The Greatest Country on Earth?

Both presidential candidates agree that the USA is the greatest country or nation on Earth. Two questions pop up in my mind when I hear them say this: 1) Is this true, and how can we compare the greatness of nations? 2) Why do the candidates keep saying that the USA is the greatest country on Earth?

For both candidates the greatness of America seems to be a self-evident truth. They do not systematically present in what sense America is the greatest, but there are at least some particular examples of American greatness in their rhetoric. Their examples range from undisputable true, via the debatable to the highly dubious. In his nomination address Obama said the US is has the most wealth and the most powerful military, and “our universities and our culture are the envy of the world.” In the second presidential debate McCain said that “the fact is, America is the greatest force for good in the history.” In the first debate he managed to say that the American worker is the most productive and innovative.

I have not been around the world to check how great the workers are, but to claim that American worker are more productive than German, Chinese, Japanese, and South-Korean workers is absurd, and points to how subjective the claim to the greatness of America is.

The word “great” in itself has both a quantifiable meaning in terms of size, but it also has a moral connotation. Viewed from the inside America is great because we have freedom of speech, but viewed from Iran, America is evil because of the “immoral” cultural expressions we export to the rest of the world. When America claim to be a force for good, the “goodness” we force on others may not be very good according to their value systems.

The claim that America is the greatest nation on Earth is an echo of belief in America as the Millennial Republic. In Mission and Menace the author Robert Jewett traces how the belief that America plays a particular role in how God prepares the World for the second coming of Christ, has been prominent from the Puritan colonies in New England, through the American Revolution and the Civil War, and in some sense all the way to our time. The great democracy and values of America has qualities of a Millennial reign of Christ, and need to be spread to other parts of the World.

For most people, the specific theological foundations for this belief has been washed away, but the myth that America plays a special role in the history has survived and is the backdrop for the presidential candidates talk about the USA as the greatest nation and force for good in history.

I hope Americans will continue to work for the good in the world, but it is now time to reject the myth of the US as the Millennial Republic or New Israel. The policies, and rhetorical ethos and pathos that are anchored in this myth need to be reevaluated. While the USA was the first lasting democracy, it is no longer the only one and need to learn from other countries. USA should be a brother among democracies and play by the rules of diplomacy rather than running around as a raving maverick. Politicians should talk about America as a great nation rather than the greatest. Then Americans will easier be able to learn from other, work with others, and maybe even love their neighbors; which in the age of globalization are all countries.

Absentee: Abstaining from the Voting Booth

In 2004, I found myself at a crossroads in my political life – I chose not to vote. Four years earlier, I had been one of the lucky few at my high school who was old enough to vote, and like any good conservative suburbanite, used my right to cast for George W. Bush – and for what would become his first term in office. I was voting my parent’s politics, I was voting the politics of my friends, I was voting (I thought) the politics of my Christian faith.

The four years which marked George Bush’s first term were formative ones, not only for me personally, but also for our comparatively adolescent nation. 9/11 changed the world, not for the world, but rather in American vision, bringing the pain of war torn creation into our very backyards, and the uncertainty of that world missiling through the bubble of American physical, ideological, and financial security. One of the strongest towers that was toppled was that of our exclusivity. For a moment, we were open and vulnerable and hurt, and the rest of the world was able to see us, not as the privileged elite, but as sibling humanity.

As the war dragged on and confusion grew as to its justification, so did my discontent at having felt some minute responsibility in this form of retaliation. It was in the response of the nation in which American exclusivity was swiftly and powerfully reconstructed. While all nations deal with terror and violence, not many are able to produce shock and awe, those Godlike tools of destruction within another nation of its choosing, and at its complete and utter autonomy.

I remember my freshman year at Bethel University when the war was just beginning, how powerfully I began to lose my faith in what we had become involved in. We had chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and every chapel morning, twice a week for months (perhaps even the whole year, I can’t remember for sure), there was a simple candlelight vigil. No shouting, no bright colored signs, not even so much as a whisper from one group member to another. Just people holding a lighted candle each, and one of them at the center, a kindly old philosophy professor with a small sign made of torn notebook paper and held out in one of his hands which said simply: “pray for peace”.

The first time I saw them, I was walking to chapel with a friend who remarked, “that’s crazy, don’t they realize we’re under attack?” I think I replied with something like, “and anyway, what good is it going to do to stand around the chapel of a conservative Christian college?” Over the following months, however, things in Iraq continued to fall apart, but the constancy and persistence of that little silent vigil, began to look very poignant to me, and my view of the protestors changed. Looking back, I wish I could say that I stood there with them one day, but I never did.

