This week is amazing! My kids are testing again this morning, so I have time to write yet another irresponsible and hurried rush to judgment on some issue I have no business discussing. In other words, I can blog again. (on a side note: I really enjoy this site...it's a nice outlet for my thoughts...like a journaling each day on a billboard).
Jamie gave another prompt on her site this week, and it deals with The American Dream. I enjoying abusing that phrase as much as the next guy, blaming it for most of the U.S.A.'s woes, for bringing the church down to a weekly therapy session, making me hungry for more of everything.....etc, etc, etc. I take a different stance today, though. Where did this idea come from? Any sixth-grader can tell you (and I know, because I taught sixth-grade History this year) that America was founded on a dream.
Whether it be based on religion, economics, personal rights, or any other cornerstone, America has always been a haven for freedom. People have flocked to this country since the days when we ravaged the Indians, because they/we wanted freedom from oppression in all of its forms. The problem with freedom is that it works both ways. The same freedom that allows me and others to blog about our lives and thoughts allows for the Nazi-propagandist to spread his hate speech. I am free to worship at an Episcopal church each Sunday morning, but so too do atheists have the right to not be inundated with religious language in public school. I am free to have 30 children if I choose, but others must then be free to prevent themselves from having any. The same freedoms that I enjoy are those that others hate, and vice-versa.
The American Dream has led to a world of evils. Capitalism has created a nation of greed, the rights of the individual have trumped the common-good, our legal system has made at the same time legal and illegal, and the list could go on, but it also has paved the way for the Christian lifestyle that many of us enjoy. We are free, truly free to worship. Other countries do not enjoy that freedom. Our churches and rights as believers are protected by the government itself. I teach in a Christian-school, wear t-shirts that reference Scripture, listen to music that is mass-produced and proclaims the gospel, hear these bands in bars and coffee houses, own several Bibles, and this is all owing to the freedoms afforded by this dream.
As I said before, I love to bash The American Dream as much as most believers do, but the honest truth seems to me that I exist because of it. Are there pitfalls and a massive downside? Of course. Am I an example of how to successfully live as a Scriptural-Christian in America? Hell, no! I recognize I do it terribly badly, but I can't in good conscience bite the hand that feeds me.
0 Responses to “American Dream”
Post a Comment