In the Shadow of a Steeple: Time for a Post-National church?

By Ken Sehested

Texts: Matthew 5:1-12, Micah 6:1-8, Psalm 15, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

When I was in high school, I was driving and turned down one of the major thoroughfares in the town where we lived and instantaneously, momentarily, felt like I’d entered the Twilight Zone. I had driven down this street hundreds of times, but suddenly I felt like I was lost. The really confusing part was that all the signs and shops were familiar, but somehow disordered. It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

It took me about 10 seconds to realize the reason I felt so confused was because the street I was on had been a one-way street and, for the first time, I was traveling it in reverse. It had become so familiar, with the pattern of store and shop signs following one after the other in a particular direction. Now the order of those signs was reversed, familiar but unfamiliar at the same time.

Disorienting: Blessed are those who mourn?

Confusing: The meek will inherit the earth?

Confounding: Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you?

Perplexing: God is choosing what is low and despised in the world, things that are  not, to reduce to nothing things that are?

Unsettling: Is the Gospel foolishness?

Psalm 15 has language that is echoed in the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Interestingly though, the text gets a lot more specific at points, including the culminating admonition: “Do not lend money at interest” (v. 5). Can you imagine the response if Jerome Powell, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, were to announce such a fiscal policy? 

Odd biblical logic returns with the Apostle Paul as he talks about the “foolishness” of the cross, about God’s habit of choosing what is “foolish in the world to shame the wise” and “what is weak in the work to shame the strong” (I Cor. 1:18-31).

Both the Beatitudes and Paul’s teaching call to mind the “upside down” character of the coming Reign of God—one which is less difficult to accommodate if we stick to our instructions: “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). That statement inspired our congregational motto of “seeking justice, pursuing peace, following Jesus.”

To arrive at this beatific vision involves a new orientation that begins with a process of disorientation. Getting confused is the first step in getting saved—a salvation not disembodied and beyond history, but a liberation which breaks out in the midst of fleshly life.

As citizens of the United States, we are schooled from birth to join the chant: We’re #1! We’re #1! And the “we’re #1” symbol—index finger pointed to the sky—is simultaneously a theological presumption that God, the real and true Number One, is on our side and is our sponsor. 

Echoes of this have never been louder than with the current administration and devoted followers of the president. We do well to remember that the notion of being “the one indispensable nation” is a phrase used by Presidents Clinton and Obama, but even before that, by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in reference to enforcing an embargo on Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in 1991: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”

We are indeed #1 in gross domestic product and in military spending. But among the world’s top 20 wealthiest nations, the US is also #1 in poverty rate, in rates of incarceration, in the greatest inequality of incomes, in the highest social immobility, in the highest infant mortality and in obesity rates, in the highest percentage of the population that lack health insurance, in the highest number of guns at home and weapons sales abroad. 

This “indispensable nation” is also now free to go rogue in military action whenever and wherever it wants. We live in the dark shadow of President Bush’s 2002 National Security Strategy Doctrine which declared for the first time in our nation’s history that the U.S. reserves the right to preemptive war. The President of the United States is authorized to take hostile action against any party simply by chanting the mantra “war on terror.”

We are, in short, on the precipice of a permanent state of war, for there are no measurable criteria for when a war on “terror” can be considered complete.

While this condition of unimpeachable authority was only recently codified into law, it has been with us from the beginning. After attacking a Pequot Indian village on the Mystic River, killing approximately 400 Pequot men, women and children, William Bradford, Plymouth Colony Governor (1621–1657), wrote in his journal:

“It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.” 

This from those pilgrims who claimed to be God’s new Israel, a “city set upon high as a light to the nations.” This from others who would later announce our country’s manifest destiny.

Among the most naked statements of raw imperial motive comes from an historic policy planning study written in 1948 by George Kennan, then with the U.S. State Department and later ambassador to the Soviet Union. Kennan, a Democrat and later critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq, wrote the following:

“We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.  Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.  To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming. . . . 

“We should dispense with the aspiration to ‘be liked’ or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism.  We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brother's keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice.  We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.  The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

Seventy years later, the present administration has fully embraced “straight power concepts” with only jingoistic slogans to shore them up. With involvement in seven ongoing wars, Dr. King was prescient when he said that the U.S. was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That quote, incidentally, isn’t on the monument to Dr. King in our nation’s capital. 

Add to that sad observation that the majority of U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan do not believe those wars were worth the price paid, a sentiment held by the American people as well. While our Christian mandate to love one another may be clear enough, the murkiness of these “forever wars” are mired in a fundamental misstep, according to Donald Stoker, professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College: “The confusion and public anger that’s come to characterize America’s wars of late is the natural byproduct of a lack of clear objectives from those who wage them in the first place.”  Stoker asserts that “basic, core questions like ‘what do we really want’ and ‘how are we going to preserve the peace once we get it’ are overlooked.”

The title “In the Shadow of a Steeple,” comes from the so-called “lost” verse to Woody Guthrie’s song, “This Land Is Your Land”—“lost” because it disappeared from the singing of this song: 

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple

By the relief office, I’ve seen my people

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking: 

Is this land made for you and me?