Somewhere in that time frame, there came the famous toppling of Sadaam Hussein’s statue. I didn’t have class that day, so I was able to watch the entire process as it unfolded live on CNN. I remember my roommate cheering and hollering. I sat in a slightly awestruck state. Anyone watching at the time will remember an American soldier, as the statue is still being brought down, climbing to the head of it and placing an American flag over its face. Moments later, a call comes in – that’s not the way the story’s supposed to go. The American’s help the Iraqi’s to remove the flag, and to put up one of their own. Maybe that’s when all of these uncertainties hit me most concretely – when I realized that we weren’t just broadcasting history here, we were producing it, and packaging it, like producers in Hollywood do with movie scripts. This is a lot of power.

As I think about why that American soldier wanted to put his nation’s flag on the face of that fallen dictator, I think that it has to do with a very powerful theme that is recurrent in our culture. It is because America is a place that loves a good usurpation. Our country was founded on the idea of the rebel, taking power into their own hands to enact what they believe is right, and by so doing, taking their autonomy, their freedom from the clutches of malevolent control. Submission is not something the American spirit is big on. Revolution is how our nation began, it is resplendent within our storytelling, our sportsmanship, our economy, and it is the very definition of our political construction and process. We even have a little revolution every four years we call an election, and even if this doesn’t succeed in axing the dynasty after a short amount of time, we have controls in place to boot them after the maximum term, to ensure that somebody else gets a try.

This all seems really good to me at first, until it becomes difficult for me to separate different elements within the grand story of power. I can’t separate the power which conquered the British and the South, from the power which slaughtered Indians for the land we enjoy or Nigerians for the oil they live above. I can’t separate the revolutionary’s rifle from the WMD from the voting booth. And the reason I can’t do that is because they all seem to support in small or large ways, the same narrative: blessed is he who conquers.

In the introduction to American Cultural Studies, Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean argue that one of the reasons it is so difficult to talk about a “coherent national narrative” is because the national mindset has been so defined not by unity, but by partisanship and competition. They write, “Americans, it is argued, are in the end divided as much as they are united. Where unity is apparent, this is only possible because difference has been hidden by the practice of power.” This, however, is precisely the point. The ruling ethos, is the American ethos. It is a strongly rooted and desparately clinged-to ideal that the majority rules. How do we enact Epluribus Unum? The answer is by force.

I have to ask myself as a person called to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, and not as a citizen of the kingdom of the United States of America, whether this type of narrative is consistent with the subversive rules of the land of my true kinship. I look at the submission of Jesus. I look at what lengths he was willing to go to in order to serve as opposed to correct. I look at his healing admonitions to the people he meets, and I think it tends to look a lot more like those silent, solemn faces in that seminary chapel, than the stern self righteous ones I saw on TV last night. I think it tends to look a lot more like the soft light of a candle which draws us in, rather than a sharp pointing finger seeking to divide.

In Jesus for President, Shaine Claiborne mentions briefly his trip to Iraq during the height of the war in 2003. It is an episode in his life which is recounted with much more detail in his other book Irresistible Revolution, but I like what he writes about it, here in President. Perhaps the brevity of the account forces him to distill the major theme of what that trip meant for him. He says, “we prayed that once again mothers would set up camp beside the bodies of their dead and wail so loudly that word of the travesty would spread throughout the earth. Maybe people from around the world would hear and come out with them on the rock beside the bodies. And we would groan together so loudly that even the kings would hear.” Shane Claiborne and his friends went to Iraq to align themselves with those who mourn. He did so, I think because He though this is what Jesus would be doing. Afterall, this is the same Jesus who said, “Blessed are those who mourn.” How foolish this narrative seems in the kingdom of America, and yet it is the very foundation of the kingdom of which Christ-followers are truly a part.

I think about what I’m aligning myself with when I step into a voting booth. I think about the autonomy I affirm when I close the curtain behind me. I think of the power I’m picking up, when I raise that little pencil to write my voice on the ballot. I think about these things, and it becomes very difficult for me to make a mark.

WWJVF — Who Would Jesus Vote For?

