Across the country this past Easter weekend, outdoor church bulletin boards proclaimed, “Alleluia, He is Risen,” and “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.” These signs conveyed the joy of the holiest day of the year for Christians and do so freely and publicly in confessional language as we expect in a country where our religious freedom is protected.
What happens when the same confessional language about the Resurrection appears on the website of the U.S. Department of State?
This year the secretary of state didn’t just offer polite Easter greetings, instead the official website proclaimed “Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has been given supreme authority over all nations.” It went on to say that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated Christ’s Resurrection and Kingship with Christians across the world. The statement concluded with an expression of solidarity with Christians who are persecuted.
Why does this matter? If Episcopal clergy like me offer Easter confessional language in church, why shouldn’t a fellow Christian offer witness from a government website? After all, Christians do confess that God has authority over all things and that ultimately Christ is King.
There are a couple of reasons why proclaiming the Good News from the Department of State’s website isn’t such good news. First, the “Wall of Separation” between church and state is more like a situationally-driven dynamic between two different promises in the Bill of Rights: the first is freedom of religious expression. The second is disestablishment.
The Founders envisioned a country free from the establishment of a single religious tradition — not for the good of the state as much as for the integrity of religious practice and to avoid competition between faiths for government resources. They looked back across the ocean were wary of the centuries of bloody wars of religion in Europe
Today, Americans should ask ourselves whether we are more concerned about protecting the religious freedom of Rubio in the workplace or about the possibility that top levels of this administration are privileging Evangelical Christianity in a way that might discriminate against other traditions. (The rabbi who brought Rubio’s Easter message to my attention knew which side of the scale her thumb was on.)
James Madison would have shared her concerns.
In his 1785 “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” he argued against a bill that would have established the Anglican Church in Virginia, using the European experience as part of his reasoning:
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits?” Madison asked, “More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” And furthermore, the proposed bill would have been, “a departure from that generous policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country.”
Apart from any constitutional questions, there is also the problem that confessional language issued by the secretary of state in his official capacity distorts the message of Easter.
The Resurrection for Christians is transformative not only because it answers the question “what do I believe” but even more so because it addresses the question, “where do we stand?”
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams reminds us that the cross was not a religious symbol at the time of the Crucifixion. If the cross was a sign of the power of the Roman Empire. The heinous practice of crucifixion sent a message to the onlookers outside the gates of the city that the Roman Empire was not to be challenged.
The victims, mostly non-citizens, criminals and unsuccessful rebels found the end on the cross. The authorities wished to remind the peoples of the pluralistic and diverse ancient Roman world, who was in control. Non-citizens especially were targets of this message.
God’s willingness to stand with the voiceless on one of those deadly advertisements for Roman power was a great act of love and self-giving. On Easter, Jesus turned the cross — that state sponsored tool of oppression — into a locus of human freedom and flourishing. God is inviting us to overcome our fear and join Him at the place where social power runs out.
Today, that locus is more likely to be in far flung places where aid has been denied or rights have been revoked than in any central office of power and authority, including in our own country.
Breyer, an Episcopal priest, is director of the Interfaith Center of New York.
