Anthems.

My longstanding belief has been that the United States of America has two national anthems — one official, the other de facto — and that both of them are important symbols of national character.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” is, of course, the official one.  And unlike many national anthems, which are full of rah-rah and a laundry list of great characteristics (or homeless men dancing with their bedrolls), our is one of uncertainty. Think about it: We have enshrined in our national anthem an awareness of the fragility — the necessary fragility — of an intentional nation, based on consciously chosen principles and a devotion to the idea of a limited government providing the administrative framework for its sovereign citizens.  The first verse, which is all that’s sung in 90%+ of instances, ends not with a declaration, but with a question that needs to be asked over and over to inspire vigilance: Does it yet wave?

“America the Beautiful,” the de facto one, is an aspirational anthem. That makes it more akin to what most nations choose as their anthems, but it still doesn’t give a laundry list of virtues.  It’s much more often sung in all four verses, and rightly too, as it makes a complete case (leaving aside the travelogue imagery of the first verse): that both pioneers and soldiers have laid the groundwork for a nation which, in a future era beyond the years, will be characterized by an absence of human tears dimming its alabaster cities.

It’s a forthright acknowledgement that we’re not there yet; the song pleads for God’s grace. we have flaws; we ask God to help mend them.  There are veins of gold here; we ask God to refine them, and us.  So that one day, when we have brotherhood from sea to shining sea, we will finally realize our patriot dream.

(Last year, on the PBS Independence Day celebration, a singer gave a rendition of “America the Beautiful” which skipped, among other things, the second verse.  I was sorely disappointed, but not terribly surprised; if there’s any verse that the modern progressive is going to want to gloss over, it’s the one that contains the line “Confirm thy soul in self control, Thy liberty in law.”  These lofty national ideal only have a hope of realization where citizens realize that the most important control is the one which we each exercise upon ourselves, under a standard of the Rule of Law.  These are inconvenient necessities to some, and best not spoken of in polite company.)

I now want to amend my longstanding belief: There are actually three anthems which, together, define the national character. The third is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

I’ve always loved this song (and especially the classic Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangement), but it’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve really started understanding the point of the lyrics:  Julia Ward Howe saw the soldier camps as altars to Jesus Christ, in a conflict which was literally apocalyptic: The Civil War is equated with “the coming of the Lord,” and that His work was literally being done in the fight to end slavery.

I don’t know that the Civil War was the literal Second Coming of Jesus Christ (it’s been a long time since that war was fought, and He ain’t decisively here) but I can appreciate the sentiment: The actions we take have eternal import.  They should. Our lives, as mired as they are in the grime of the world and the muddiness of politics (in all shades of its definition), should at the end be a deliberate acting-out of our part in His work.  It’s all part of one battle. as we remember that, we are also building Him altars in our evening dews and damps.

I’ll leave you with the aforementioned best arrangement of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” May God bless America, and may America receive God’s blessings.