Bigger Than Jesus

"Moses is bigger than Jesus," according to the lead article in USA Today. Written by Cathy Lynn Grossman, the story expresses the view of Bruce Feiler who wrote a book called America's Prophet.

The idea is that Moses played a bigger role than Jesus in "shaping the character of America's self-identity." Feiler tracks this back to the early days of independence, when the new nation realized it needed a moral authority higher than the despised King of England. Rejecting individuals as arbiters of right and wrong, they turned to the Bible and found Moses.

Moses is an extraordinary character. He led his people out of Egypt across the miraculously divided Red Sea, received the Ten Commandments from God, and brought the Hebrews to the promised land. But God forbid him to go into it himself because he disobeyed one of His commands. During a desperate time in the desert, God told Moses to "speak to that rock" to "pour out its water," but Moses struck it with his staff instead. The water poured out, but he paid a heavy price for his lack of trust in God.

He did all of this, and much more, despite having a speech impediment. He's an absolutely compelling character.

Moses certainly figures into American history. He was quoted by the Pilgrims during the voyage to Plymouth. His words, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land" are cast into the Liberty Bell. And his feat of freeing his people from oppression and leading them to the promised land is a powerful metaphor for a nation that broke its bondage to England and created its own land of milk and honey.

Feiler may have soft spot for Moses. It's hard not to. But to claim that Moses supercedes Jesus is a stretch, considering that the U.S. has always been overwhelmingly Christian. The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) provides the foundation for Christianity and makes up about two-thirds of the Christian Bible. Moses is a key player in it, and his influence found its way into the founding principles of the United States through the Puritans, who were Christian.

Moses's impact on America doesn't mean that "Moses is bigger than Jesus...in U.S. political and cultural history," any more than he's bigger than Jesus in the Bible. After all, Jesus is God and not simply a prophet acting at God's behest. Jesus shared the gospel first with the Jewish people, who largely rejected it, and then with everyone else. It's the people who accepted it, from the Pilgrims to the Puritans, to Jonathan Edwards sparking the Great Awakening, to churchmen pushing to abolish slavery and later driving the civil rights movement, who shaped this country.

The story of Moses is taught in Sunday Schools and has inspired Christians throughout history. It's in the context of Christianity that his role is significant for most Americans.

The USA Today article is just another example of the press taking a subtle swipe at Jesus. It gave one of the largest national daily newspapers a chance to write a front page headline asking, "Was Moses our true Founding Father" rather than simply writing a book review, and it gratuitously challenged the primacy of Christian influence in the United States.

We don't really need to argue about this. If you want to see whose ideals permeate America, all you need to do is walk through a national cemetery and count the crosses.


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