The American Christian

The American Christian most often does not want earth to be like heaven, despite our prayers and creeds which say “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven”.

Instead we seem keen to find the hell of this life and this world, so that our heavenly reward might seem all the sweeter.

Yet our God did not create hell.

We did and do.

Where we might share worldly wealth, we opt for systems of “merit” and birthright as defined by those who have a worldly claim to such, while denying the birthright of each person from their heavenly Parent, who is the almighty Creator.

As such we make paupers of the children of the Sovereign.

We mock their inheritance by amassing and hoarding the temporary wealth of this world, at the cost of the eternal treasure of love.

We watch as children die, while we continue to pay into systems which funnel more wealth and influence to the wealthy and take food out of the mouths of those most in need.

We rob them of heaven on earth,

and indeed we rob ourselves of the same.

Offered the generous example of the servant leader, the Christ, who lives in agape love,

we opt for imperial systems which build up the few on the backs of the many.

We instead choose the example of the oppressors, who promise us prosperity through worldly strength and violence, the very sort of oppressors who executed Jesus of Nazareth, but lacked the power they assumed they had to destroy the movement and life of the Christ.

Our spiritual ancestors were given the law of Jubilee, freeing them from their false sense of security through worldly wealth and the oppression of their neighbor every seven years; a built in system of redemption, through which servant and master became siblings once again.

We have chosen time and again to stop short of such measures of liberty, for ourselves and others.

In our conception, the United States chose to preserve and defend freedom, but only in part for women, people of color, the poor, and many minority groups (including the indigenous peoples of “our” land).

Following our civil war, the United States chose to end the practice of formal enslavement, but continued to allow for oppressive forms of servitude, such as share cropping, and continued to oppress women, people of color, the poor, and many minority groups.

In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the United States chose to secure the rights to a safe work place and less oppressive compensation methods for the working class, but continued to allow for many forms of oppression of the poor, women, people of color, and many minority groups.

When the Second World War made its way to American soil, the United States chose to preserve the freedom of folks at home and abroad that was being threatened by the forces of greed, empire, genocide, and hatred, but allowed even for soldiers who fought for the sake of the world’s people to come home and enjoy fewer rights than their fellow service folk because of the color of their skin or their heritage. Again, oppression of all manor of minorities and the poor continued alongside the dark cloud of Jim Crowe.

The Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Suffrage brought about decisions to change laws to eliminate a class system based on race and sex, and yet a less formal class system remained and was reinforced by local and national systems that favored historically privileged groups and individuals.

Even today, as we continue to strive for progress, we continue to revert to systems controlled by those who tell us that hoarding wealth and weapons is the only realistic way to preserve freedom and security.

The American Christian’s life is most often more influenced and characterized by imperial systems of exploitation of their neighbor, a win-lose economy, careless extraction of resources from the earth (which mostly leads to more waste and harm than good and sustenance), and othering than by Christ.

Our God has not created hell.

We are building it with the misconception that it is a place for our neighbors to suffer as a result of their faithlessness.

Yet our faithlessness is what builds hell, throws our neighbors into it, and secures the gates that keep them in, all the while growing closer and closer to the edge of the proverbial pit ourselves, feeling the burn and grief it emanates.

Each and every day we live in our privileged circumstances is an opportunity to do the work of jubilee, to free the oppressed, to take part in “Thy will” being done “on earth as it is in heaven”.

But as Jesus of Nazareth said time and again, to experience the Kingdom of God the first must be last, we must not cling to our wealth but share it with the needy, we must die to our former selves (those who find security and power in weapons and wealth) so that we might live in Christ (the One who lives in agape love and servant leadership).

We must stop participating in imperial systems that seek more and more worldly wealth and tools of war.

We must stop finding our happiness in the pain of the other.

We must come to the conclusion that we (all of humanity, better yet, all of creation) belong to each other.

And we must tell our leaders we want to be a people who care for each other more fully, so that no child of God is hungry or cast out or viewed as lower than another.

And we must show our leaders that we are serious about embracing this way of love.

Enough of the bullying, the humiliation, the greed, the imperialism, the degradation and oppression of our neighbors, and the selling out of our siblings by leaders from all across the political spectrum.

I pray that future generations will speak of the American Christian as one who was and is indeed transformed by the renewing of their mind by the love of Christ.

Pastor Zac