I’ve just finished reading and writing a paper on The Gettysburg Gospel by Gabor Boritt. It’s a scholarly work about the Gettysburg Address. Boritt starts off with a detailed account about how and when Lincoln wrote the Address, then he talks about how it was received at the time and how it grew in importance as time went on. This is the second book I’ve read that talks about a piece of American history as if it were scripture. I didn’t really understand the reference until Boritt, in Chapter Seven: Gloria, explains that we have created a “secular faith” or a “civil religion” where we have texts that we consider so important that they are sacred and people who are elevated to demi-god status.
That idea has gotten me thinking. The Declaration of Independence is certainly sacred to Americans. The Bill of Rights is a succinct set of ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’ for our govenrment. King’s “I have a dream” speech probably is in the canon as well. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln have become larger than mortals in what they contributed to our country and its religion. We have praise songs: The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, God Bless America. The sad thing is, there are a lot of unbelievers out there today, both within our borders and out. There’s also a lot of apathy, not as many people are zealous about America as one could hope.
