Paul Graves: Keep patriotic, religious fevers in perspective

Red-white-and-blue isn’t black-or-white. (The connecting words “and” and “or” should be a linguistic clue, but we usually skip right over them.)

This is THE weekend of fever-pitch patriotism for our country. And it is right to be proud of our country. Its opportunities are astounding.

But when patriotism is presented as an either-or proposition – “Love it or leave it,” for instance – the patriotic fever isn’t healthy. A fever is usually a good symptom that some infection needs to be fixed. Too much fever can signal the infection is out of control, and it could kill us.

I think “patriotic fever” can become extreme if we don’t look for some balance in our passion. For instance, to criticize our country’s government incessantly and – sometimes – prematurely before all the “facts” are in on a particular issue may blind us to any form of healthy, productive criticism.

We’ve never had a perfect government, although partisan blindness would convince us otherwise. But our imperfect government agencies and elected representatives make convenient targets for our fear-driven patriotic fervor. Let us cool that fever with some reasoned reality.

Unfortunately, “reasoned reality” is too often a casualty of mixing patriotic fever with religious fever. My eyes roll and my sighs become audible when seeing how often “God and country” are mixed together in a horrible stew that is neither tasty nor nutritious.

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling on the Hobby Lobby case that certain for-profit corporations can make decisions based on religious preferences. The naysayers and defenders of that decision are all over the opinion map.

While I’m personally disappointed in the court’s 5-4 decision, I don’t feel qualified to anticipate the future end result of that decision. It could be as benign and controlled as Justice Samuel Alito’s words suggest. It could open the door further to what many fear will be more religion-based discrimination.

I don’t think any of us really know. But that doesn’t stop supporters of church-state separation – and those religious people driven to erase that church-state separation – from making foolish, fear-driven predictions of one kind of disaster or another.

While I’m willing to be patient about issues like the Supreme Court decision, I do have deep concern about the religious extremes in our country. I see a disturbing trend from different groups working hard toward making our government (at all levels) into some form of “theocracy.”

If you don’t know that word, please check it out. Basically, it means that somebody’s idea of “God” becomes the driving force behind governmental policies and enforcement of those policies. A most extreme effort today is the Islamic state being pursued in Iraq.

But some kind of Christian theocracy seems to be alive in our country. The proponents may be more subtle in their marketing strategies, but the efforts could be the same: Our version of god is the only true version, and our god (through us) should run our country. That kind of distorted power-play was never Jesus’ intention with his disciples. Nor is that the mission of the Christian church when it does its best work.

On our best days, we are a societal check-and-balance. We remind both government and our country that raw, unchecked power can damage our culture and our people. We remind ourselves and others that our perceptions of God never see God entirely (unless we’re into idolatry).

“Patriotic fever” and “religious fever” have a positive place in our society. But when that fever is seen in black-or-white terms – rather than in Technicolor – our passion has blinded the very best in our humanity.