Let me preface the below statements with several warnings: 1. This is a rant. Ranting is one of the ways I deal with overbearing amount of pain and suffering in the world around me. 2. I love my country, but not more than I love my God. 3. Finally, while this is a rant, I am not at all being sarcastic (something I have developed something of a reputation for), but I am emotionally worked up over some stuff. For one thing, I tried to talk to 117 9th graders who come mainly from white upper class families today about how maybe, just possibly, Jesus wants us to be concerned for somebody besides ourselves once in a while. Approx. 115 of them actively, adamantly, and spitefully opposed my message. So, yeah. I'm ranting. I'm emotional. Get over it, and I hear this: if anyone single one of you people tells me to move to Canada, not only I am going to call your parents, I'm gonna give you a morning detention AND I'm never gonna give you a f*%#ing bathroom pass again!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whew. I feel better now. Sorry for that.
The sad fact that has been hidden from me for many years by my education (thank you Ace Virtueson) is that America has always required some group of people to hate. Yes, a simple fact, obvious to most people, but it has really hit me hard today. Today I learned about the 120,000 Japanese people (70,000 of which were full-fledged, flag-waving, card-carrying American citizens) which were "interred" for up to 2 years starting the day after Pearl Harbor in 1941 for absolutely no reason. What a monstrous blot on history. Is too ugly to tell children? Is that why Christian education makes absolutely no mention of it?!? I have long felt hurt by what I feel like was an education that was extremely misleading when it came to two areas especially: science (you mean to say that the earth isn't 6,000 years old?), and history (sample history lesson: Americans are God's chosen race, the New Israel; God blesses us more than other countries; until 1962 when the Supreme Court banned prayer in school, our country was perfect [oh slavery, slavery wasn't that bad]).
I am coming to realize that our country (and probably all countries) has always had a certain group of people to hate. The list is long and in some cases it overlaps, but there has never been a time in our country where equity and justice for all has even been remotely considered. Here's a list of people that at various times (including now) it has been ok for the U.S. to hate:
1. Native Americans (starting with Columbus and continuing, with varrying levels of intensity to present day).
2. African Americans (starting with the inception of our country and continuing, with varrying levels of intensity to present day).
3. Chinese (Google: American Anti-Chinese League, 1800s)
4. Japanese (WWII)
5. African Americans (they get mentioned again with emphasis on the Civil Rights movement on the 60s).
6. Communists (post- WWII, cold war era) especially but not limited to: Russians, Chinese, and Cubans
7. Muslims (post 9-11)
8. Undocumented immigrants especially but not limited to Mexicans.
ALL of the above groups, and I'm sure I'm missing several, have experienced and many of them are experiencing HATRED at the hands of Americans.
Why? The only answer I can think of is that Hate is the logical outcome of Fear and Fear is the most powerful leverage a government has over its people. Now were there members of each of those people groups who in some way, real or imagined, threatened our country? Absolutely. So, then aren't Americans justified in their hatred? Well, maybe so, maybe that's just how the world is. You hate those who hate you. You hate those who in some way, real or imagined, have harmed you, and your afraid of those who are of the same religion, or color as those people who have harmed you, so you hate them, too. Just the way it works...unless you happen to be a Christian. Christians are not allowed to hate. Christians LOVE their ENEMIES. NO EXECEPTIONS. The Church in America needs to wake up (I believe this beginning to happen), and realize that we have made our country into an idol. America is not godly, and never has been. Hatred, pride, and greed are the three least godly things I can think of, and they are sins that we all as individuals, but also we as a people group, country, ethnicity have been guilty of collectively. Where is the Justice of God? When will He stand up for the poor and vindicate the oppressed? I will be afraid for my country on that day.
Amos 5:21-24
21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
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2 comments:
Jimmy,
You sound pretty perturbed. But I think that you are taking a lot of things out historical context to try to prove your point. Am I sayting that there haven't been groups that, at some point in America's history, it has beed kosher to hate? No.
Here's the deal. Perhaps you drank the leftist ACLU anti-America Kool-Aid. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. (There seems to be a holw in my bucket of cliches) Some of the groups that you listed antagonized the US Government. And thus, earned the scorn of her government and her people. **Notice I said some, not all.
You talk about America like she should be a perfect country, but she isn't nor will she ever be. She is just like every other country. I will just list a few countries and who they hated:
Engliand- Irish, Scottish
France- Protestants
Germany- Do I really need to say this one?
Lest you think it's uniquely a problem of predominately Christian nations;
Japan- Koreans, Chinese
India- Muslims
Pakistan- Hindus
Zimbabwe- whites
Turkey- Greeks, Armenians, Kurds
Iran- Gays, Christians, political dissenters
Sudanese Muslims- Sudanese Christians and tribalists
That's all I got for now, I have to go to work.
You said:
"Some of the groups that you listed antagonized the US Government. And thus, earned the scorn of her government and her people."
I absolutely agree with you, all I'm saying is that Christians aren't allowed to scorn anybody no matter what they've done to them or their country.
You said:
"You talk about America like she should be a perfect country, but she isn't nor will she ever be."
I am not wanting America to be a perfect country, because I am fully aware of that impossibility. I am not condemning America per se. I am condemning the American Church's idolotry, and its slumber. America has tamed Christianity, defanged it, and made into its noisy, but ultimately powerless guard dog, much like Rome did to her Church in the fourth century; surely you've read enough church history to know that.
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