Posted on 06/05/2013 12:08:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Special to The Washington Post
I am a Methodist minister and a Washington Nationals fan. I was there on Opening Day in 2005 at old RFK Stadium in Washington, and I try my best to plan my summer around Nats home games. I have only one issue with the ballpark experience, and it’s not with the beer prices. It’s with “God Bless America.”
In his May 15 column, Washington Post writer John Kelly described the odd feeling of not knowing whether to stand during the singing of this song in the middle of the seventh inning. Like Kelly, I don’t want to come off as anti-American if I remain seated. I stand for the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the acknowledgment of returning soldiers, and for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Because I’m a minister, it might seem odd for me not to stand for “God Bless America,” too. But I sit to stand up for my religious beliefs.
One hot Sunday afternoon last season, I did not rise for “God Bless America.” In a beer-soaked tone of voice that wasn’t pleasant, a gentleman several rows behind me told me to stand up. I reminded him that I don’t have to.
This incident made me think more about the question: I love this country and don’t want to live anywhere else. But being pressured to stand up at a baseball game for a song that’s essentially a prayer seems, well, un-American. It feels like being pushed into the river for a baptism I didn’t choose. It’s an empty ritual, and one that I think doesn’t hold much theological water.
What we join together to say, sing and stand up for says something about us as a people. I think it matters. At ballparks across the country, we are expected to participate in what can be described only as a prayer to ask God’s blessings on our nation. As nice as blessings are, singing this song doesn’t feel like it has integrity the way singing our national anthem does.
I’m reminded of the admonition not to pray just to be seen by others. More important, though, I’m concerned that this is a myopic way to exercise faith. I imagine that the God I believe in isn’t interested in dispensing special nationalistic blessings. (Or, perhaps more to the point, blessings for our bullpen, error-free fielding and sufficient run support.) When we ask for blessings to be bestowed only on “us,” we are in danger of seeing ourselves as set apart from the world. Faith is global, and one nation doesn’t get any more or less of God than any other.
Asking for God’s blessing for “us” or “me” ignores greater needs in our world. We should ask a bigger question: How can we get this blessing to all? I want God walking with and standing beside every single person on this Earth — and every country.
Stepping back, this also raises the question: Why do we all too frequently seek to invoke rituals that, in the end, undermine our common bonds? Not everyone in our nation or at the ballpark shares the same beliefs. From which god are we asking these blessings? What does the good secular humanist or atheist do during this song? Are we to assume that all deities will be in concert for those who believe in more than one?
This “god” business — how (and whether) we conceive of the divine — is messy, even in our houses of worship. At a ballgame, where most of us have come to root for the Nats, it just doesn’t fit. We shouldn’t make a grand assumption that we’re all of one belief. The one thing that we do, in fact, have in common is the love of baseball. It’s a powerful, communal thing when we cheer together — even if we’re cheering for opposite teams. Yes, this even applies to Phillies fans.
So the next time you see me sitting down during “God Bless America,” don’t give me the “hairy eyeball” (as Kelly described it) or say I’m un-American. In our great country, each of us has the right to his or her own religious beliefs, and we celebrate our nation’s diversity and plurality. My deeply held and sincere religious beliefs just don’t countenance this ritual.
Besides, dissent is patriotic. We have the right to sit down when everyone else stands up.
“I’m reminded of the admonition not to pray just to be seen by others. More important, though, I’m concerned that this is a myopic way to exercise faith. I imagine that the God I believe in isn’t interested in dispensing special nationalistic blessings. “
Well, “reverend”, once upon a time when we were a little less technologically adept, a little less sophisticated, and a lot more un-polished, we atually believed that America was God’s gift to the world, that He really cared about us because we stood for somethng greater than ourselves, because we placed our trust in Him and His Holy Scripture. We believed God DID dispense special favors to those who reconized, worshipped, and in their own humble way, sought to plase Him.
And He did.
But today, thanks in no small part to sophists like yourself, other people who really believe in cultural equivalence, and who, maybe even deep down inside question His very existence, we are different nation and people.
Its a shame. I miss America and I certainly wouldn’t miss people like you.
he calls the song a prayer. don’t most ministers/ pastors/ priests, usually ask you to rise for a prayer?
as far as who the crap about asking for a blessing for our nation isn’t right as we aren’t blessing everyone, seriously. i’d bet every time he preaches he prays for a blessing on a much smaller subset of people. so should i be mad that he doesn’t include me in his blessing for his congregation?
LOL! Wotsamatteryou?!
Spoken like a true Obamunist. He must not have read the news about the IRS investigations into tea party patriot groups. He must not have seen the reports than anyone who opposes Obama is a "racist" and a "bitter clinger".
You have the right to sit out God Bless America but he didn't make a convincing point as to why one SHOULD sit it out. "plurality", "diversity", etc.
What's the beef? "It's a prayer"? This nation ain't so hot? "Who are we to ask for God's blessings"? It's somehow "divisive"? I ain't buyin' it.
I love it when a liberal tries in vain to explain in some contorted way that they simply resent patriotism.
Patriotism is to a die hard lib what silver is to the fairy tale vampire. They fear it.
To the them the world is one big family and for one member of that family to say they are better is some way or deserve Gods blessing in this case, is against their understanding of the world.
It's that simple yet they cannot admit this...or in this guys case, simply don't understand it.
But viewers from outside their little liberal world can see it, smell it, and view it with total disdain.
“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. “
God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.”
Wow. This cleric has a problem with this?
It is a simple prayer, and excludes no one. It acknowledges that blessings come from God, and we humbly ask Him to bless our land.
Except for fruitcake Methodist ministers.
This Is my Song
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
James 1:27 — Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
“Methodism has some real numbskulls in its ministerial class.”
Not only them.
“Mainstream” (i.e., Big) religion continues to provide examples of why they have become irrelevant.
But, in the 7th inning stretch, I bet he stands for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
He resorts the the tired “dissent is patriotic.”
So is farting, nose picking, drooling, puking, and scratching our ass.
In his article, he wrote that he does.
Well, he shouldn't. Before the mid 1950's professional baseball actively discriminated against minorities. And “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was written in that racist era.
So by standing for that song, the worthy Mr. Marsh is actively condoning baseball's racist past. He should be ashamed of himself.
/s
I found a Methodist preacher who takes sides all the time. So far he has told us we can’t post pro life signs on the church lawn because we may offend parishoners, we shouldn’t ever mention God to non believers, we may offend them. And we shouldn’t do any type of mission work because too many people are donating to the mission work, and the preacher wants the church to have a new sound system and a projection screen on the altar. He also took a stand and told me I was not welcome after I told him and his wife that Jesus would have driven them out of the temple with a whip. We had a vibrant youth group and now we don’t have any youth, and its because we were too offensive and don’t have a movie screen he says. The average parishoner age is senior citizen, thanks to him. And I could go on with so much more...
I was a methodist until they became an evil church of satan. I AM NOW AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN A CHRISTIAN! I will NEVER be a methodist again.
LLS
If it wasn’t for America’s expense in blood and treasure in the last one hundred years there wouldn’t be a lot of ‘’other nations’’.
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