before the national election which resulted in a landslide victory for President Ronald Reagan over the Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale. A few of the references which follow are particular to that election, but the basic message of this sermon will be valid in other election years as well, since the inclination to use God for partisan purposes is well-rooted in our national history.)
Have you noticed that as we get closer to Electon Day, we hear more and talk more about God on the campaign trail? More and more politicians want to be theologians these days.
Why do you think that is? Why are people running for political office so anxious to show their piety in public like this?
These candidates must feel that it's good politics to talk religion and maybe it is. We'll find out on Tuesday, when the votes are counted. But today, I am concerned that regardless of "good politics," the talk about God we've been hearing is bad religion! God is being defamed by politicians who speak so righteously in His name.
That's what bothers me more than anything else in this election and in my mind, this is the most fundamental campaign issue of all: how should a president (or any politician) talk about God? What does the Bible say about the role of prophet and king? What is the proper relationship between Christ's people and Caesar's state? That's what I want to preach about today.
I offer our text from 2 Samuel as a snapshot, a picture, a shorthand summary of everything the Bible says about this question. Here we see how a prophet's faith meets the religion of the king. The picture you might see and keep in your mind is the prophet Nathan standing alone before the mighty David, pointing his finger and accusing the king, "You are the man!"
Kings and other political rulers, including American presidents, have a way of identifying their own purposes with the purposes of God. King David was no exception. He consciously joined Israel's religion to the state by bringing the sacred Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the seat of political power. He purposely set himself up, not just as a political leader, but as a kind of national high priest as well.
But David did some other things while in office which were displeasing to God. In this particular incident, David abused the power of his office by having a man killed because David wanted the man's wife. So, God gave Nathan a dangerous job. Nathan was to go before the king and condemn him in the name of the Lord.
God told Nathan the words he should speak. You see, a prophet is not just anyone who stands up and uses God's name to speak on political issues. It matters what the prophet says, for this is how we distinguish between true and false prophets. A true prophet speaks for God on behalf of God's ways. A false prophet speaks for the king on behalf of the king's ways.
Imagine some of our brother and sister Christians from the Fundamentalist Right in Nathan's shoes; imagine some of our popular "God bless America" preachers meeting with the king. They don't point an accusatory finger; they have no courageous words of condemnation!
Instead, they walk in and shake the king's hand. "King David," they might say, "don't worry about abusing one poor man. You are God's chosen leader. You've added military might to Israel and defended us against our enemies. You've spoken up for religion and upheld traditional values. You are restoring Israel to greatness and in the name of God, we cast our lot with you."
The words of the false prophet are music to the king's ears. But when a true prophet speaks, the king is more likely to say, "I hate [this prophet], for he never prophesies good concerning me" (1 Kings 22:8). To the true prophet, even the most popular king is subject to the laws of God. And so, we see Nathan taking the proper, Biblical stance towards the king. He points his finger at David and in God's name he says, "You are the man!"
In that spirit, I speak today about our president: "You are the man!" Mind you: I'm not concerned now with the president's politics, although surely his policies toward the poor violate everything the Bible says about justice. Surely his policies on the environment or South Africa are dubious by Christian standards. But I'm not speaking about his, or anyone else's politics today.
No, today I speak because our president has established himself as a kind of national preacher. Today I stand here to protest the religion he preaches because I hold as sacred the faith of the Bible. The president preaches, instead, a religion of national self-glorification which can be summed up in five words: "God is on our side."
Maybe you have heard him misuse the words of our Savior; he quoted from the Sermon on the Mount and called America "a shining city on the hill." Maybe you heard how the president's campaign recently urged that he be re-elected so he might continue doing God's work. And when the president spoke of Armageddon during this campaign, he did not speak in Biblical terms of the struggle between Christ and the anti-Christ. He spoke instead of the struggle between our nation and the communists - the struggle between God's people and the "evil empire."
Mr. President, you are the man! Stay out of the pulpit! You have been elected president, not national preacher! Be careful when you speak in God's name, for God cannot be mocked. Not all who cry "Lord, Lord," are saying what God would have them say (cf. Matthew 7:21).
