On the eve of the Fourth of July, I figured I would reread Stanley Hauerwas' essay, "On Being a Christian and an American" in his book, A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity.

For those familiar with Hauerwas' prolific career, many of the quotes that will appear in this post will simply be classic, "Stan the Man" stuff. For other readers, Hauerwas' rhetoric will be off-putting, unsettling or maddening. His critique of the liberal project (whether theological or political) is withering. He has been often labeled a sectarian by people who assume his work encourages the withdrawal of the Church from society. Hauerwas claims, however, that the best role of the Church in society is to be the Church.

In this essay, Hauerwas notes the loss of influence of the traditional mainline churches over the course of the last century is not due primarily to their losses in membership or status, rather, it is because, "such churches have nothing distinctive to contribute...since their social and political power originally derived from the presumption that there was no or little essential difference between the church and the principles of the American experiment." (p. 25)

He goes on to claim that the decline in worship attendance in these churches is not particularly surprising given the fact that it is unclear why a "mainliner" would need to go to church when, "such churches only reinforce what you already know from participation in a democratic society." (p. 26)

Indeed, the "story of America" presents the on-going temptation for Christians to "lose our own story and in the process fail to notice the god we worship is no longer the God of Israel." (p. 29) There is no better indication of the "Americanization" of the church, according to Hauerwas than, "the god worshiped by Christians in America. For most American Christians, the crucially important things about God are that God exist and that God's most important attribute be love." (p. 33)

Of course this emphasis on a benevolent, if disinterested god, can be traced directly back to what Alasdaire MacIntyre describes as Americans' greatest defect -- the desire to be liked. The discomfort with particularity and conflict leads, "Americans [to] turn into parodies of themselves -- smiling, earnest, very kind, generous, nice people who do terrible things quite inexplicably..." (MacIntyre quoted by Hauerwas, p. 30)

Is it any wonder then, that Americans can inscribe on their currency (perhaps the real object of devotion and worship in this culture) trust in a god (the very same god who is invoked to "bless" America at every turn) that is, in reality an idol -- a shimmering phantasm of the collective American imagination?

Hauerwas adds, "We should not be surprised that the result [of creating a benevolent and disintersed deity] was a vague god vaguely worshiped or at least vaguely considered." (p. 34)
He concludes that "Christians can do nothing more significant in America than to be a people capable of worshiping a God who is to be found in the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The worship of such a God will not be good for any society that desires a god made in the image of a bureaucrat. A people formed by the worship of a crucified God, however, might just be complex enough to engage in the hard work of working out agreements and disagreements with others one small step at a time." (p. 34)

This essay was a helpful reminder that while the "Stars and Stripes" will be displayed in full force tomorrow, as a Christian I stand under the banner of the cross and the crucified God who bore the scars and stripes of that appalling display.