Last week I told how the medieval worldview – full of fear and magic – was replaced by the
rational, scientific worldview of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment and how
Christianity adapted. Things were a bit more complicated than that, though, because at the same
time that science and reason were shaking the world, there was another movement shaking it
from the opposite corner. A stubborn German monk named Martin Luther had called into
question the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings and authority. Now when we talk about Luther
and the Protestant Reformation, we normally focus on the theological issues that led to it, but
today I’m going to skip all that. I want to talk about what the Reformation did to church and
society. In a word, it shattered them.
You see, until Luther, there was only one church in Europe. Yes, some people knew that
the Christians way off in Constantinople were a little different, but that was a long way away. In
the popular mind, there were only two options. You were a good Catholic Christian, or you were
a heretic. But then, once the dust of Luther’s movement settled, suddenly you had options. You
could be a Catholic Christian or a Lutheran Christian. And then, in short order, there came other
options. You could be a Calvinist Reformed Christian or a Presbyterian Christian. You could be
an Anabaptist or whatever they called that weird hybrid church that let kings get divorced in
England. The point is, people couldn’t take their church for granted anymore. Before, you were
just, you know, Christian, like everybody else who was born and baptized in Europe, but now
you were part of this church and opposed to that church. Your church, once just part of the
assumed background of your life, was now a part of your very identity. And people tend to be
more zealous for their identity, which helps to explain the Thirty Years’ War and the English
Civil War and all the other wars that were fought between rival groups of Christians.
But this process wasn’t just happening in the world of the church. It was happening in the
political world as well. Just as the all-encompassing Roman Church was sloughing off various
forms of Protestants, medieval empires began to fracture into independent nation states.
Eventually, the religious and political movements merged, so that each new nation state had its
own national religion. France, Spain, the states of Italy, and parts of Germany were Catholic.
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Scotland were Calvinist. The Scandinavian countries and the
rest of Germany were Lutheran. England was, you know, England. Whatever. Your faith became
a part of your national identity, not just your religious identity. All this was new.
I need to talk about a unique case in all this because, well, because it’s us. The American
colonies had started out like Europe, with each colony having its own religion. New England was
Congregational, Pennsylvania was Quaker, Rhode Island was Baptist, Maryland was Catholic,
and so on. But by the time our Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution, they had seen what the
religious wars of Europe had looked like, and they wanted no part of it. So they decreed that the
United States would not have a national religion. It kind of worked. We didn’t have religious
wars between states. But the vast majority of Americans were still Christians, and I guess it felt
weird not to have a national religion, so what developed is what is sometimes called “American
Civil Religion,” which is basically a sort of non-specific Christianish-ness with a heavy dose of
patriotism. This religion’s sacraments are Thanksgiving Dinner and Fourth of July hot dogs.

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But don’t laugh. That hybrid-religion worked. As it developed through the 19 th century
and into the 20 th , it became a unifying force when we needed one. It held us together through
trials like the Great Depression and World War II. The philosopher Charles Taylor calls that
period of national unity The Age of Mobilization. In those years, we defined ourselves by the
groups we were a part of, primarily our faith and our nation. Facing danger, hardship, privation,
and an existential threat from Germany and Japan, we put aside whatever differences we had and
linked arms in the war effort. We bought War Bonds, planted Victory Gardens, went without
rubber and metal, and volunteered to serve. We won that war, but then immediately faced a new
enemy, an enemy of both faith and nation: Godless Communism. So we threw themselves into a
new holy war, only this time we were called not to take up arms, but rather to prove the
superiority of capitalism by buying homes, washing machines, and Buicks. We did it together.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve talked about how Christians have adapted their faith to fit
into the worldview of their time. Well, in the Age of Mobilization, we did it again. Our churches
took on the characteristics of American Civil Religion. We put American flags in our sanctuaries
and patriotic anthems in our hymnals. Jesus became American, and democracy and free
enterprise became Christian. And it worked for the Church, for a while. Helped along by the
Baby Boom, our churches grew by every numerical measure. Many of you here remember when
this church was bursting at the seams, like every other church in town. And those Americanized
churches did genuinely great things: began vast worldwide mission endeavors, raised millions
for relief and charity, established denominational benevolent organization. All that was good,
and it was biblical. Ancient Israel had a national religion, too.
