Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation

by Michael J. Gorman

These various aspects of American civil religion come to expression in two kinds of venues: the civil and political (speeches, parades, school events, sporting events, military ceremonies, etc.), on the one hand, and the religious (church worship services), on the other. From this listing we can recognize another aspect of the similarity between Roman and contemporary American civil religion. The former involved the politicization (specifically, the imperialization) of the sacred, and the sacralization of the political (specifically, the imperial). This is parallel to what has happened in the U.S.: many civic and political events have a religious dimension, and religious events sometimes take on a civic and political—specifically nationalistic, and even militaristic—dimension. This process continues to this day, despite the formal constraints of law and consequent changes in practice (such as the abolition of school prayer). One major difference, however, is extremely important to recognize: the syncretism of Rome’s civil religion involved the blending of Roman ideology and pagan religiosity, but the syncretism of American civil religion involves the blending of American ideology and Christian, or at least theistic and quasi-Christian, religiosity. The early church had a natural suspicion of Roman civil religion because it was so blatantly pagan and idolatrous—though even it could be appealing. Contemporary Christians can much more easily assume that Christian, or quasi-Ch...