If you have ever met someone who is convinced she speaks for God while you speak for Satan, you know how obnoxious that person can be. But in a nation - and in a nation with the power to incinerate the world - this kind of arrogant, patriotic religion is more than obnoxious. It is profoundly dangerous. National self-righteousness plus military power is a formula for tragedy.
Hear me well. "Pride goes before the fall" - with nations as with people. National self-righteousness plus military power is an unholy combination, an invitation to disaster.
The Bible tells us there was a powerful, "God is on our side" national religion in ancient Israel, too. The prophet Amos had to contend with it. Actually, the other text for this sermon was the end of a long speech Amos gave over a period of many days concerning Israel and the other nations.
It seems that Amos went into the public square each day and delivered a prophecy against certain nations. He started with the enemies of Israel. He said, "For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke punishment ... says the Lord." Damascus had cruelly butchered the people of Gilead.
The next day, he spoke against Gaza for taking a people into slavery. Then he spoke against Tyre and Edom and Ammon, which had torn unborn babies from the wombs of women they conquered in war.
You can imagine how popular these prophecies were in Israel. The crowds grew larger each day Amos preached. Everyone loves to hear God's name invoked against one's national enemies!
But Amos wasn't through. He came back the next day and said, "For the three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke punishment." And Amos went in even greater detail about Israel's sins: "You trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. You buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. Woe to you who lie upon beds of ivory. Take away from me the noise of your songs and your empty praises, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos' question to Israel is being asked of us today: "Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me, O people of Israel?" Are you God's chosen nation? Then why do you ignore His will? Why do you flout His law? Who are you to claim the special purposes of God Almighty, "who is high above all nations" (Psalm 113), "whose name endures forever" (Psalm 135), "who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls forth the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the earth: the Lord is His name" (Amos 9:6).
The Lord is His name. And if we have reverence for the majesty of our Eternal God, we must be made sick at heart when a president or any politician claims God for one particular nation, or when a political party claims God for itself.
What would happen to a prophet today who said: "With the evil you do and the injustice you practice, are you not like the dictators and terrorists, O people of America?, says the Lord." Can you imagine the reaction from the media? Can you imagine the reaction from our "patriotic, pro America" preachers? What would happen to such a prophet sent by God today?
Mr. President, you are the man! But you are not the only man. Every president since George Washington has claimed God for our side, every president, that is except one. There was one president in all our history who consistently spoke of God in a way which remained faithful to the spirit of Holy Scripture.
Six score years ago, this president stood on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C, ready to give his second inaugural address. As he stood there, he looked out at a crowd of people utterly weary from four years of bloody war.
Had he been like others who held the office, this president would have said that God was on their side - that God would soon defeat their enemy. Given that they were fighting to save the union and end slavery, who would deny him the right to say it?
But Abraham Lincoln didn't say those things. He didn't enlist God in his own cause. He said instead that both sides in the Civil War read the same Bible and both sides prayed to the same God. He said that God's purpose might be to prolong the war until the nation had paid for every drop of blood shed by the slaveowner's lash. In any case, Lincoln said, "God's purposes are His own and they are "true and righteous altogether." It was not his place to speak for God and tell God which side He was on.
On another occasion, Lincoln said, "I am not concerned to know whether the Lord is on my side, but whether I am on the Lord's side." My friends, this is presidential religion at its best. This is how a president should speak if he wants to speak about God. Call the nation away from self-righteousness and into humble obedience to God, whose purposes are His own. Do not enlist God on our nation's side but make sure, instead, that our nation is on God's side. Make sure that our nation is on the side of God's justice and God's mercy and God's faith.
Then, when a president speaks as a prophet, he will be a true prophet. He won't be taking in vain the name of God, who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?" This is the prophet's faith. Thus says the Lord. Amen
Pastoral Prayer
O Righteous God, who is Judge of all that happens in earthly affairs, we pray for our nation as we vote this Tuesday. Cleanse us of the bitterness and rancor which may have filled the land during this long and difficult campaign. Inspire those who gain power to deal justly with those who are powerless. Put in our new leaders a desire to serve even those who can be of no service to them. Lead them to make our nation great by caring for the most needy and humble among us. In Jesus' name we pray, on the eve of our nation's election day. Amen
Have you noticed that as we get closer to Electon Day, we hear more and talk more about God on the campaign trail? More and more politicians want to be theologians these days.
