The Cry for Justice

Why does America need a new political vision?  Why should Christians be involved in creating this new biblically-based political vision?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of modern America?  Strangely, this nation has some enormous strengths and some terrible weaknesses.

Few countries in the world have as many strengths as these United States do. Some of these strengths are:  democracy, freedom, economic opportunity and prosperity, abundant natural resources, an educated people, and a highly religious people when compared to secular Western Europe.  The reader might wish to add other strengths to this list.  People from all over the world desire to immigrate to this country.

What are our weaknesses as a nation?  Andrew Shapiro recently compared the U.S. with 18 other industrial nations.  He found that the U.S. ranked first (worst) in 21 social problem categories such as :  murder rate, reported rapes, incarceration rate, drunken driving fatalities, hazardous waste per capita, children and elderly in poverty, inequality of wealth distribution, divorce, single-parent families and infant mortality.

How could a great country, an educated and religious country, have such a horrible record of social problems?  What is the fundamental flaw in American society?  One might expect secular Europe to experience these social problems, but not religious America.  The millions of Christians ought to be salt and light in society reducing the severity of our social problems.  Apparently, this is not the case.

Before I try to answer this difficult question, I would like examine the gospel of Luke regarding social justice, kingdom justice.

Luke specifically address, by teaching or example, the problem of rich and poor, ethnic divisions, and the treatment of women, but he is silent on issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

At the time of Christ, Jewish society was much like it was at the time of the prophets Amos and Isaiah. The rich and powerful elite oppressed the poor.  In the gospel of Luke, the poor had many problems, but the rich were identified as THE social problem. Ethnic difference divided society; Jews despised Gentiles and Samaritans.  Women were treated as second-class citizens.

If our nation today would choose the same set of priorities that Jesus did, how could this help us establish a better political vision for America.

The priorities established by our founding fathers affect all of us today in both positive and negative ways.  We are all familiar with the positive contributions of our founding father, yes, they were all male, so let us examine the less recognized negative contributions.

The Puritans were a profoundly biblical people in many ways, but they also had a serious weakness which the passed on to future generations.  The Puritans saw themselves as God's chosen, unique people to set up a Christian nation; the negative side of this belief was that they viewed Native Americans as inferior, dangerous heathen.  When Puritan numbers increased and they wanted more land, they did not hesitate to destroy whole villages, men, women and children.  Then they paused to praise God for their victory.  They also paid bounties for the scalps of Indians.  One could conclude that the Puritans erroneously saw themselves as a religious elite---a religiously based ethnocentrism that legitimated their oppression of Indians.

Our founding fathers apparently had the same social disease as the Puritans.  Some historians characterize our found fathers as an elite of white Properties (rich) males.  Ethnic, the poor and women were second class citizens.  In a highly pro-American book, The Rebirth of America, the author admits the elitism of our founding fathers though he tries to turn the undemocratic vice into a virtue.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence "were not poor men,. . . . they were men of means. . . wealthy landowners. . . . "  The author did not mention that a numbers of them were slave owners.

Have these problems persisted throughout our history?  In January 1966, David Gergen editorialized that Income inequality belongs at the top of our national agenda.  The gap between the rich and poor has continued to widen to unbelievable proportions in 2016.

Back to the question, I raised at the beginning of this article.  Why does a nation with great strengths have such enormous problems?  In part, they were built into the founding of America; these weaknesses continues to undermine us today.

After wrestling with this issue for many years both from a sociological and a biblical perspective, I have concluded that our fundamental flaw is the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism.  These negative values interact to undermine our social cohesion so that our families and communities are disintegrating.

Once the social fabric is torn, social problems such as abortion, infant mortality, poverty, homelessness, etc. will abound.

Next, I would like cite a current example of the failure of the American church to understand and act biblically.  I sent the following letter to the editor of Christian Century; only a small portion was printed due to lack of space

"I read with great interest the July 6, 2016, news article "Cathedral to remove glass Confederate flag."  I applaud this important symbolic step.  But much more important are the planned discussions around the theme of race/racism.  I especially noted the July theme, "What the White Church must do."  If these discussions move beyond the usual pious platitudes to actual repentance and restitution (see America's Original Sin), they could have groundbreaking impact.

But I am profoundly worried about how deep these discussions will go; here's why I am concerned.  I noted an American flag---the Stars and Stripes---in a bottom left panel; in a second panel, another American flag.  In the news article, there was no mentions of these two American flags, their coming removal, nor a discussion of the immense social evils associated with the Stars and Stripes.  I personally think the evils committed under the Stars and Stripes are ten times worse than those committed under the Confederate flag.  So I want to highlight some of the American actions connected with American ethnocentrism and oppression.

Christian historian George Marsden asserts, contrary to popular opinion, that the British tyranny at the time of the American Revolution was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution (see The Wars of America: Christian Views).  The War of 1812 was also unjustified; it was an act of American aggression.  And the Mexican-American War: at the point of a gun, America stole nearly half of Mexico's land (see The Wars of America, Ronald Wells).

Under the glorious banner of the Stars and Stripes, this nation committed genocide against Indians and stole their land.  Under the Stars and Stripes, America engaged in the incredibly evil slave trade which was primarily a northern enterprise (Inheriting the Trade).  And these United States of America brutally conquered the Philippines at the cost of one million lives (The Philippine Reader).  We illegally imprisoned Japanese American U.S. citizens during World War II.

Today, this nation is unjustly incarcerating large numbers of young black and Latino males (The New Jim Crow).  And we have a huge racial wealth gap (The Hidden Cost of Being African American).

The panel to the left refers to West Point; in other words, our military.  The U.S. Armed Forces have been involved in many of our worst national social evils---Indian massacres, Viet Nam, Iraq, to name only a few.  Recently I read the U.S. will be spending a trillion dollars to modernize the nuclear arsenal.  Probably half of our nearly $20 trillion dollar national debt is due to the cost of unwise wars, excessive military spending, VA medical costs, interest on the debt, etc.  This panel represents national insanity and immorality;  it must be removed in its entirety; it has no place in a church.

The panel to the right refers to Mexico; I presume to the Mexican America War.  This was a war of pure imperialism, ethnocentrism, oppression, land theft---evil, evil, evil.  This panel must be removed, all of it; it has no place in a church.  In their place, how about a panel on the Prince of Peace or Jubilee justice.

In my blog (Lowell Noble's Writings), after the Charleston church murders, I wrote: "Recently the sanctimonious North has been engaged in a lot of self-righteous blather about the Confederate flag.  But the North itself is deeply racist, both past and present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag."

See part II of  "The Cry for Justice."