When I was a toddler my mother listened to Peter Marshall on the radio,
and halfway through my life, in 1973, I was impressed by what Marshall
had said when he was Chaplain of the Senate.
"Religious liberty to worship God according to the dictates of
one's own conscience and equal opportunity for all men. These are the twin
pillars of the American Dream."
I was so impressed by "The American Dream" of Peter Marshall
that I delivered his famous sermon several times as a guest speaker at
civic clubs, churches and even an American Legion dinner.
Recently, however, I have re-read it, and I have to wonder if Marshall,
while writing "The American Dream," was a bit confused about
the relationship of Christianity to America.
On the one hand the quote about the twin pillars seems perfect. On the
other hand Marshall also said the following.
"Ours is a Covenant Nation...The only surviving nation on earth
that had its origins in the determination of the Founding Fathers to establish
a settlement "to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian
faith."
As an American, and as a Christian, I now see a conflict.
Am I an American Christian, or a Christian American?
It seems I am an American Christian when I pray, when I play my trombone
in our church orchestra, when I choose to work only six days a week.
It seems I am a Christian American when I form opinions on the positions
and actions our officials adopt and undertake in how we relate to all our
citizens and the rest of the world.
Now Jerry Falwell would probably tell you these two roles are interchangeable
and compatible. I really don't think so.
I think what God loves most about America is freedom.
Yes, it is true that young Mary Chilton of the Mayflower, the first
female to touch the shore, was among those who were seeking to freely exercise
Christianity in the new land.
And the story I read in grammar school about Squanto would indicate
that many of the first Europeans to come here intended to be neighbors
with the local residents.
But let's be honest. The adventure became a land grab, and the "new
neighbors" won with the most and biggest guns.
The "equal opportunity" for all men that was written into
our Constitution obviously did not apply to Sioux and Cherokee or any others
who were not fortunate enough to be immigrants.
Neither did it apply to slaves from Africa.
Yes, the Civil War set them free, but theirs was not the cause that
ignited the war. It started because white farmers in the South were upset
over crop prices paid by white traders in Boston.
Was the God of Christianity involved in the Civil War? Yes and no in
my book. Yes, he was involved personally with the lives of soldiers on
both sides.
No, but eventually yes again, when the emancipation question did become
an issue. Before that the war was a stalemate. So I believe, as do many
Christians, that slavery had little to do with the start of the Civil War
but much to do with the finish.
But racial equality is not my primary concern here. I am concerned about
religious freedom, religious intolerance, and not following the admonition
of Jesus in Matthew 22:21 NIV.
"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
To me that means more than taxes and tithe.
I believe it also means that God expects earthly governments to be separate
from religions.
All Americans are equal under the Bill of Rights.
That includes those without religious beliefs, and those with Buddhist,
Hindu or other beliefs.
That includes Christians, who have been persecuted. That includes Jews,
who have been persecuted. That includes Muslims, who have been persecuted.
And all those are seeds of Abraham.
Wait a minute, some would say. Only Jews are the Chosen People.
But was the seed of promise a seed of Abraham's blood or Abraham's faith?
Were all the promises to Abraham fulfilled with Jesus?
Congress should not get involved in that debate. America should be equally
free for all, and mostly it has been.
Which brings me again to my major belief on all this. What God loves
most about America is freedom.
We are free, all of us, to believe what we want to believe about God.
Most Christians accept one of a variety of theological doctrines that include
specifics about if and when and how Jesus will come again.
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, with their "Bible plus Scofield"
theology about the end times, get a lot of people excited about their view
that Israel must be restored as a nation before Christ can come again.
However, many if not more American Christians believe Israel today is
a spiritual body of believers and has nothing to do with the physical move
of Jewish people to Jerusalem, which is Holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians
and should remain, many of us think, as an international city for all three
faiths.
Remember what Peter Marshall said about the Bill of Rights.
"Religious liberty to worship God according to the dictates of
one's own conscience and equal opportunity for all men. These are the twin
pillars of the American Dream."
It is the liberty that is a pillar, not a religion.
Caesar and religion must be mutually supportive and exclusive.
But Marshall was out of line, I believe, with the rest of it.
"Ours is a Covenant Nation...The only surviving nation on earth
that had its origins in the determination of the Founding Fathers to establish
a settlement "to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian
faith."
Establish a settlement to the glory of which God? The God of Judaism,
the God of Christianity, or the God of Islam?
Many could agree that it is the same Creator God. I believe it is, but
it is freedom of a nation that gives the glory to God, not the nation itself.
But what about "...the advancement of the Christian faith.?"
It is the business of American Christians and their churches to advance
their faith.
It is the business of the American government to allow and steadfastly
protect their rights to do it.
It is also the business of the American government to allow and steadfastly
protect the rights of Jews and their synagogues to advance their faith.
It is also the business of the American government to allow and steadfastly
protect the rights of Muslims and their mosques to advance their faith.
Such a policy would be a problem with Israel, "the only democracy
in the Middle East." It could be that only if it were to adopt a "Bill
of Rights" like ours and stick to it.
It can be that if it allows Jews and their synagogues, Muslims and their
mosques, and Christians and their churches to advance their faiths and
the Israeli government pledges to keep out of it.
