This is the transcript of Sana DelCorazón’s sermon from Sunday, July 10th, 2022. Here is a link to the video version of the sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jGS5ShiEig
Charlie Kirk, a 28-year-old conservative activist and host of a radio talk show that reaches 100 million people a month recently said this to his listeners about the United States: “There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication. It’s fiction. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists. It’s derived from a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention.” Kirk’s statement about the separation of church and state harkens back to the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution and religion of reason. We are talking about the 17th and 18th century when white European men were revolutionizing our understanding of ourselves, of God and of the world. The age of reason questioned the authority of the church, church tradition, and scripture. Enlightenment thinkers believed reason and logic could be our ultimate guide, and we (meaning men) each have the ability to think for ourselves, if we have the courage to use our own intelligence over and above other forms of authority. Enlightenment thinkers believed and proclaimed that we as rational, thinking creatures are free to decide for ourselves what we know and test it by experience. (Nothing wrong with that, right?) This intellectual movement helped to bring forth ideas about autonomy, liberty, individual freedom and anti-authoritarianism that ultimately led to the founding of this nation-state as we know it. In addition, the Enlightenment and its rational spirit of inquiry laid the foundation for nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism.
What does this have to do with Charlie Kirk? In essence, Enlightenment thinkers were searching for a new authority (outside of the church and Christianity) that was reasonable and universal, and for knowledge based on scientific, provable fact, and not superstition or mythology. This intellectual spirit of progress meant secularization – read LESS CHURCH, less church control and authority. It meant that nation-states like ours, established during this time period, instituted the separation of church and state. And although Kirk is right that the United States constitution doesn’t explicitly separate church and state, our white founding fathers understood that “no establishment of religion” in the first amendment of the Constitution meant no national church and no government involvement in religion. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that without separating church from state, there could be no real religious freedom. The hope of rationalists was that this would lead to religious tolerance and peace. Here’s a FUN FACT: The United States declared its independence about 243 years ago and we have been at war for 225 of those years. (That means we have spent 92 percent of our time at war with someone since the birth of this country.) So maybe reason alone wasn’t enough to bring about peace?
This reign (or religion) of reason eventually led to attempts to specify rational justification for Christian beliefs, which led to the quest for the historical Jesus. In an attempt to bring Christianity into the modern era, theologians and philosophers wanted to prove without a shadow of a doubt the claims made by Christianity. They studied the New Testament critically to examine who Jesus of Nazareth was, what he did and what he actually said. They asked the question, Could we get to know the “real” Jesus by reading the Bible historically and critically in accordance with modern knowledge and experience? The answer is yes and no.
Our Liberal Protestant ancestors tried to reconcile religion with science. I think we are still doing that even today when we struggle to define the relationship between the church and the state. In the 19th century, liberal thinkers quickly realized that a lot of what we read in the New Testament is mythology. Jesus in the Bible is portrayed in myth and legend and cannot be historically accounted for. Let me put it more plainly, liberal theologians, our religious and theological forefathers, asserted that the Gospels could not be used as historical accounts of the actual events since they were products of the early church and contained conclusions based on false assumptions. (I would be run off the pulpit and out of church for saying that in many fundamentalist churches who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.)
This assertion – the Bible portraying Jesus as myth and legend – makes sense, because mythology was the primary mode of religious expression prior to the scientific era. The quest for the historical Jesus does not deny that Jesus lived, but it challenges the idea that the Bible can be used to prove Christian claims about Jesus the Christ, the risen Christ, and what he means to our faith. Liberal theologians go on to argue that given the many supernatural claims made by the Bible, claims that cannot be rationalized by logic and reason, the Bible can be at best described as historical myth. One theologian went so far as to describe Jesus in the gospel as the “legendary embodiment by 2nd-century writers of the primitive Christian community’s popular hopes.”