That visual image of the poor standing in soup lines under the shadow of church steeples, steeples built early on in our nation’s life in the center of city squares—that is to say, at the center of political and economic power, providing ecclesial authorization for the hoarding of resources and the division between the “makers” and the “takers”—is an image that disturbs me greatly.

Contemporary use of “freedom” language also disturbs me greatly—freedom language being so essential to the biblical story. Nowadays, freedom has come to mean something altogether different. Economically, freedom means the capacity of corporate capitalism to penetrate and control the economies of other nations. Politically, freedom is defined by Citizens United, opening the floodgates of corporate-funded electoral politics. Militarily, freedom reflects the strategy of preemptive war.

And in the Church, “freedom” has come to mean “don’t ask me to make commitments,” don’t talk much about money, and don’t say much about risk. It reminds me of the scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Young Susan asks Mr. Beaver whether Aslan is a safe lion. “’Course he isn’t safe,” replies Mr. Beaver. “But he’s good.” The God with whose purposes we align is not safe. God will not always keep us out of harm’s way—in fact, that’s exactly where the Spirit could end up leading us. But our story says, yes, God is good.

Hiding behind the claim to be “exceptional” is becoming increasingly popular among political leaders in our nation’s life. And the implication of the Church in such affairs is unmistakable, even for churches that don’t display both the Christian and U.S. flags in their sanctuaries. The “shadow of the steeple” falls again every time one of our elected leaders end their comments by demanding “God bless America.” I find it deeply alarming to hear the escalating calls for “Christian nationalism,” and believe it to be a stench in God’s nostrils.

Is it time to declare ourselves to be a “post-national” church? What might it look like to be irrevocably in love with our country and deeply distraught over and alienated from our nation?  

I can think of several reasons why we shouldn’t—particularly because of the temptation to arrogance that happens when people of faith try to distinguish themselves from the larger culture; and also because we have the habit of thinking that making statements is enough.

But it’s a conversation worthy of our discernment. In the meantime, the beatific vision continues washing over us, announcing the coming New Heaven and New Earth. Our common prayer is that it soaks in, that it does its disorienting, confounding work on the way we have been taught to think and act. And that slowly but surely it remakes our life from the ground up.

In the meantime, the meek are getting ready.

In the meantime, Gospel foolishness keeps breaking out in unexpected places.

In the meantime, rock on, you beatitudes. Turn the shadow of that steeple into a resting place for people who know the Beloved Community is on its way.

— Ken Sehested is curator of prayerandpolitiks.org, an online journal at the intersection of spiritual formation and prophetic action.

References:

This is an edited and updated version of a sermon delivered 2 February 2014 at Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC. Ken Sehested, founding co-pastor of Circle of Mercy, is now the curator of prayerandpolitiks.org, an online journal at the intersection of spiritual formation and prophetic action. Journalist John L. O’Sullivan first used the phrase “manifest destiny” in an 1845 article for the Democratic Review arguing for the annexation of the Republic of Texas. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright first terms the US “the indispensable nation” in justifying the US-led embargo on Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991. Her boss, President Bill Clinton, used the phrase in his Second Inaugural Address in 1997. Then, in a 2012 commencement address to the Air Force Academy, President Barack Obama asserted that the US is “the one indispensable nation.” The French political theorist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the US as “exceptional” in 1831 and 1840, in Democracy in America. But the more common reference began with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in criticizing the American Communist Party leaders for their belief that the US was above Marxist doctrine of the laws of history.

Significantly, President Obama admitted this in his 28 January 2014 State of the Union speech: “America must move off a permanent war footing.”

All of our current military adventures since 9/11 have allowed the president to unilaterally launch military strikes against perceived enemies, based on the September 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force” approved by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. The legislation authorized strikes against those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks as well as “associated forces.” But the authorization has been inflated to target groups who did not exist in 2001.

“List of wars involving the United States,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#21st-century_wars

“Majorities of U.S. veterans, public say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting,” Pew Research Center, 10 July 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/10/majorities-of-u-s-veterans-public-say-the-wars-in-iraq-and-afghanistan-were-not-worth-fighting/

 “Why America’s limited conflicts become ‘forever wars’: Donald Stoker on the dangers of consolidated executive power in war-making,” by Bryan Bowman, The Defense Post, 11 July 2019. https://thedefensepost.com/2019/07/11/why-americas-limited-conflicts-become-forever-wars/

 Ibid.

Biblical scholar and activist Ched Myers reminds us that “Of the 41 appearances [in the New Testament] of the Greek verb eulogeoo (literally ‘speaking a good word’), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involve us. In Jesus’ famous sermon he invites his disciples to ‘Bless those who curse you’ (Matthew 5:44 & Luke 6:28). These instructions are later echoed by the apostle Paul: ‘Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse (Romans 12:14).’” —“Mixed Blessing: A Biblical Inquiry into a ‘Patriotic’ Cant” http://www.chedmyers.org/system/files/Mixed%20Blessing%20-%20A%20Biblical%20Inquiry%20into%20a%20Patriotic%20Cant.PDF

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