This is a tale of two rallies, or more precisely, one rally and one march.  Both brought together religion and patriotism, one from the perspective of left-leaning politics, the other from the political right.  One focused on recognition of individuals for their virtues; the other focused on public policy.  The one aspect of both rallies that was painfully, shamefully obvious was the racial divide.  One was overwhelmingly European-American, the other overwhelmingly African-America.

Glenn Beck is a radio and television talk show host whose commentary is often racially and ideologically divisive.  He mistakenly understands liberation theology as a theology of victimhood that gives African-Americans spiritual license to take something away from European-Americans.  He suggests that the demand for social justice is a call for socialism that Americans ought to fear.  Both of these analyses are stunning in their superficiality and mistaken zero-sum logic.  In his Restoring Honor Rally held on the Washington Mall on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the 47^th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr’s  “I Have a Dream Speech”, Beck said the purpose of the rally was to “restore honor and the promise of America.”

The event was a dangerous entanglement of the American civil religion and Christianity.  In the chapter on civil religion in Jean Jacques Rousseau’s treatise “The Social Contract”, Rousseau rehearses the history of humankind when “man had no kings save the gods, and no government save theocracy.”  That theocratic impulse still lives in the desire to believe that a divine power is watching over the nation for its protection and for its prosperity.  When a nation comes to believe that it is chosen by God for extraordinary favor, then it begins to worship its founders, its national documents and its monuments.  There is talk of hallowed ground, of holy places, spaces, days and sacred songs.

In the history of American civil religion, Americans have read themselves into the Exodus story of the Old Testament Hebrews who God brought out of bondage to the Promised Land.  Glenn Beck made this connection at the Restoring Honor Rally.  Within the context or civil religion, the question arises: if the nation is God’s favored nation, how do we explain national vulnerability, stalemate in war and economic collapse and dislocation?  Why does it seem as if God has turned God’s back on the nation?  The answer usually returns to the righteousness of the people understood in two dimensions:  the priestly dimension of personal piety and the prophetic dimension of structural justice, especially for the poor.  In our national politics, conservatives tend to focus on personal piety and progressives tend to focus on the prophetic dimension of social justice.

In his remarks, Beck hit the various notes of the civil religion, praising God and pointing to the various war memorials, saying that the fallen had given their lives for the American experiment: “An idea that man can rule himself.” He quoted from the Gettysburg address, calling it American scripture.  He made the Moses connection, saying that God was able to save a nation through a man with a stick.  He said: “America is great because America is good.  We as individuals must be good so America can be great.”  He spoke of the power of one man and one woman to change the world, and he challenged each one to “pick up your stick and stand.”

Beck encouraged his audience to trust in divine providence, to learn who God is, to ask what more one can do to make the country better, to tithe 10 per cent of one’s income,  and to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.  He spoke of a nation who is on God’s side and standing for what is true in churches, synagogues and mosques.  He said: “God is the answer.” These were familiar themes for people of faith.  However, it was all infused with prayers in the name of Christ and witnesses to Jesus.  I do not remember a speaking role for anyone who was not a Christian.  This omission turns the civil religion Christian in ways that make the nation Christian and Jesus the God of America.  Such is not and ought not to be true for the good of both Jesus and the nation.

Moreover, there was no overt link to public policy, though a call for a return to prayer in school and condemnation of abortion by Alveda King, niece of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, received warm approval.  Alveda King also called the nation to repentance for racism, and spoke of incarceration, poverty, and marriage.  She reminded the audience of the portion of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech that is not often quoted, the portion regarding the bad check that America has written to her citizens of color.  According to Alveda King, one way we will know when the check is good is “when white privilege becomes human privilege.”

This omission of public policy is telling because the angels and demons of any call to a return to God live in the details of national policy.  Personal piety is not mutually exclusive from public policy.  Personal righteousness is not mutually exclusive from social justice.

There was no lack of specificity regarding public policy in the Reclaim the Dream Rally led by Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network along with other civil rights organizations.  Sharpton organized his rally in response to the Beck rally.  There were specific calls for action on bringing an end to gun violence and to gang violence;  to “pull the least the last and the lost out of the ditch”; to pass the Black Farmer’s Bill; to work toward providing quality education for every child in America; comprehensive immigration reform; end to war; to invest in job creation; to provide quality health care; and concern over the prison system.  More than one speaker spoke in support of Washington D.C. becoming the 51^st state, or at the very least to have voting rights for its representative in Congress.

Al Sharpton explicated the reasons why it is still necessary for African-Americans to march.   Unemployment among African-Americans is double that of European-Americans.  African-American children are four grades behind  European-American students.  African-Americans are still the last hired and the first fired.  Sharpton called for D.C. voting rights in Congress and for a jobs bill.  There was little talk about America as God’s chosen nation, but there was honor given to those who had come before.  Sharpton reminded his audience that “We are the children of the dreamers.”

The group marched from Dunbar High School in D. C. to the site of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial where Martin Luther King III spoke.  He spoke of economic empowerment.  He told the crowd that at the end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. was working on a campaign that would bring poor people of every race and walk of life together to insist upon economic justice.  He acknowledged progress, but said that the nation had not made enough progress toward economic justice.  Everyone in a nation of vast wealth ought to have a decent job, home, education, health care and equal access to justice in the courts.  He said there was still work to do against racism, for economic empowerment and to arrive at the place where we “study war no more.” He said:  “We are a great people and a great nation.  The nation will be greater when we learn to unify.”

We heard the call for national unity at both of these events.  But the reality was quite different.  Both organizers made an effort to include a racially diverse group of speakers.  Still their speakers spoke to crowds overwhelmingly of one race or the other.  Glenn Beck invited people of every race and religion to attend his rally, but that invitation rings hollow when nearly everything else that he says on nearly every other day is so racially and ideologically divisive.  Both rallies were expressions of patriotism.  The Restoring Honor rally spoke of America as God’s chosen nation, which in my opinion is a perilous idolatry.  The patriotism of the Reclaiming the Dream rally was a patriotism of critique.  Patriots want their country to be better and are willing to name its injustices toward that end.

The genius of Martin Luther King Jr. was that he used the documents and language of the civil religion along with the conservatism of personal responsibility that resonates with the political right to advance a progressive agenda.  However, it is important to remember that King was anathema to the political right of his day, and he lost mainstream support when he began to speak out against the Vietnam War.  Time has made him a national hero to both the left and to the right.  So this leaves us with the question of whether or not national unity is possible.  Is there a figure on the national landscape that can bring left and right and people of all races, religions, and economic classes together?  Will ordinary people make the decision to work to find common ground no matter the rhetoric of preachers, politicians, pundits and talk show hosts?  These remain open questions.