Sacred Cows, Black Jesus and Civil Religion

[Joanne98]

by Mel Reeves

The American Civil Religion, by definition both racial and political, is the core set of beliefs, symbols and rituals that justify white past conduct in North America and provide a kind of theological pre-clearance for future behavior by American whites in the world. As the author points out, the American Civil Religion is better known as "Manifest Destiny" - which foreordained the conquest of North America by a European "chosen people," condemned the indigenous inhabitants to bloody slaughter, and singled out Africans to be "hewers of wood and carriers of water." This thoroughly racist believe system is directly confronted by Black "liberation theology" - an exact opposite narrative and view of the world. Such conflicting "civilizations" cannot possibly avoid collision.

Sacred Cows, Black Jesus and Civil Religion
by Mel Reeves

"Dr. Wright challenged all the accepted illusions which allow citizens of all colors, sex and ethnicity, to wrap themselves in a fake patriotism, buttressed by a made up religion."



I heard that great humanitarian, Karl Rove criticizing Dr. Jeremiah Wrights' sermon in which he talks about a black and poor Jesus being crucified by the Roman ruling class. He expressed outrage that Dr. Wright would say this. At that point it clarified for me why so many people had rushed to call Dr. Wright's words hateful and racist. The reverend had attacked all of America's sacred cows, including its Civil Religion, in which the idea of a black Jesus just doesn't fit.

The theology of liberation is a direct challenge to the philosophy and tenets of American Civil Religion. Civil Religion to paraphrase the scholar Robert Bellah, is a public religious dimension which is expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols and rituals.

Civil Religion's philosophy is essentially racial and political, rather than universal or spiritual. It has its own symbols, its own codes, its own holidays and even its own morality. Bellah in his essay, "Civil Religion in America" points out that the adherents of the philosophy have, "an obligation both collective and individual, to carry out God's will on earth. God's work will be our own." And therein lies our problem.
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