Why do you think that is? Why are people running for political office so anxious to show their piety in public like this?
These candidates must feel that it's good politics to talk religion and maybe it is. We'll find out on Tuesday, when the votes are counted. But today, I am concerned that regardless of "good politics," the talk about God we've been hearing is bad religion! God is being defamed by politicians who speak so righteously in His name.
That's what bothers me more than anything else in this election and in my mind, this is the most fundamental campaign issue of all: how should a president (or any politician) talk about God? What does the Bible say about the role of prophet and king? What is the proper relationship between Christ's people and Caesar's state? That's what I want to preach about today.
I offer our text from 2 Samuel as a snapshot, a picture, a shorthand summary of everything the Bible says about this question. Here we see how a prophet's faith meets the religion of the king. The picture you might see and keep in your mind is the prophet Nathan standing alone before the mighty David, pointing his finger and accusing the king, "You are the man!"
Kings and other political rulers, including American presidents, have a way of identifying their own purposes with the purposes of God. King David was no exception. He consciously joined Israel's religion to the state by bringing the sacred Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the seat of political power. He purposely set himself up, not just as a political leader, but as a kind of national high priest as well.
But David did some other things while in office which were displeasing to God. In this particular incident, David abused the power of his office by having a man killed because David wanted the man's wife. So, God gave Nathan a dangerous job. Nathan was to go before the king and condemn him in the name of the Lord.
God told Nathan the words he should speak. You see, a prophet is not just anyone who stands up and uses God's name to speak on political issues. It matters what the prophet says, for this is how we distinguish between true and false prophets. A true prophet speaks for God on behalf of God's ways. A false prophet speaks for the king on behalf of the king's ways.
Imagine some of our brother and sister Christians from the Fundamentalist Right in Nathan's shoes; imagine some of our popular "God bless America" preachers meeting with the king. They don't point an accusatory finger; they have no courageous words of condemnation!
Instead, they walk in and shake the king's hand. "King David," they might say, "don't worry about abusing one poor man. You are God's chosen leader. You've added military might to Israel and defended us against our enemies. You've spoken up for religion and upheld traditional values. You are restoring Israel to greatness and in the name of God, we cast our lot with you."
The words of the false prophet are music to the king's ears. But when a true prophet speaks, the king is more likely to say, "I hate [this prophet], for he never prophesies good concerning me" (1 Kings 22:8). To the true prophet, even the most popular king is subject to the laws of God. And so, we see Nathan taking the proper, Biblical stance towards the king. He points his finger at David and in God's name he says, "You are the man!"
In that spirit, I speak today about our president: "You are the man!" Mind you: I'm not concerned now with the president's politics, although surely his policies toward the poor violate everything the Bible says about justice. Surely his policies on the environment or South Africa are dubious by Christian standards. But I'm not speaking about his, or anyone else's politics today.
No, today I speak because our president has established himself as a kind of national preacher. Today I stand here to protest the religion he preaches because I hold as sacred the faith of the Bible. The president preaches, instead, a religion of national self-glorification which can be summed up in five words: "God is on our side."
Maybe you have heard him misuse the words of our Savior; he quoted from the Sermon on the Mount and called America "a shining city on the hill." Maybe you heard how the president's campaign recently urged that he be re-elected so he might continue doing God's work. And when the president spoke of Armageddon during this campaign, he did not speak in Biblical terms of the struggle between Christ and the anti-Christ. He spoke instead of the struggle between our nation and the communists - the struggle between God's people and the "evil empire."
Mr. President, you are the man! Stay out of the pulpit! You have been elected president, not national preacher! Be careful when you speak in God's name, for God cannot be mocked. Not all who cry "Lord, Lord," are saying what God would have them say (cf. Matthew 7:21).