In 1948 we understandably recognized the suffering of the Jewish people.
They were surely entitled to find homes in countries where they would not
be persecuted for religious beliefs. Many of them found that in America.
But it so happened that many people of the Jewish faith had also started,
more than half a century before that, to return to the land they believed
to be their ancestral and eternal home.
It was also the case, by apparent coincidence, that the British Mandate
in Palestine had failed to succeed in developing the foundation of a "national
government" in Palestine as it had in other areas previously under
Ottoman Rule.
Regardless of Mark Twain's satirical observance, after a week on horseback
with a slow caravan, that there was "nobody there" in the Holy
Land, there were villages and people and schools and mosques and churches
and synagogues throughout the fertile valleys and rugged hills and flowing
streams, where olives and grapes and citrus and melons and vegetables grew
as they had for centuries, where sheep and goats and donkeys and horses
and camels grazed.
But Mark Twain's satire, perhaps prompted by being unable to see into
valleys without first climbing hills, has become more celebrated in the
lore of the Jewish people than the jumping frog of Calaveras County. Golda
and Bibi and Peters and now Dershowitz consider the satire sacred.
Never mind the fact that Twain insulted the land and the people of nearly
every country he visited when he wrote the book. Greece was also "desolate."
Twain's objective when he left the country was to write a book that people
would read, not a scholarly report.
The fact is there were people in the Holy Land who considered and called
themselves Palestinians. They were Christians and Muslims and Jews living
together who shared a culture and a history.
As a Christian I believe Jesus was divine, fully man and fully God at
the same time, that he was born of the virgin Mary, that he lived among
us, taught us and showed us how to love, performed miracles, was crucified,
rose from the dead, ascended to heaven and will come again, this time as
conquering king instead of suffering savior.
My good friend Felloula Al Jarabi told me before she died that "
We Muslims do not believe that Jesus is God or even the son of God..we
believe he is a prophet just like any other...however we believe he is
the only prophet who is half divine, that part of Jesus was the soul of
the angel Gabriel...we believe Jesus was never crucified, that he was taken
by God and the Romans crucified someone with a strong resemblance...we
also believe that Jesus will come back to earth and fix the problems of
the world....".
"Simply put, Jews do not believe that God had a son or appeared
in human form. We thus do not accept Jesus as the Christ, as our Lord,
as the son of God, as the word of God incarnate, or as our savior."
Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer, "What is a Jew," Simon and Schuster
New York, ISBN 0-684-84298-X
But in Palestine they were all Palestinians prior to 1948.
By the way, was Jesus a Palestinian Jew or a Jewish Palestinian?
Back to 1948. The Zionists, who did not believe in the concept of America's
Bill of Rights, and the Americans, who should have believed it but apparently
did not,joined forces with the misguided United Nations to not merely let
the Jewish people return to the Palestine as neighbors, but to ride in
as conquerors and subsequent rulers.
Why? Partly because President Harry Truman admitted having more supporters
eager for the success of Zionism than those opposed to it, despite Secretary
of State Marshall advising Truman that Palestinians were getting a raw
deal.
Was it also because believers in the end-time theory expressed in Charles
Scofield's study Bible were just as active in lobbying Washington as Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson are today?
1948 Zionism was no more a spiritual adventure than was the initial
objective of Pilgrims to share the new world with Squanto's friends. Israel
became a land grab, like the American West, won by the biggest guns, most
of the guns supplied or paid for by people across the sea who claim the
Bill of Rights as a foundation for good government.
It still is a land grab, all in the name of God of some Zionist Jews
and some evangelical Christians but not the God of any Muslims.
So the Palestinians resist.
Just as the Huron and Menomenee and Cherokee did.
Palestinians rightfully call it occupation.
Most Palestinians and many Israeli and American Jews would accept a
return to pre-1967 borders, with Jerusalem a shared city, and with the
dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank.
Oh yes, the settlements. And now the big fence.(how would it work in
your neighborhood if you wanted a fence and you built it ten feet into
your neighbor's property?) And always house demolitions, and olive grove
destruction, and checkpoints.
Anyplace else in the world the word would be at least segregation, more
properly apartheid, just like reservations in Oklahoma and lynch mobs in
Tennessee. All in the name of someone's God.
In Palestine it is called "the protection of Israelis."
In Palestine it is called "God said we could have it all!"
Despite the confusion I now read into "The American Dream",
and the impossibility of hypothetical questions, I don't want to believe
that today Peter Marshall would be holding hands with Jerry Falwell and
Pat Robertson.
I want to believe Marshall would be leading American Presbyterians,
Methodists, Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Episcopalians and Catholics
to demand justice for Palestinians of all faiths.
But we can't know how Marshall would view the world today.
We can only know that sensible, fair-minded, patriotic Christians from
the mainstream denominations seem to be in short supply in reacting to
America and Israel.
The most common expression I hear as an excuse is "they've been
fighting over there for centuries and always will be."
We certainly hear more than enough from Falwell and Robertson, who are
too busy waving their American and Israeli flags to notice that the red
stripes of ours are over-flowing their lines with the influx of Palestinian
blood.
Mixed with the tears of God, I believe.