We read from the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 4, verses 1-7:
4 So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe,
so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is
giving you.  2 You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything
from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.
3 You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did with regard to the Baal of Peor—how
the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,
4 while those of you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. 5 See, just as the
Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in
the land that you are about to enter and occupy.  6 You must observe them diligently, for this
will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these
statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’  7 For what other
great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?
This is part of a speech given by Moses to the people of Israel at a crucial point in their salvation
history: just after surviving the long years in the wilderness and just before entering into war
against Canaan. Like America in 1940, between a depression and a world war, what they needed
was to be one nation under God. Moses calls on them to stand together, to put aside selfishness,
expel those who worshiped other gods, and to hold fast to the Lord their God. This was, for
Ancient Israel, an Age of Mobilization, and when their trial was over, the rest of the world
should gaze at that nation with awe: “Look at that great people. Their God is with them.”
As I said, some of you lived through that time in American history, and by many
measures it was a time of greatness. In just a few decades, the United States went from being
Great Britain’s upstart young second-cousin to being the unquestioned leader of the Free World.

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And the American Christian church saw similar success. In 1940, the Gallup Poll indicated that
about 39% of Americans had been in church in the past week. By 1960, it was 49%. Half of
America went to church every week. But what’s even more impressive to me is the ethos of that
time. Because people defined themselves by the groups to which they belonged, their identity
was tied up in community. Churches and groups acknowledged their duty to each other, we
supported our churches, our neighborhoods, and our nation. Our heroes were people who showed
loyalty, self-sacrifice, integrity. Politicians were called public servants, and many of them
actually were. Sure, there were crooks and liars and philanderers and corrupt politicians, as there
always have been, but in general when those people’s deeds were uncovered, they faced
consequences, social, if not legal. People were committed to each other and accepted that the
good of the group outweighed the good of the individual. These were the virtues taught to Israel
in Deuteronomy and these were the virtues honored in America during this time. No wonder
Tom Brokaw called the people of that age “The Greatest Generation.”
You might have heard all that and thought to yourself, “Man, I wish we could just get
back to that time!” If you thought that, let me say two things. First, sorry. That ship has sailed.
The Age of Mobilization has ended, and we have a new worldview today, which I’ll talk about
next week. As much as some people would like to turn back the hands of time, that’s not how
worldviews work. But second, even if it were possible to bring back that age, I wouldn’t.
Remember, every worldview has both strengths and weaknesses; the same is true this time.
Cultures that value the group over the individual tend to force people into tight molds so as to fit
in with the group. One author I read called the 40s and 50s not the Age of Mobilization but the
Age of Conformity. Conformity is okay, if you fit the mold. But it’s hellish if you don’t. The
good old days of the 1950s were not a positive experience for Black or brown Americans. Or gay
Americans. Or Americans with disabilities. Or single women. Or women, single or married, who
wanted to be mathematicians, scientists, professors, politicians, business leaders, or ministers.
Nor would I go back to the booming American church of that time. Not only did the
church partake in that obsession with conformity, but it had another fatal flaw. It had grown too
comfortable with its place in society. You see, one reason the church grew so impressively was
that we had positioned ourself as an integral part of the culture. Church and culture were joined
at the hip. It was in the 1950s when we added “under God” to the pledge of allegiance and
started putting “in God we trust” on our money. (Does anyone else think that’s weird? Stamping
God’s name on our preferred idol?) The problem with being absorbed by culture is that cultures
change, worldviews shift. A religion that has hitched its wagon to a culture will go over the cliff
when the culture does. And sure enough, we’ve been in freefall for thirty years now.
Next week, I’ll begin talking about the worldview of our own time, which Taylor calls
the Age of Authenticity. And sure enough, we are already adapting our faith lives to conform to
this new worldview. As always, some of that is good, and some of it is not. We’ll try to pull the
pieces apart next week.