Let That Grief Go
I recently listened to this talk by Kevin Carnahan, professor at Central Methodist University: https://processthis.substack.com/p/splendid-vice-has-america-ever-been, and then read Tripp Fuller’s reflections. I encourage you to stop reading this devotional right now and go have a listen and read the reflections.
Carnahan asks us to imagine an America where:
Economic inequality runs rife giving rise to populist politics especially in the south and Great Plains
Media companies are sensationalistic and unbeholden to the truth
Political partisanism is so extreme that congress becomes almost useless
Protectionism against globalized trade leads to the posting of tariffs which inhibit free trade and give rise to inflation
Immigration is a hot button issue, and where racism and anxiety lead to charges of criminality against migrants and bans against people from so-called unsavory countries
Fascism and even Nazi symbolism are tolerated
Then he points out this is not our America of the early 21st century but rather America of the early 20th century, 100 years ago. Carnahan argues, successfully and with abundant evidence, that America has never been good, that the decades between 1940 and 1980 were a time when our national immorality produced the appearance of goodness due to a convergence of six forces that were contingent, accidental, and external. When they collapsed, the true America was undeniably revealed.
Many of us have been grieving a country that never existed. What a relief to be able to let that belief go. Fuller says, “And this is the freedom: we are baptized into the body of an executed Jew from a long time ago, woven into Abraham and Sarah’s family — a people with a future and a past that relativizes America in every moment, in every age.” We are Christians. Our hope is not in making America virtuous again. Our hope is in the God who endures as empires come and go.
This is not to say that political activism and voting and running for office are unimportant. Of course they are; they are ways we live our faith and calling. It is to say: let’s do it without carrying the weight of grief over a nation that never existed, freeing up our energy and our vitality to be peace and wage peace and love one another, every single other.
Oh God, help us to see clearly the truth of our nation and the truth of our faith. Empower us to continually do good because it is good, to pray for our enemies because Jesus told us to do so, to stand for justice because it is justice regardless of whether we win or lose. Amen.
Roxanne is member of Peace most often seen on the “Zoom stained glass window” each Sunday. She is grateful for the technology and people who make this weekly connection possible.