I have a vote. I want my vote to make a difference, to fix the problems and deficiencies of this country, as well as to establish the means to produce a meaningful and positive effect upon the global community. I love the fact that I get to vote, I get to be involved and get to take a stand. I get to be a part of the solution. Honestly, in many ways to vote is to take ownership and just because I vote for one candidate or the other, my vote does not get me off of the hook. It is up to me “to be the change I wish to see in the world.” Gandhi said that, and you know what, he was right. So, when I vote I not only want a candidate that I agree with but I am also looking for a partner. Someone who on an international/national level is working in the same vein that I am (hopefully) operating on in the local level. I want to vote for someone in which I can stand with and say to myself, “Look at us, we are working together Mr./Mrs. President to make this world a better place.”

The problem is that I am only offered two choices with whom to stand: column A and column B. Either my tax dollars will be spent on fueling continued war-mongering, or government sanctioned infanticide. (Oh yeah, this is a gross, gross characterization, but it sure seems to be the way in which the candidates are framed within the public square; cf. Obama and his support for the Freedom of Choice Act and  McCain and war). What is an Evangelical to do… both choices are completely unacceptable. In this light I really can’t stand with either candidate, however, I still have to make a choice.

Unfortunately, it comes down to the lesser of two evils; McCain does not put my understanding of this nation first, and Obama is not my “Messiah.” They both fail. However, does one fail less than the other one?

Daniel Dark in this book, “The Gospel According to America,” offers stout criticism to the political and religious arena in America today. He desires that all of us who hold to the “Jewish Christian tradition” take the narrative that drives it, the Bible, seriously and allow it to deconstruct our understandings of ourselves as a nation in order to reformulate our response to politics in a Christ-like manner. He states, “But the language that connects American motivations with the divine Logos or Americans’ presumed goodness with the blood of the Lamb who was slain should probably give us pause,” (Dark, 15). Jesus is a hammer that smashes any and all concepts, conservative and liberal, of a correct politic. And ultimately, as a Christian, my allegiance is to him. Can I understand the Sermon on the Mount not as an idealistic hyperbole, but as politic of life for the here and now? After all, we as Americans take the myths (formative narratives, e.g. “Manifest Destiny” and “Freedom for all”) of America as practical aspects of life, why can we not do the same with the teachings of Jesus.

So, as I discern and ponder, lament and laugh with this country as we continue through this election, my decision will ultimately be motivated by true exceptionalism, on the character of Jesus. To be a part of this process, to take the responsibility of the privilege to vote demands nothing less.

The Lesser of Two Evils?

I have always believed in the power of voting, especially when it comes to something like the presidential elections. People always told me that it doesn’t matter, that the electoral college is screwed up and my one vote won’t make a difference, that I should just pick the lesser of two evils. But I held firm in my faith in democracy and elections. My one vote combined with many others CAN make a contribution to the election, and if my candidate doesn’t win, at least I, unlike those who didn’t vote, will have the right to complain about his policies because I know that I tried to get my voice out there.

Lately I’ve been reading a book called Jesus for President, and it’s pretty clear that the author (Shane Claiborne) is opposed to even the possibility that any United States presidents could (and would) “rule” according to the principles that we read about in the Bible. I have not yet gotten to a part in the book where Claiborne describes the pitfalls of U.S. presidents—right now, he is essentially reestablishing the politics that we find in the Bible, like pointing out that the political vocabulary of the day can actually be found in our New Testament stories or describing the “political temptations” of Jesus in the desert (Claiborne took much of the latter from John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus–a book definitely worth reading if you’re in to this kind of stuff). In this initial part of his book, Claiborne is essentially helping his readers to view the Bible from a political “lens” instead of our typical views. It’s actually incredibly intriguing.

I’m telling you all of this because, when I opened Claiborne’s book, I was interested to discover how it was going to impact my views on political elections, especially since I’m reading it at time when there actually is a presidential race at the U.S.’s front door. I thought maybe the book would cause me to re-think the way I plan to vote, or look at some of the issues differently…but I was wrong. And I didn’t discover I was wrong until I watched the presidential debates last night.

I listened to both candidates talk about financial and foreign policy, and I was especially interested in the latter because of my passion for international law and politics. Here’s a bit of background for you: I tend to like Obama better in this regard. Much of his foreign policy stance (especially his desire to “dialogue” with other countries, his plans for humanitarian aid, and his plan to pull the troops out of Iraq) seemed to align with my personal opinions on the subject. McCain, on the other hand, has always professed his idea that things in Iraq are working that (!)we are going to GET Osama bin Laden if it’s the last thing we do(!). I hated that so much of his presidential platform rested around vengeance. Last night, though, I heard Barak Obama say almost the exact same thing. I believe what his quote boiled down to was that the number one United States security priority was to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden. Was Obama merely buying in to the nationalism of the American people and telling them what they wanted to hear? Was he afraid that more people agreed with McCain on his vengeance platform and so Obama needed to up his vengeance too? Maybe he’s been saying this all along and I just looked at “my” candidate with rose-colored glasses or didn’t pay enough attention.

