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 to the shores of the original 13 British colonies sought a place where they could worship freely, without interference from the ruling monarch and his government. The Pilgrim and Puritans settled Plimouth (1) Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony on exactly this principle (the colonies united in 1691). Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, in contrast, were founded on the ideal of religious liberty by those who in the first case had been thrown out of the Massachusetts colonies and on the other unwelcome in New England generally. Maryland was founded on the principle of religious tolerance to provide  safe haven for Roman Catholics at a time when Protestants and Catholics fought vicious wars for control in Europe. 

When the time the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, only eight of the thirteen colonies including—ironically—Massachusetts itself, had established religions: either the Anglican (now Episcopal) Church or the Congregational Church (mostly, but not all, now United Church of Christ). Congregational colonists had to belong to a church to have voting rights; I served a church as a lay professional that served as the Town Hall until the original sanctuary burned in 1895, long after Massachusetts belatedly and begrudgingly disestablished Congregationalism as its state religion in 1833. Citizens of Anglican colonies had an obligation to attend church; that our Founding Fathers were considered “religious” in a way we recognize today is due more to that legal obligation than to any devotion to a particular creed or even to Christianity as we think of it today. Thomas Jefferson, after all, created a Bible from which all the miracles of Jesus had been extracted and John Adams’ family church in Quincy, Massachusetts, was nearly Unitarian before Unitarianism was truly emergent. In 1776, George Mason and the other drafters of the Virginia Declaration of Rights wrote:

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our CREATOR and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other. (2) 

The “shining city on a hill” is not a Christian theocracy, then, but a nation where each individual gets to choose whether and how to worship by what doctrines. We are the embodiment of Free Will, for obligatory worship is not worship at all but idolatry.

Does that mean that our faith cannot or does not influence how we act as citizens of this country? No; but it does mean that our rights to practice our individual faith as we see fit are circumscribed when our beliefs prevent others from receiving their equal protection rights. The arguments over whether private business owners have the right to discriminate against anyone because they hold strong religious beliefs about anyone’s intrinsic identity, be it for race, ethnicity, sexuality, or gender identity should by now be settled law, and likewise a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body. What happens in a house of religion stays in a house of religion; churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are sadly free to dehumanize anyone they deem irredeemable in their deity/deities’ eyes. In the public realm, people matter more than beliefs.

Second, we must understand that protest can be “peaceable” but “not necessarily civil,” as Greg Carey says about the events portrayed in the Book of Revelation. It is the great “Lion of Judah” who brings about the downfall of the Beast, according to Revelation…but the lion is really a mortally wounded Lamb whose sword is not swung in violence but wielded as an instrument of “faithful testimony” against the evils of Satan. Professor Carey reminds us that such testimony can be disruptive, as the testimony in words and actions of “abolitionists, the suffragettes, the civil rights demonstrators, and those who overcame Apartheid” (3) disrupted the status quo and helped to bring more, if still imperfect, justice to those denied their rights by the entrenched power structures. I’m hardly the first person to point out that anyone with white, straight (especially male) privilege who demands civil behavior from those whose rights are being trampled right now is not only out of line but not even in the same venue. Tectonic shifts toward more freedom and more equality for those still waiting for what white, straight men have had since the 1400s have never been civil and right now we need not one but two or three Earth-shattering shifts to get us back to where we thought we were in 2016. 

Marches are one peaceable but not-quite-civil way to protest. It sickens me that we still have to march for basic civil rights for anyone in 2018, but here we are facing down white supremacy in all its ugly guises and ignorance in astonishing varieties, including some which are bound up in white supremacy! We have to march for science because the government chosen by a minority of our country (the popular vote for president went opposite the Electoral College, the GOP controls 21 more House seats than a fair division of the popular vote would yield, and the Senate with its 51-49 GOP caucus majority requires only the senators representing 17.82% of the population of the US to stop legislation in its tracks, though this is by design of the framers) is so ignorant as to willfully misunderstand its importance for even the most basic of modern conveniences. Our leaders claim surprise because so many of us take offense at separating children from the parents that people in 700+ locations in the US marched in support of #FamiliesBelongTogether last weekend; it’s as if they know not who they are supposed to represent…Of course, given that the evidence points to them representing the biggest companies with the deepest pockets and the most rapacious business plans, their surprise may not be feigned. They may actually not have known that most Americans possess some semblance of basic decency when it comes to the treatment of children if no other group and that even the most polite of bigots can find a screaming child just heart wrenching enough to evoke a word or two of dismay (more below about this). That I can believe such ignorance possible of the executive branch sickens me further.

