Christianity in America Today

This email was in reply to one I wrote. I think everyone should read it...by George Ryan of CT.. Redneck, You expressed yourself quite well in your response. I will see if I can adequately reply in a manner which bespeaks how I feel. [P.S. After I read what I have written below, I realized that I got a bit carried away, and for that I apologize; however, I do NOT apologize for what I say herein, for it is what I believe.] For me, America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture. Is America truly Christian? Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion ... say, giving aid to the poorest people ... as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we find then? When one of the Pharisees asked Jesus what the core of the law was, Jesus replied: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Love your neighbor as yourself: although its rhetorical power has been dimmed by repetition, that is a radical notion, perhaps the most radical notion possible. Especially since Jesus, in all his teachings, made it very clear who the neighbor you were supposed to love was: the poor person, the sick person, the naked person, the hungry person. The last shall be made first; turn the other cheek; a rich person aiming for heaven is like a camel trying to walk through the eye of a needle. On and on and on ... a call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love. In public we tend not to talk about such things. What Jesus mostly meant seems like it should be left in church, or confined to some religious publication. But remember the overwhelming connection between America and Christianity; what Jesus meant is the most deeply potent political, cultural, social question. To ignore it, or leave it to the bullies, politicians and the salesmen of the televangelist sects, means to walk away from a central battle over American identity. At the moment, the idea of Jesus has been hijacked by people with a series of causes that do not reflect his teachings. The Bible is a long book, and even the Gospels have plenty in them, some of it seemingly contradictory and hard to puzzle out. But love your neighbor as yourself, not do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but love your neighbor as yourself, will suffice. There is no disputing the centrality of this message, nor is there any disputing how easy it is to ignore that message. Because it is so counterintuitive, Christians have had to keep repeating it to themselves right from the start. Consider Paul, for instance, instructing the church at Galatea: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment,” he wrote. “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” This reminds me of the story of a thief standing before a court judge, and, when asked by the judge why he had committed the robbery, he said: "The Good Book taught me that 'God helps those who help themselves' [Unfortunately, this is probably the most often quoted phrase that is not found in the Bible. This saying is usually attributed to Ben Franklin, quoted in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1757.] The judge replied: "You need to go back and read some more ... and pay more attention ... you read it wrong. It states 'God HELP he who helps himself'! A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven. Jesus did not say he should invest, spend, and let the benefits trickle down; he said sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me. Few plainer words have been spoken. And yet, for some reason, the Christian Coalition of America, founded in 1989 in order to “preserve, protect and defend the Judeo-Christian values that made this the greatest country in history”, proclaimed in 2005 that its top legislative priority would be “making permanent President Bush's 2001 federal tax cuts.” The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they're talking about. They're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track. But their theology is appealing for another reason, too: it coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell. This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. But straight is the path and narrow is the way. The gospel is too radical for any culture to ever come close to realizing; in demanding a departure from selfishness it conflicts with all our current desires. Even the first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome news to an awful lot of people. There is not going to be a modern day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common ... that's not what I'm talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and violence that mark this culture. It's hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq or Afghanistan. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change. It is possible, I think. It is true the mainline Protestant churches that supported civil rights and opposed the war in Vietnam are mostly locked in a dreary decline as their congregations dwindle and their elders argue endlessly about gay clergy and same-sex unions. And the Catholic Church, for most of its American history a sturdy exponent of a “love your neighbor” theology, has been weakened, too, its hierarchy increasingly motivated by a single-issue focus on abortion. Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works ... they're the ones that have nurtured me ... but they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics. More and more it's Bible-quoting Christians who are carrying the fight. For Christians there should be something at least a little scary in the notion that, absent the magical answers of religion, people might just get around to solving their problems and strengthening their communities in more straightforward ways. For Christians, the plainspoken message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount. Admittedly, this is hope against hope; more likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our “spiritual” life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the co-opters, the TV men, the politicians, the Christian “interest groups”, have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too. They have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves becoming a nation of terrified, self-obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come. When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same. America needs to start investing in itself once again. We need investment in areas such as education, our industrial infrastructure and research and development if we hope to build an economy that can be competitive in the future. However, each of these areas needs a lot of attention in order to succeed ... and this includes putting God back in the schools, work places, and most importantly, back in our hearts and homes. On April 20, 1999, Joan was working as an English and Music teacher in Colorado, Jefferson County, Wheat Ridge, Everitt Junior High School/Middle School, 11 miles away, on the day of the Columbine High School disaster. Subsequently, on May 27, 1999, Darrell Scott, the son of an Episcopalian minister and the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, addressed the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee. Joan and her fellow teachers listened carefully to his speech ... and have never forgotten what Darrel Scott said that day. If you choose to read it in its entirety, go to http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bldarrellscott.htm ... it's only a 3 minute read. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful. They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needed then and is more needed now to be heard by every American parent, teacher, politician, sociologist, psychologist, and so-called religious experts and church leaders. This is part of what he had to say: "I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. Your laws ignore our deepest needs, Your words are empty air. You've stripped away our heritage, You've outlawed simple prayer. Now gunshots fill our classrooms, And precious children die. You seek for answers everywhere, And ask the question "Why?" You regulate restrictive laws, Through legislative creed. And yet you fail to understand, That God is what we need! "Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts." "As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!" And to think, 13 years later, worse than Columbine has happened, as we let our kids of this country be further separated from God in their everyday lives. It is not just the politicians we need to look to, but to each and every American. America needs prayer in their own homes twice as much as we need it in our schools. Christian parents need to put their Faith in Christ FIRST in their lives, and set true 'Living Christian' examples for all, starting with their children. 2 Chronicles 7:13-15 New International Version (NIV) 13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.