In one of the very first pages of Claiborne’s book, he talks about how God called the Israelites out of their “babbling confusion” so they could become a “peculiar new people whom God entrusted to bless the world.” Out to the side of this typed sentence, there is written in handwriting: “not ‘rid the world of evil’.” So much of what I hear these presidential candidates say revolves around trying to rid the world of “evil” (not all “evil”, though—just the “evil” that threatens the U.S. (verbally, politically, financially, essentially…lots of things constitute “threats” these days)). Shortly after the question where Obama and McCain both talked about hunting down bin Laden, a question was asked regarding the candidates’ plans for U.S. humanitarian efforts. Neither candidate seemed nearly as enthused by the idea of using U.S. power to bring good as they were by the idea of using U.S. power to bring vengeance.

I do support the idea of separation of church and state and so I don’t always think my morals should be legislated, but I realized last night that I am searching for hopeful change from the wrong leaders. So what do you do when the lesser of two evils is…well…neither?

The Macericks and Reform

Gov. Palin’s response in last week’s VP debate to a question regarding the bailout was a rather striking example of American myth at play.  The “Maverick” campaign in and of itself appeals to our innate love for “the earnest, unselfish Reformer – born into a state of darkness, evil, and suffering, and honestly striving to replace these by light, and purity and happiness” (Horace Greeley, cited in Wuthnow American Mythos, 2006, 13).  Palin and McCain are eager to play the part – they the fearless fighters of repressive evils, and we the helpless victims of governmental crusades and evil corporations.  So Palin’s response is not particularly surprising: she provides us with an evil from which we must be delivered and then offers deliverance.  What is particularly interesting, however, is the interplay of these various American myths on the formula.  We begin with the idea that the regular “Joe Six-pack” is a good, hard-working citizen.  He is neither greedy nor foolish.  He cannot be faulted with causing his own financial ruin because such a failure would betray our sense of pride in the good, honest, responsible American citizen.  And so we appeal to the evil of the Wall Streeter and the mortgage banker.  These are the vile forces that have all but picked our pockets with their sub-prime lending schemes.  Such an attack is comfortable for us because the hero of the American myth is not the successful or wealthy businessman but the downtrodden man/woman seeking to overcome the challenges of poverty and oppression.  Onto the stage so aptly filled with protagonist and villain comes the savior: the one from among us, the outsider to politics, the hockey-mom and the basketball star, who stands with us against the evil banker and declares a message of empowerment: “Never again,” she cries, “will we be taken advantage of!  We will triumph over this evil!”  And suddenly Palin becomes a suffragette, an abolitionist, a civil rights leader, and every other celebrated hero of American history.  And we, eager for a chance to negate our own culpability, quickly jump on board.

The irony of the interplay, I think, is that the appeal might have been successful had it been just slightly more subtle.  Had the attempt to free us from the burden of responsibility been only slightly more nuanced, Palin’s response might have appealed to a great many of us.  And yet, somehow the wording was just a little too “political” and perhaps too practiced.  And enters, therefore, a new American myth: we may be victims of Wall Street, but we cannot bear to see ourselves as victims of political strategists.  We believe too strongly in the power of democracy (despite our often vocal attacks on the failings of bureaucracy).  To buy in to Palin’s hero-villain story when it is so blatant a political ploy is to do great damage to our belief that the American democracy can still triumph.  And thus, in failing to tread the line between these two myths (that of American goodness and that of democratic freedom)Palin’s response fails to have its intended effect.

From an Evangelical perspective, here is what we ought to note: Palin claims to be our savior and attempts to be our hero, but to what human desires does she appeal?  Pride in our moral incuplability; and our desire to remain in control.  Oh what a poor savior figure indeed to “rescue” us from a perceived evil and yet, in doing so, give greater power to true tyrant of human sin.

Is America a “Good” Nation?

Watching the Presidential Debate tonight I heard some interesting rhetoric about America. I heard both Candidates’ John McCain and Barack Obama say “We are a nation of ‘good.’” Dictionary.com defines “good” – as morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious. I would really like to know what qualifies America as a “good” nation.

Is it the fact that we give more to foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product than any other developed nation?

We do not.

