On this day when Americans celebrate our independence,
we pray for our nation.
We are profoundly grateful for the United States of America; we love our land.
We are grateful for the liberty we enjoy within our boundaries.
We are also grateful for the stern warnings of the scriptures of Jesus,
the Old Testament,
warning against equating Divine will with national will,
warning against idolatrous civil religion
that assumes a manifest destiny for any nation (even Israel).
And we are also grateful for the words of Jesus himself that remind us
that no allegiance may precede our allegiance to God.
So we pray for a carefully tempered patriotism this 4th of July.
May we indeed be “one nation under God”; not the deity of civil religion
that perpetuates nationalistic hubris,
a relentless pursuit for freedom at any cost,
economic and material domination,
unquestioned obedience of leaders and retaliatory rage;
but rather, God, bless America
so that our mission and purpose might be aligned with yours,
that our standards of morality and propriety
may be set along the plumb line established by Jesus,
that our levels of consumption might be tempered
so that there might be an equal distribution of goods,
and that our sense of what is just
might be measured against the cross of Christ alone.
We now close these prayers,
declaring our supreme allegiance to the one who taught us to pray together,
saying, “Our Father …”
Jeff Kisner
