Ode to Caesar

Evangelical songwriters John Peterson and Don Wyrtzen have come up with a musical for the bicentennial. Peterson, who confesses “I’m just a flag waving American” in a song by the same title, calls the musical, “I Love America.” The musical, whose tunes are predictable and lyrics trite, is divided into three parts: history, tribute, and plea.

Under the heading, “our history,” Peterson tells us he’s been in Paris, Rome, and “foggy London town” and that the USA has them all beat. Although he doesn’t go into the exact ways in which we are superior, it is clear that in any competition Americans are destined to win. In a song about the revolutionary war, we are told about a poor young Englishman, Johnny Bull, who goes home from America roundly defeated but consoling himself with the thought, “Maybe God above has willed it.” Peterson can’t resist chiming in at that point with the assurance, “So he had my friend, God had willed it so.”

Is the point of this story that God always fights on the side of oppressed people for liberation? No, Peterson’s point seems to be that America is always right. The song “God of our Fathers” is included in the musical and in the context it’s obvious that Peterson sees the fathers as founders of America and that in “Refresh Thy People” the people are Americans. What the song’s author, George Warren, says about the God of “shining world in splendor through the sky” would make one think he was talking about the Lord of the Universe. But for Peterson he doesn’t even seem to be God of the whole world.

Peterson seems to be writing his songs to some romantic vision of America’s past. When Samuel Ward wrote “America the Beautiful,” maybe the seas were shining with something other than oil-slicks. But when Peterson writes, “And giant rivers flow down thru endless space,” it might be added that those rivers are polluted and the space is not endless and that “primitive” people are getting very uptight about our taking over their space.

In songs where Peterson enjoins Americans to “praise the Lord and give thanks, America,” he seems to be talking as if America is the New Israel, with a special covenant with God. I would be more comfortable if he addressed the people of America, if he wants to address a special category at all. This view of America as God’s chosen people overlooks the fact that there is a nation of Israel and that God now covenants with all people. God has created a new people out of all nations, and it is this kingdom that brings praise and glory to the Lord.

Peterson seems to feel that America has left what was a glorious Christian past so that Jesus is calling America “back to the fold.” One wonders what fold we are being called back to, certainly not to Washington’s Deism or Franklin’s Occultism. Is it a call back to our puritan foundation? Consider part of that history:

“When the Baptists tried to spread their religion to the Puritan world they were legally banned and sometimes jailed and publicly whipped. The most troublesome of the 'heretics' were the Quakers. All punishment, including jailing, fines, the cropping of ears and whippings, failed to dampen their enthusiasm for missionary efforts. Finally, in 1658, the Massachusetts General Court imposed on them banishment on pain of death.” When three Quakers who were expelled and returned to Massachusetts were asked why they came back they answered: “In obedience to the call of the Lord.” The sentence was death by hanging.

All this is not to say that America’s sins are unique among nations but is to question whether any nation deserves from Christian people the kind of adulation Peterson and Wyrtzen give America. Let’s not give any Caesar the praise that belongs to the God of the universe.

The musical ends with an elaborate version of Julia Ward Howe’s "Battle Hymn of the Republic." I would say with her, “As he died to make [people] holy, let us die to make [people] free.” But let’s not die to make them Americans.

Sharon Gallagher was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.