My Country, Right AND Wrong
I love America. I love being an American. I love the rights and privileges and responsibilities that come with being an American, particularly a straight, white, middle class American with advanced degrees. The privileges weigh heavily on me now more than ever because I know my responsibilities to those who do not have the same advantages I have to name both the ideals and the flaws of this country and to use my voice to hold a mirror up to all of us, force us to examine ourselves in the harsh light of reality, and realize that we have work to do still on this dream called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. First, we must dispel once and for all the notion that America is a Christian nation. We are not and never have been; it is anathema to our DNA to claim to be so. Nonetheless, it is true that some element of theological aspiration to be the “shining city on a hill”, the new Jerusalem, undergirds our nation. Some—but in no sense all—of the undocumented immigrants who came t