lofhay

President Obama closed his speach a few weeks ago with the words, “May God bless America”. I wish he had not done that. Here are my concerns.

1. I think that when politicians use the expression “God bless America” or “so help me God”, they do so mostly because they believe it to be (to use an over-used cliche) “politically correct”, i.e. they think that it will get more votes than it loses.

2. The expression sounds exclusive, audacious and arrogant.
--Does it imply that America deserves being blessed? If so, why? Is it because we have “In God we trust” on our money? or because we say “so help me God” at the end of our oaths?
--Does it imply that we want God to bless America but not the rest of the world?
--How does this come across to the rest of the world?
--What impact does this attitude have when we come to the bargaining table with other countries?

3. If we don’t mean it to be exclusive, then why don’t we start saying, like Tiny Tim, “God bless us all” ? If we stop and think about it, we really shouldn’t want for God to bless American without blessing the whole world. Such unequal treatment would arouse the wrath of the world against us even more than we have done by our arrogance up to now.

Ourcrazymodern?

Let's reckon the president's sincere. Maybe he said "America" because it's his theoretical responsibility, or for other reasons of his own. I don't like that he refers to God at all, but I don't hold it against him. There's no point. I wholeheartedly agree that Tiny Tim's statement is more beautiful.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

levite

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. And personally, I'm not a fan of politicians using phrases like "God bless America," both because I hate Irving Berlin, and because I think politics and religion should not mix.

But I also think, on the scale of things politicians do involving religion, this one is pretty minor. I don't think it has to be exclusivist: saying "God bless America" doesn't have to mean "...and only America-- no one else." It can simply be "God bless America" and we don't have to mention everyone else because right now we're talking about America-- that's the subject of this conversation, and the blessing is relevant to it. I doubt it comes across as particularly egregious to the rest of the world, anyhow, as many countries express similar sentiments in similar moments. We can hardly be damned for what everyone does.

Honestly, I would be happy to let politicians go on saying "God bless America" if they would just accompany that by stop trying to Christianize American political, social, and education discourse. God is, AFAIK, equal opportunity-- He's everyone's God, equally; no reason that our public religious discourse should not be similarly equal opportunity.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)