Religion is both unifying and divisive. It’s the nature of the beast.
A set of shared beliefs and common acts of piety will consolidate a community of the faithful in shared devotion. But those religious practices will simultaneously exclude anyone who thinks, believes and behaves otherwise.
That’s why religious liberty and toleration have been crucial to the history 
of America’s experiment with democracy. It is also why the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his book The Social Contract, insisted that Christianity must be replaced by something he called Civil Religion– that is, the citizens’ devotion to the State.
We are currently witnessing a very public debate over the inclusion of 9/11 and the destruction of the Twin Towers into the religious iconography and liturgy of American civil religion.
Rep. Ilhan Omar recently gave a speech (a very good and important speech, in my view) condemning the persistent discrimination experienced by American Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11. She focused on the rise of Islamophobia in this country, which has been the dark-side of the aftermath of 9/11 in this country.
Unfortunately, the keepers of America’s high-and-holy civil religion were
indignant about Omar’s remarks because, in their view, she was not sufficiently reverential when referring to the tragedy. And a tragedy it was; a horrific tragedy. But there is a world of difference between the tragic and the sacred.
Omar’s point was that “some people did something,” as she put it, meaning a few Saudi Arabians flew airliners into the Twin Towers, and as a result, every Muslim in America has been put under a microscope and viewed with suspicion as a potential “terrorist” ever since.
Speaking from the place of the underdog, a Muslim woman of color in post-9/11 America, Rep. Omar was condemning the overflow of injustice that has been meted out upon her community by those holding the reins of power in the American establishment.
The high priests of American civil religion are not happy.
Omar was immediately condemned for not genuflecting in the direction of the fallen Towers. She failed to cloth herself in dust and ashes. She didn’t speak solemnly enough or kneel deeply enough while weeping a stream of tears. In short, she wanted to present a different perspective, speaking, not for the dead but for the living, for the many who continue to suffer needlessly because of the 9/11 tragedy.
As a result, Omar has been branded a heretic. She has violated the central tenet of all civil religion – worship of the innocent nation as holy. But Omar didn’t embrace America’s mythology about striding the globe as a paragon of innocence, attacked without cause or justification by the dark-skinned denizens of evil on 9/11.
Nor do I. And neither should you.
Now she is paying the price that every truth-teller pays when speaking Truth to Power.
At least one man has recently been arrested for threatening to kill Rep. Omar.
The president joined in with the uncivil chorus of civil religion choir boys by tweeting a short film linking Omar to the 9/11 attacks, implicitly accusing her of sacrilege. Rep. Omar’s congressional office is now receiving more death threats against the congresswoman than ever before. Her security detail has been increased.
Even Nancy Pelosi, the House majority leader, gave Rep. Omar a back-handed slap when she issued a statement condemning Trump’s tweet. She scolded,
The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence. The President shouldn’t use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack.
Spoken like a career politician and high priestess in the temple of America. The standard of sacred discourse about America’s tragedy has been established for all to see. It must be done with reverence as we approach holy ground…but excuse me while I toss my cookies.
We can read between Pelosi’s lines. Yes, the president is a hate-mongering sociopath who doesn’t think twice about fomenting more violence against an innocent woman whose family is already under 24-hour police protection.
But notice how Pelosi also smoothly sticks a shiv into Omar’s back.
Only an experienced priestess of power could issue a statement explicitly condemning the president’s grotesque bloviating, while implicitly condemning her party colleague for failing to offer up proper homage to American sanctity.
Of course, the fundamental problem with all of this is that civil religion is an abomination. It is idolatry, plain and simple. And we are currently witnessing another example of its destructive power.
God’s people cannot have anything to do with this kind of foolishness.
We certainly have no business cheering on either the cruelty and maliciousness demonstrated by the president, or the self-righteousness displayed by today’s Pharisees and high priests of American civil piety. Both the Left and the Right are equally guilty.
A pox on both their houses.
There is nothing holy or sacred about the ruins of the Twin Towers or the memory of 9/11. God does not live there. He never did. It is certainly a place for people to grieve the massive loss of life and the thousands of loved ones murdered that day, but neither tragedy nor sorrow turns a renovated ruin into sacred space.
That sanctification occurs only in the presence of The Holy One, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
But the Ancient of Days has not built his temple in America. Neither does civil religion give God glory.
But then, instigating violence and vitriol against a principled woman who speaks her conscience looks very much like the rotten fruit one would expect to issue from civil religion’s demonic tree.
Personally, I won’t speak of 9/11 in hushed tones, but I will stand with Rep. Omar.