This assertion may be threatening for many people in our faith, a faith tradition that seems to struggle with an intelligent reading and analysis of our sacred text. But we are not afraid, like Jesus advised Mary not to be afraid. In today’s scripture reading, we read four different accounts of Jesus’s resurrection, a story we cannot prove, but a story that is foundational to our faith. Some theologians have argued that without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we would have nothing. In today’s scriptures we hear four versions of this supernatural event, four versions of a story. What they have in common is that the tomb was empty and the messenger or messengers proclaimed that Jesus had risen! Mary Magdalene, the first apostle, would go on to proclaim what she saw and heard.
What do you believe happened that day and does it matter whether or not this is historically true or accurate? Does your faith require a logical, provable accounting of Jesus’s resurrection in order to claim a Christian identity? Furthermore, what is the church’s confession of Jesus in light of the quest for the historical Jesus, a quest where some claim that about 18 percent of what is written in the Bible about Jesus can be attributed to the historical Jesus?
Larry Hurtado argues that the earliest quest for the historical Jesus was prompted by the conviction that Jesus had resurrected. These four Gospel accounts of the resurrection, which many people believe is the most important event of our faith tradition, all differ in various ways. Some substantially, such as who came to the tomb? Was the stone already rolled away when they got there? Was there one or two messengers? One or many women? Did the people who went to the tomb see Jesus or not? What did Jesus actually say to the apostles? Why have these four accounts of the same story in our sacred text, if they contradict each other? What does this layer of perspectives or interpretations add to our faith or the stories we tell ourselves about Jesus and what he means to us?
Some say that the Bible is full of contradictions and this cannot be a basis for true religion, but I would disagree. It is and it has been! The Bible is inspired by God but written and rewritten and edited by humans. The evangelist or writers of the Gospels had both a motive for writing down these stories and a certain perspective, and frankly understanding God, and Jesus, are too large to be grasped by a single perspective or a single story! We all know the danger of a single story! (The single story can create stereotypes and lead to default assumptions, conclusions and decisions that may be incomplete. They can make one story become the only story.)
Furthermore, faith is beyond reason – that is the definition of faith, things unseen, not provable and not always reasonable or rational. We are not throwing out science here. We are postmodern thinkers, followers of Jesus who hold our faith and science in healthy tension. (We are wearing masks and getting vaccinated, aren’t we?) What I am saying, what we are saying is, reason has its place in our faith community – but reason alone isn’t enough!
Reason can’t prove the existence of God or the risen Christ. Reason alone hasn’t brought about peace or more religious tolerance for that matter. However, the scientific revolution is in part why we are here in this church, and not a Catholic church. The Protestant reformation was supported by the idea that we can use our minds to figure out what we believe to be true or not. Our faith tradition trusts in God, and this faith in Christ (at times) transcends reason.
Let’s keep in mind that nineteenth century enlightenment theologians were fighting against superstition, against church authoritarianism, against any authority that couldn’t be proven through modern science, reason and the intellect. And in some ways this struggle continues today for us in our time. Am I right? There are folks on the other spectrum of Christianity, our siblings in Christ, who want to turn back the clock, and take away the separation of church and state, who don’t believe in science, who think women and people with uteruses shouldn’t make decisions about their bodies, who believe lies even when the evidence is presented to them. But let me tell you, we aren’t going back. We can’t go back! We must and we will move forward!
As people of God and followers of Jesus, we look to the Bible as a source of authority in our faith in Christ. These Biblical stories, factual or myth, help us to define who Jesus is and what he means to us. The truth of Christ is communally formed and the Bible, even if not historically accurate, has some eternal truths about God, about creation and about our relationship to God and creation.
Part of the reason we must hold faith in things not yet seen is that we are called to build a world (and we are building a world) that we have not yet seen. That world holds separate church and state, because we know that the joining of faith and empire is detrimental to both. We, as the body of Christ, look to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, its creative and redemptive work in the world to proclaim and live out our faith, laboring with love to promote God’s justice in the world.
May it be so. Amen and Ase.