Third, we must STOP letting fear control us as a nation. I’m just barely old enough to remember the denouement of the Red Scare mentality as it gave way to “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and the swift end of Communism in Europe (and incidentally, any hope I had of a career in Soviet studies). But that was quickly replaced by fear of Saddam Hussein and his (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, accompanied by a somewhat more justified fear of al-Qaeda, which has given way to fear of Isis that allows an entire religion to be painted with a broad brush of hatred and derision. Throw in the gasoline that is “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists…” and it’s not just religion but entire continents that we’ve been told to fear, even if “some are…good people.” (4) 

FDR was right when he reminded us in his first inaugural address in 1932, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” When this country is led by collective fear, we screw up. Thousands of men and women die in wars that don’t solve anything. The rights of people who are descended from or look like “the enemy” are revoked as they are rounded up and imprisoned, as happened to Native Americans in the 1830s-1890s because of a degenerate mentality that labeled them less-than-human and to Japanese Americans in the 1940s. Right now agents of OUR government are imprisoning entire families who have the audacity to seek refuge in a country that despite all our flaws is still a damned sight safer and more prosperous than their home countries; the only saving grace is that apparently children are now able to stay with their parents instead of being ripped away screaming and lost in a Kafkaesque world of converted superstores and tent cities in the desert. 

The only way to eradicate fear from our national vocabulary is to turn to the universal theological and philosophical constant, which stated simply is either “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” More deeply, that theological/philosophical mantra requires that we recognize the basic humanity of every single individual. “No human is illegal” and “Black Lives Matter” both get at that deeper truth, one by raising up the contradictory nature of the term “illegal immigrant” and the other by announcing to the world that when human beings whose skin is dark face a substantially greater risk of physical harm or death at the hands of law enforcement than people whose skin is light, there is massive injustice in society that needs to be fixed.

Here’s where we in America have advantages that citizens of no other country have: our Constitution provides us with the RIGHTS to mend our every flaw. It only works, however, if each of us steps up to claim and exercise those rights, starting with the right to vote. Make sure you are registered and make sure you have every election on your calendar. And then SHOW UP.

We must also exercise every First Amendment right. 

This includes standing up to protect the work of journalists at every level, against locals with vendettas and regimes that don’t like the truths they expose. Buy a subscription to your local paper and support at least two other national publications with your dollars. I personally donate to NPR via WBUR and have subscriptions to The Washington Post and The New York Times, though that last is not so much for the journalism per se as for the Cooking section and the Magazine…

It includes assembling with other like-minded individuals to be heard in the public square. I haven’t been able to attend any of the recent protests because of standing obligations with various churches. But I do my best to publicize them and to support those who can march and I’m looking forward to the day that I can attend a big rally or march. I know exactly which stole I plan to wear and if it’s a science march, the perfect t-shirt, too.

It includes exercising the right to worship or not without infringing on the rights of others to do the same. Vote your conscience, by all means, but if your religion requires you to demean others in any way, you only get to do that when you’re practicing with others of your own beliefs, not in the public square. For what it’s worth, not only do I think Jesus would have baked the cake, I think he would have enjoyed the party, too. And perhaps extended it with some choice Beaujolais Nouveau while he was there, though I would hope he’d draw the line at Red Solo Cup.

Perhaps most importantly right this moment, it includes petitioning our elected leaders of both parties to redress the grievances we have against the government. @Resistbot on Twitter is an easy way to be in touch with your House Representative and your Senators. You can also find their contact information via house.gov and senate.gov to be in touch with them via e-mail, telephone, or personal letter. It’s a little harder to get through to the President because this administration has shut down the web portal, but you can find contact information here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/get-involved/write-or-call/. I’m not convinced anything that isn’t sycophantic will get through, but it’s worth trying to get our voices heard. As I learned in JROTC, even if you can’t respect the person, respect the office, and as generations have proven true, honey gets more flies than vinegar, so when you write to any elected official, be professional and polite no matter who the person in the office is.

Today is the day we’ve chosen, somewhat arbitrarily when we look back at history, to celebrate our independence from Great Britain. (5) Now as much as any time since Reconstruction, we have to work at preserving the ideals of this great but flawed nation. If you love America as much as I do, then you know it’s worth the time and energy to fix what ails us now and to raise generations of Americans who can recognize and mend the flaws we leave behind. And, as Katharine Lee Bates wrote in 1893:

America! America! God mend thine every flaw Confirm thy soul in self-control Thy liberty in law!

Happy Fourth of July!

1. This is the original spelling of the name.
2. http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/varights.cfm
3. Carey, Greg. “In Revelation, faithful testimony is peaceable—not necessarily civil.” Christian Century, 3 July 2018. Web. https://www.christiancentury.org/blog-post/guest-post/revelation-faithful-testimony-peaceable-not-necessarily-civil. 
4. Reluctantly: http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/ 
5. I personally think October 19 is the more appropriate day, or perhaps September 3, but that’s just the history nerd in me. And if you don’t know the significance of those dates, use Google to find out. You’re welcome.