Words matter. About a year ago, President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for a second presidential term. He had the Democratic Party nomination clinched due to a lack of credible candidates willing to run again him, but his poor debate performance against Donald Trump caused the party elites to suggest that he would not defeat Trump. He wisely decided not to run.
After dropping his re-election bid, Biden, a Catholic, made a speech and used the word “sacred” four times, in references to: the Oval Office, “perfecting our nation,” “the cause of our country,” and “the ideals of the founding documents.” While all these subjects are worthy matters for our country, they are human creations. The word sacred is derived from the Latin word sacer which means holy. It is that which is regarded and revered as holy or able to induce an experience of the divine. The Roman Empire was the mightiest power on earth for over four hundred years, yet it was not sacred nor eternal. The United States is currently the most powerful nation on earth, yet the country is not sacred. Only God and things of God are sacred.
As our world becomes less religious, humans start to confuse civil matters with sacred. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and a Catholic, referred to the US Capital building after the January 6, 2021 riots as a “temple of democracy.” The word temple is derived from the Latin word templum which means “open or consecrated space.” In pagan ancient Rome, a temple was designated as a sacred space delimited by an augur, a pagan religious official. This space could be an area of land or a building intended for religious purposes, like the Roman Pantheon. I am sure that if I started to perform communion in the US Capital, Pelosi would have been outraged, stating separation of Church and State. Yet, she referred to the Capital building as a temple. Words do matter.
During the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies, performed in the rain, drag queens assembled themselves into what appeared to be a replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Da Vinci’s painting is not sacred as it was created by a man, but the subject is sacred as his painting shows Jesus performing a divinely inspired sacrament. While the Olympic artistic director denied the comparison, most people watching understood that it was mocking Christianity. As religion declines, culture begins to lack uplifting inspiration that points toward something far greater than humans and chooses to tear down instead. The later Paris Olympics ceremony scene of Marie Antoinette holding her singing guillotined head emphasizes my point.
If we state that human creations are sacred, then sacredness devolves. As we continue this downward spiral of achieving greater levels of entertainment shock effects, then will we once again build pagan temples and revive the Roman Coliseum to exhibit gladiatorial thrillers to feed the bloodthirsty mobs? Perhaps AI will attempt to solve all our human problems and be crowned sacred. How we define and use words like sacred matter.
I love my country and work towards making it better, like most of my fellow citizens. We are so fortunate to live in a country that has the constitutional right of religious freedom. This basic human right was agreed amongst our founding citizens after analyzing past disastrous religious conflicts. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 13:1–7 about the role of government: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. …” Paul does not say to worship government and does not state that government is sacred. In Romans 8:38-39, he places “rulers” under the Lordship of God. Jesus stated the same principle: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mark 12:17)
During the 1924 Paris Olympic games, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell refused to run the 100 meters race on Sunday stating that the Sabbath was sacred and commanded by God. He was pressured by the British government to run but held firm to his beliefs. He was then placed in the 440 meters race, a distance he rarely ran, and won. The race was a special human event, but not sacred. Liddell understood the difference between humans and God. What humans build today will not last. The Romans built many structures, and they are slowly crumbling and require regular maintenance to keep standing. These structures are certainly amazing, but compared to divine, well — there are no comparisons because only the divine is sacred.
