Too many followers, where are the leaders?
Day Six of Thirty Days of Writing
Our legal and cultural systems, are at the very least, made in the image of Judeo-Christian principles. But, for a long time, our nation was governed by a conservative form of Evangelical morality. Past tense, because the culmination of this effort is now occupying the presidency. Few will argue that our current political atmosphere is not enigmatic of the culture.
Evangelicism is a unique religious school that locates its roots, primarily, in United States. It is interesting to note that much of the rationale for colonizing North America ( really, the entire Western Hemisphere ) is on religious grounds — from the Spanish conquistadors, to Manifest Destiny — the rationalization for the development of United States has been rooted in divine justification. This idea was the justification of African American's slavery on religious grounds, the genocide of the American Indian, and even the forced domestic servitude of women and other poor whites, and the social marginalization of members of the LGBTQ community. This same argument would continue through the Jim Crow era that lasted well into the 20th century.
It is too easy to cast all the world's suffering on the church. I come from a hybrid Evangelical and Roman Catholic upbringing. I was baptized Catholic, but raised and confirmed in the United Methodist Church. My mother and father's sides of the family are predominantly Roman Catholic. My youth was spent going to church and I studiously engaged the Bible, devouring the Old and New Testament, and the many Apocrypha. I realize that it was this moral framework that has guided my life, and by in large, kept me out of trouble. I also admit that this moral framework has directly and indirectly led to a toxic political environment.
It is a difficult time to be an educator, I can not imagine being a parent. Each of these social groups shape our children, they directly impact behavior, long term social achievement, and the qualities of a citizen. There is very little debate that the first eighteen years of an individual's life will directly impact the remainder of time spent on Earth. As an educator engaging minds during this contentious political era, I am finding it ever more difficult to speak of ethics and morality, while understanding every day the vital function of my occupation. I can speak of the need to work together, much like the bible says to love thy neighbor and to do unto to others as you would do to yourself. I can speak of the importance of patience, much like the bible says to turn the other cheek. I can demand that my students seek to make the world a better place, much like the bible says to love thy enemy and do good to them. What good is any of this when they return home to their families, or to their jobs, or simply turn on the television and witness three branches of government, decrying why we should not work as a community — rather, we should seek only individual pursuits and gains?
I do implore my students to explore all of these ideas, but I would never seek to convert them to my belief system or outlook on life. I can only develop within them a deeper understanding of the world. I can only educate them in the ways of Civic and Social literacy, then, they must begin the process of understanding and investigating the values that support their inherent belief system. At the same time, I can not help but feel that our culture is destroying itself. The church I was raised in emphasized a universal love, which sought to include all. This is a political question in our current state of discourse — why does everyone have the right to be included?
Much of this moral degeneration seems to take root in the economic philosophies that have invaded the Christian church, specifically, the prosperity gospel. This viewpoint essentially holds that god is in control of all of our lives, and that we should not look for structural or social problems that are impacting our life — society is not to blame, because your struggle is gods gift. It is god who bestows and takes away wealth, so if you keep your finances in order, and donate to churches, you will have financial success. On the surface, this is a humbling pathos, we all must carry our burden. In fact, Karl Marx had an extremely similar outlook on our social order in Critique of the Gotha Program, where we get the famous lines, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…” The reality is that this philosophy is driven for economic profit by the modern mega church.
This is not a castigation of faith, nor is this an essay meant to rant against financial Christianity. What I am correlating is how our financial institutions such as banks and investment companies, control our political process — validated through the Citizens United legislation/ruling and unregulated by the withdraw of Glass-Steagall. Now corporations are unregulated in how they affect political discourse (through the control of media outlets) and who we vote for (through the necessity of million and billion dollar campaigns). We the citizens have been muscled-out of our own democracy, by our own ignorance of the political process, in blindly following those in power as they changed the rules to benefit the economic elite. While this was unfolding, we allowed our churches to be invaded by the same economic despotism. We have forgotten that we are all lambs, we all share the same suffering and that through community, we heal. The prosperity gospel is no different than the “Pull-Yourself-Up-By-Your-Bootstrap” ethos, they both wish for you to ignore the reality that there can be absolutely no success without assistance from others. A small, million dollar loan is what it takes to be president, or that changing your church into a life coaching business venture at a time when church attendance is decreasing, will turn you into a billionaire minister.
Sure, you could argue it was all god’s doing, completely out of our hands except for the desire to succeed. But then, what of the four Gospels, and the thousands of pages of discourse in which Christ was demanding that we take accountability for our own lives? What about Christ, chasing the money lenders out of the church and ensuring that those he walked amongst were the least among us? I can not speak for god, Christ, those who attend church, those who believe and do not — I can only write what I know. I know that we are not meant to be this isolated, we are not meant to look at everyone as different, we are not supposed to seek revenge for every slight, we are not supposed to have war all the time, we are not supposed to ignore the poor, the meek, the infirm, the homeless.
I used to work at book store during my undergrad studies. It is a company based out of Alabama that actively promotes itself as a Christian based corporation. This means that the business is run along christian values. The store had two major draws that its major competitor lacked: first, it had a massive Christian book section. You could find every major writer for the last fifty years in that section, it took up a large portion of the store. The second, the largest collection of pornographic magazines outside of an adult/sex store. So, you could pick up Joel Olsteen’s latest work on the prosperity gospel, get your book signed by Ann Coulter or Mike Huckabee, grab a coffee and the latest issue of Juggs or Penthouse, all in one trip.
