America Sucks

Is it me or are there a lot of professing Christians down on America these days? And when I say down, I mean openly hostile to many aspects of American life, especially its political life, its wealth, colonialism, racism, etc. In this piece, I want to consider the relationship of Church and state from a different angle.

There are two equal and opposite errors on the question of Church and state: One would be to affirm that the Church and her members should have nothing to do with the state; the other would be to affirm that the Church should attempt to coerce control over those who resist its teaching. The Church has tried both, and neither has been in accord with God's plan and purpose for His Church. In other blog pieces, I've emphasized the distinction that ought to exist between America and The Church. Here I want to counter the frenzied cries of leftist Christians asking us to hate America.

A self-professing Christian today can without much criticism attack America as an evil nation, or at the very least a deeply compromised nation. On various media Christians complain about nationalism, white privilege and xenophobia of all kinds. One can score immediate points with the new pseudo-Christian intelligentsia (or is that pseudo-intelligent Christendom) by pointing out, with stunning depth of insight I might add, that Jesus was not white, or a Republican, or 'Merican.

I'm more than pleased that many Christians are no longer defining themselves uncritically as simply Americans. But I wonder how it is that they do define themselves? From all I can see, they merely define themselves as against America, because of all the flaws of course. Many of them are merely using America cheaply as a foil. America has surely fallen into disfavor among many college grads in particular. Many of their classes erect a long list of grievances against this country. The peculiar thing is the mass of self-professing Christians that uncritically join in the chorus. Christians are supposed to view things from a position of fidelity to Jesus and His teaching, and evaluate all things through that singular lens. Of course that means we must evaluate America according to Christianity, but that also means we must evaluate criticism of America according to Christianity as well.

The unanimity of the present vitriol against America should cause more of us to pause. Is there really nothing to see here except racism, classism, misogyny, and all the buzz words? Should we all really move to Finland? Is America's defining act the genocide of the Indians? No, that's right, our defining act is slavery. Well, both actually! I'm sorry, don't forget about colonialism either, and then there is abortion and...

Is there any real and lasting good in the idea and execution of this grand experiment called America?

Perhaps it is just too easy, too lazy, too "American" in the worst sense, to write posts about how awful America is. There is a time for thoughtful critique and comparison, but that doesn't seem to be the tone or goal with much of what I am hearing. Perhaps Christians can think about the unique good that America as a nation has brought to the world, or can, and address its evils through words followed by meaningful action. Stop looking to politicians to fix what ails a democracy. If you see a problem, do something that appreciably moves the nation towards a solution. I'm not sure that kneeling during the anthem or marching or the endless noise of Twitter do anything except make people feel good about themselves for aligning with some cause that often only, yet again, highlights something that is wrong, and only in the abstract safe space of ideas. Of course this comes back around on me as a Christian. What am I doing to seek the good of my land other than writing blog posts?

The Scriptures make it clear that Christians are to pray and work for the good of the land in which we reside. That injunction came from Christians living in the Roman Empire, where they were despised. I sometimes wonder what might happen if you could take some enlightened leftist Christian from America and magically transport him to Nero's Rome, leave him there for a few years and then transport him back. What might he say about the comparison of America to Rome? I dare to speculate that such a person would still think that America is worse. Nero, at least, knew how to separate Church and state, and, after all, the persecution was more about the dogmatism of the Christians. If they were more open to other perspectives, then they could have joined the larger polytheistic conversation. Exposure to the raw reality of Roman's murdering Christians would not be persuasive either, because cops are killing black people in America, and slavery, and Indians, and poverty, and...

One last point that is crucial. What is the point of helping people see that America is the worst nation in the history of man? Is the Christian motivated to expose human sin so that he can introduce the savior? Or is it some self-congratulatory act of theater for social media "friends?" Is this effort to expose the failure of America an effort to encourage redemptive action? Is he artfully calling people away from this imperfect nation and into fidelity to Christ and His kingdom? Or is he only critiquing one party within the wicked nation and affirming the other as The Kingdom? Or is it merely egoistic mockery of those naive rubes who still hold feebly to the belief that America is a good country? Let me just say that if his motivation is to promote the gospel, it is entirely unclear that this is his aim.