WHY America hates Christians?
When I was a child, growing into this world, my family relied on two other institutions to teach me how to be in community – those were church and school. Because we moved a lot, I was exposed to a variety of both, but a common theme runs through that I would call The American Dream. This paradox central to the American psyche is woven into the fabric of our culture, however repackaged or maladapted for modern use – a nation of seekers we find ourselves to be. The original pursuit – that of creating a new, more egalitarian government free from religious persecution with the promise of abundant riches; hard-won ideals underlining the foundation of our (still) young nation. Some colonies were more secular than others, some relied on slave labor while others did not, but the infantile form took shape, and our spirit was fiercely united as “One Nation, Under God.”
Best intentions aside, I was raised in this world right now, under a number of influences and desires – imagining my Dream to include lots of things and yearnings planted perhaps in colonial times but grown up like weeds. We struggle now more than ever to see but not snatch (credit card debt mirroring national debt), drink but not drunk (alcoholism is not unique to the U.S.), watch but not binge, graze but not gorge. I honestly do not know whether Kennedy’s unresolved assassination or Nixon’s Watergate or Bush vs. Gore have caused more distrust, disillusionment, and polarization in our bipartisan system, but I feel the effects and have inherited their problems.
Where is God in all of this? Some say irrelevant, impossible, scientifically disproven, while others claim prophesy and apocalyptic retreat. As someone who’s had a long, intermittently troubled, and only partially reconciled relationship with said Being, I believe God becomes anything (or anyone) we give our hearts and minds to. Unfortunate examples of this abound in alcoholism, addiction, cult activities, religious extremism, political movements and leaders. I was all too willing to give myself over to boys, spending, and alcohol before I had any concept of my inherent worth as a healthy human citizen of the United States. The problem with lesser gods is they will eventually and always fail, but the drug is ever more addictive, and always fatal. And if we fail to realize, we’ll keep looking for someone or something else to fix it make it better, because I wasn’t designed to do it all by myself anyhow.
So America was born with a yearning – the country on a hill set right below the gaze of the Almighty, and of course we’ve fallen short. We live in a country said to be free, originally built on slavery, where privacy is only an implied right, power is more richly concentrated in those who direct and control the government, and roughly half of those representing us identify with a party where Republican has become synonymous with a church that is named (but hardly behaving) Christian. We are crestfallen, confused, and increasingly disengaged from the very system that was designed for the people, by the people.
In a world where we'd rather be pretty than healthy, negotiate with "nice" over being honest, and continually turn our power to the overwhelm of information on our screens - has our country failed us, or have we failed Her? And its leaders, so deeply and tragically flawed, could they be a reflection of our own defects and deficiencies, magnified by the power we've vested (or eschewed) in them? Instead of blaming, hating, denying, or ignoring God altogether, at what point will we collectively cry out in helplessness and mercy for the only One who might be able to save us from ourselves?
I pray soon. I pray now.
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