"Slightly queasy," she replied.
Me too. I'm more than a little allergic to calling most any building "sacred," though I've been in a few that evoked that awe -- the Umayed Mosque in Damascus comes to mind. I consider the U.S. Capitol a symbol of a secular nation, a place embodying some of the honorable strands of our history, but not sacred.
But the label is popular at the moment.
We just got rid of a president who falsely claimed he'd won an election in a "sacred landslide." Even if he had won, that would be a weird framing.
But less lunatic public figures seem inclined to call the building sacred. Speaker Pelosi, during the debate on what to do with the lunatic president, spoke of the January assault as a "gleeful desecration of the Capitol." Though Texas Republican Congressmember Pat Fallon voted to block certification of Joe Biden's entirely aboveboard election victory, he too protested that "a mob breached our sacred Capitol." Democratic House Rep. Brian Higgins (NY) was all in on the usage: "The US Capitol is a sacred space - a building at the literal center of our capital and central to our democracy. ..."
And news media describing the January 6 mob have gone wild using "sacred" as shorthand to induce revulsion:
“He’s a noted Nazi miscreant,” Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “It is a disgrace that someone like him was able to invade the sacred Capitol of the United States.” Los Angeles CBS LocalThe resonance of the label "sacred" probably has a lot to do with the increasingly common function of the Capitol as a venue for funeral tributes to distinguish citizens. Since Senator Henry Clay was the first in 1852, deceased officials, judges, and military leaders have lain in state at the Capitol, most recently John McCain, John Lewis, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It would be churlish to feel there was something wrong with that unifying ritual practice, a bridge inclusive of particular faiths and none in a largely secular society.
After 52 years of voting, knowing many of these election workers, I have more faith than ever. The faith symbolized by a big, beautiful, sacred Capitol that came under assault today, but the angry people have all left. The Capitol remains, bothered, but not destroyed and still standing. A symbol of American faith. Craig O'Neill Little Rock, AR 11
The change of administrations, including both the Capitol riot and the inauguration, has led to an outpouring of commentary on the U.S. religious landscape. All sociological research says we are becoming less and less religiously observant. Yet faith(s), religious and perhaps also secular, seems so significant and so lively in this turning over, or perhaps turning back, moment.
Elizabeth Dias provided a straightforward reporter's account of what she sees as the arrival of "an ascendant liberal Christianity," a development that reflects the change in the man at the top:
There are myriad changes with the incoming Biden administration. One of the most significant: a president who has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices. Mr. Biden, perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century, regularly attends Mass and speaks of how his Catholic faith grounds his life and his policies. ...
Well, true, and I'm thankful. But there is so much more to ponder here.
Biden's installation has unleashed a flood of commentary on religion and faith in our politics and culture, too many perspectives to survey in one blog post. I find many fascinating. This week I am going to take up a few, one perspective at a time.
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U.S. religious landscape 2021:
Evangelical Christians: but how can they?
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