If you have ever met someone who is convinced she speaks for God while you speak for Satan, you know how obnoxious that person can be. But in a nation - and in a nation with the power to incinerate the world - this kind of arrogant, patriotic religion is more than obnoxious. It is profoundly dangerous. National self-righteousness plus military power is a formula for tragedy.
Hear me well. "Pride goes before the fall" - with nations as with people. National self-righteousness plus military power is an unholy combination, an invitation to disaster.
The Bible tells us there was a powerful, "God is on our side" national religion in ancient Israel, too. The prophet Amos had to contend with it. Actually, the other text for this sermon was the end of a long speech Amos gave over a period of many days concerning Israel and the other nations.
It seems that Amos went into the public square each day and delivered a prophecy against certain nations. He started with the enemies of Israel. He said, "For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke punishment ... says the Lord." Damascus had cruelly butchered the people of Gilead.
The next day, he spoke against Gaza for taking a people into slavery. Then he spoke against Tyre and Edom and Ammon, which had torn unborn babies from the wombs of women they conquered in war.
You can imagine how popular these prophecies were in Israel. The crowds grew larger each day Amos preached. Everyone loves to hear God's name invoked against one's national enemies!
But Amos wasn't through. He came back the next day and said, "For the three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke punishment." And Amos went in even greater detail about Israel's sins: "You trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. You buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. Woe to you who lie upon beds of ivory. Take away from me the noise of your songs and your empty praises, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos' question to Israel is being asked of us today: "Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me, O people of Israel?" Are you God's chosen nation? Then why do you ignore His will? Why do you flout His law? Who are you to claim the special purposes of God Almighty, "who is high above all nations" (Psalm 113), "whose name endures forever" (Psalm 135), "who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls forth the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the earth: the Lord is His name" (Amos 9:6).
The Lord is His name. And if we have reverence for the majesty of our Eternal God, we must be made sick at heart when a president or any politician claims God for one particular nation, or when a political party claims God for itself.
What would happen to a prophet today who said: "With the evil you do and the injustice you practice, are you not like the dictators and terrorists, O people of America?, says the Lord." Can you imagine the reaction from the media? Can you imagine the reaction from our "patriotic, pro America" preachers? What would happen to such a prophet sent by God today?
Mr. President, you are the man! But you are not the only man. Every president since George Washington has claimed God for our side, every president, that is except one. There was one president in all our history who consistently spoke of God in a way which remained faithful to the spirit of Holy Scripture.
Six score years ago, this president stood on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C, ready to give his second inaugural address. As he stood there, he looked out at a crowd of people utterly weary from four years of bloody war.
Had he been like others who held the office, this president would have said that God was on their side - that God would soon defeat their enemy. Given that they were fighting to save the union and end slavery, who would deny him the right to say it?
But Abraham Lincoln didn't say those things. He didn't enlist God in his own cause. He said instead that both sides in the Civil War read the same Bible and both sides prayed to the same God. He said that God's purpose might be to prolong the war until the nation had paid for every drop of blood shed by the slaveowner's lash. In any case, Lincoln said, "God's purposes are His own and they are "true and righteous altogether." It was not his place to speak for God and tell God which side He was on.
On another occasion, Lincoln said, "I am not concerned to know whether the Lord is on my side, but whether I am on the Lord's side." My friends, this is presidential religion at its best. This is how a president should speak if he wants to speak about God. Call the nation away from self-righteousness and into humble obedience to God, whose purposes are His own. Do not enlist God on our nation's side but make sure, instead, that our nation is on God's side. Make sure that our nation is on the side of God's justice and God's mercy and God's faith.
Then, when a president speaks as a prophet, he will be a true prophet. He won't be taking in vain the name of God, who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?" This is the prophet's faith. Thus says the Lord. Amen
Pastoral Prayer
O Righteous God, who is Judge of all that happens in earthly affairs, we pray for our nation as we vote this Tuesday. Cleanse us of the bitterness and rancor which may have filled the land during this long and difficult campaign. Inspire those who gain power to deal justly with those who are powerless. Put in our new leaders a desire to serve even those who can be of no service to them. Lead them to make our nation great by caring for the most needy and humble among us. In Jesus' name we pray, on the eve of our nation's election day. Amen
