Memorial Day is an important part of what Benjamin Franklin called America’s “Publick Religion,” today we say, “Civil Religion.” “This ‘Publick Religion’ taught a creed of honesty, diligence, devotion, public spiritedness, patriotism, obedience, love of God, neighbor, and self, and other ethical commonplaces taught by various religious traditions at the time of the founding. Its icons were the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the bells of liberty, and the Constitution. Its clergy were public-spirited ministers and religiously devout politicians.” (John Witte)
America’s Civil Religion is not as compatible with biblical Christianity as it once was, making it an even greater opportunity for Christian witness. Our church used to have a short service every Memorial Day at the church cemetery. It gave us a Christian lens to view the sacrifice of those who died in the service of our country. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” Jesus said (John 15:13). For whatever reason, we no longer have that service. Many churches do not worship on Thanksgiving or New Year’s, and don’t mark civil observances with Sunday prayers. Are we letting our light shine?
In 1630 John Winthrop preached, “We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill.” Centuries later Ronald Reagan said in his farewell address, “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life… In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.” Our Lord Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
In his first inaugural, Abraham Lincoln said, “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” May the Word of God sanctify your Memorial Day and every civic observance.