According to Brian McLaren in his book Everything must Change, “The 2006 budget showed that US military expenditures were twenty-one times larger than diplomacy and foreign aid combined, and that the United States was dead last among the most developed nations in foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product.”

Is it the fact that our nation promotes peace for the world at all cost?

We do not.

According to Michael T. Klare’s well researched article, Arms Transfers and Trade at Answers.com, “By the time Clinton left office in early 2001, arms transfers had come to be seen in Washington as a normal, legitimate aspect of U.S. foreign policy. The United States completely dominated the international market, providing about two-fifths of all weapons transferred to developing countries in the 1992–1999 period (measured in dollar terms).”

Is it the fact we protect the gift of life at all cost?

We do not.

According to the Guttmacher Institute in America, “In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.”

I do not want anyone to think that I am anti-American. I feel very blessed to be a citizen of a country that gives me freedom of religion and freedom of speech…but I am realistic too. I do not see America as a “good” country. I think we fall very short in the “good” department, just like every other country in the world. I see America as a nation of a variety of different kinds of people, with different values, different religions, different hopes and different dreams. But at the end of the day we are a nation of human beings.

The Apostle Paul quotes Psalm, Ecclesiastes and Isaiah when referring to the state of humanity in Romans 3:10-18, “As it is written: ’There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.’ ‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’ ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

According to Paul, no one is “good.” Paul goes on to say in Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” At the core of human beings is a rebellious spirit against God and other humans. Without fixing our relationship with God and others, we will never be “good.” And even if we do fix our relationship with God and others it is still not “our goodness” that makes us “good,” its God’s son Jesus’ “goodness” that makes us “good.”

So am I glad I’m an American? “Yes.” Do I think that my fellow country men,

women and I make up a “good” nation? “No.” “Good” is for God to decide and He already has.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/good

Mclaren, Brian D. Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. Thomas Nelson, Tennessee, 2007. pg. 165.

http://www.answers.com/topic/arms-industry-1

http://www.alanguttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html#2

The NIV Study Bible. Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1995.

Country First?

“Country First.” This simple phrase was one of the slogans passed around the floor of the Republican National Convention last month, highlighted particularly on the night of John McCain’s acceptance speech. “Country First” may illustrate the way John McCain’s campaign want us to view how he has lived his life thus far, but I found myself a little chafed by it and wondering if anybody else was also disturbed by this phrase? From the posts on this blog, I see I am not the only one. (Insert sigh of relief)

For a party that prides itself on their evangelical base, it is surprising this phrase didn’t raise a few red flags for the Republicans in the planning for the convention. As a Christian, if Jesus Christ is truly one’s Lord, then a Christian’s first allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, not to country. In the “good ol’ days”, it was God and Country, today I guess is it merely Country. Now I realize that this country makes it very easy for me to live with Jesus Christ as my Lord and to give such a statement given our freedom of religion and of speech. But the blanket statement that my country should come first is plainly idolatrous. The first of the Ten Commandments comes to mind, “You shall have no other gods before me,” (Exodus 20:3). This command is given to what became a very nationalistic and exclusive nation, yet they are never told to live for Israel first, always God first. Jesus boils down the entire law and the prophets to two commandments, essentially loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor, whom Jesus defines in the parable of the Good Samaritan as any other human, even those we secretly consider inhuman or subhuman. (Matt 22:34-40 and Luke 10:24-37) Frankly, this is a harder demand to live out.

Living for the Kingdom of God first doesn’t discount one from service to country. That service just needs to be put into perspective and done with balance. I have a friend, Matt, who has spent twenty plus years in active and reserve military service. He and I have talked about this “clash of kingdom and country” and I believe he would say that he serves the Kingdom of God through his service to his country. His actions while serving are shaded by the person he has become while being a citizen of the Kingdom of God; he is a different type of soldier and leader than he would be without knowing Christ and is able to serve his country better because of that relationship. This type of transformation is described by David Dark in his book “The Gospel According to America.” “Whenever the Jewish Christian tradition begins to take root in a meaningful way, interpenetrating the imagination of a people who often speak their country’s name as if they were praying to it, the psychological power of patriotism is lessened or at least checked by an ancient wisdom reminding us that a nation might gain a strong economy, every day low prices and all the homeland security in the world, and still forfeit its soul.” (p. 9)

We have forgotten that our country has a soul! The tending of that national soul is the change Americans are longing for- even though they may not recognize it. My prayer is for current and future leaders who know they have dual citizenship- firstly in the Kingdom of Heaven and secondly in our beloved country and others.