Norman Lear and the Lie of “Born Again American”

A friend of mine sent me a link to a video with the title “Born Again American” – I seldom follow links sent by email but felt prompted to do so. The video is a collage of many different Americans preforming the song “Born Again American.” The artists are all non-celebrity types and they preform in front of landmarks across the country.  As far as videos go, it’s well crafted and the song, written by Keith Carradine (who opens the video),  is standard sing-a-long folk fair. I couldn’t figure out the disconnect right away although I knew there was one. The chorus near the beginning of the video states:

“I’m a born again American. Conceived in liberty. My Bible and the Bill of Rights. My creed’s equality.”

The buzz words are present… born again.. Bible… America..  Some of the performers are church choirs and guys in clerical collars. Why do I sense some dishonesty at work?  A further look at the website revealed the answer.

Before we get to the out and out lie, let’s start by establishing a couple of facts.

First, the video was produced by Norman Lear and People for the American Way. Norman asked Keith to pen the song and then his outfit did the video.  Lear started People for the American Way back in 1980 in reaction to the rising religious right.  You can see the commercial that started it all here. Lear and PFAW have worked tirelessly to promote a “religious freedom” that keeps religion in it’s place – as important to individuals but incidental to the public sphere.

Second, what Lear and company are clearly doing in the music video and the website is the same thing, unfortunately, that the religious right did – co-opting evangelical language for political gain.  What do I mean? Over the years, the efforts of the religious right have created a huge roadblock to evangelism by equating right wing political views and candidates as “Christian.”  This past election we witnessed the fruition of this course as moderates and younger evangelicals resisted being identified with a party they felt were only using evangelicals.  The efforts of people like Brian McClaren and others in the emergent stream contributed to the confusion through the creation of the Matthew 25 Network.

“The core of our political passion rises from Matthew 25:40, in which Jesus tells His followers, “I tell you the truth, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Out of this political passion, the Matthew 25 Network advocates for the public policies that stand for the least of these and to support the political leaders who will champion these policies.” (Matt25 Network Website)

This effort, sponsored by those deemed post-modernly cool,  played attractively to evangelicals who struggled being identified with a party that seemed to champion family values, being pro-life, and keeping marriage between men and women but appeared to only use those things as a soapbox to gather evangelical votes while remaining in the pocket of big business and unconcerned for the poor or the environment. Evangelicals, especially the younger ones, became disenchanted with the religious right and wanted a more holistic approach to politics that was not centered on single issue voting but embraced all that the scriptures taught.

Now Norman Lear uses the same tactic… use evangelical language to attract people to a particular way of thinking. By using the term “born again” in the way that he does, he attempts to take it right out of the mouth of Jesus and redefine it as pride in a national identity as opposed to a condition for entering the Kingdom of God. I seriously think that their thinking goes: “Hey, those rednecks, hicks and bread basket folks love America and they love their Bibles and churches and guys that look like ministers and cowboys and the flag, so, let’s put all that in a video and use the term ‘born-again’ to pitch our organization to them.”

So what is the out and out lie? In the “Meet the Performers” section of the website, Keith Carradine states the following:

When Norman asked me to write “Born Again American” he did so with the suggestion that the song address several timely and timeless social and political issues. He was quite specific about reinforcing what our founders envisioned when they wrote our Constitution and Bill Of Rights; (ergo ” my bible is The Bill Of Rights “). The secular ideals of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine are what we need to remind ourselves of at this critical time in our Nation’s history.

“A harvest of the spirit has begun” – makes no sense really but it’s evangelical language.

“I hear the calling once again, my country needs me now and to her cause I have been re-ordained.” – a minister in a clerical collar is singing that line. Nice touch but that’s not what Biblical ordination is about.