Shelburne faith column: Patriotism and faith go together

If you’re looking for a well-informed Christian columnist, look for the blog of Jim Denison. He’s one of the best.

Denison alerted me to U.S. Attorney William Barr’s diagnosis that the “growing ascendance of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism” are the reason this generation is seeing “the wreckage of the family” and “record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic.”

As we pause this July 4th to celebrate our nation’s independence, it will be a good time for us to hear President John Adams telling us, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” Or to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s insistence that “liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

“In teaching this democratic faith to American children,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, “we need the sustaining, buttressing aid of those great ethical religious teachings which are the heritage of our modern civilization. For ‘not upon strength nor upon power, but upon the spirit of God’ shall our democracy be founded.”

Can you imagine a President daring to say that today?

In his farewell address, President George Washington expressed the same truth. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,” he said, “religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”

In that speech the father of our country added, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Wise churches avoid becoming political voices. Our doors should be open to those who line up on either side of the political aisle. Instead of rooting for donkeys or elephants, our job as Christian leaders is to tell all of our neighbors about Jesus. But we will not bless our nation if we shelve our Bibles and stop advocating its moral truths.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that most of the young rebels who kneel during the national anthem and refuse to voice the pledge of allegiance to our flag also belong to a cadre who refuse to kneel before the cross or to confess faith in Christ. George Washington was right. Patriotism and faith always go together.

Gene Shelburne is pastor emeritus of the Anna Street Church of Christ, 2310 Anna Street, Amarillo, Texas. Contact him at GeneShel@aol.com, or get his books and magazines at www.christianappeal.com. His column has run on the Faith page for almost four decades.