While on vacation I decided to journey back into my roots and visit a conservative, Bible-believing church. By Bible-believing, these churches actually focus on just some of the Bible. They pretty much leave out all the socialist parts like the centrality of the Jubilee to a just society.
The Jubilee was FDR on steroids. This was a piece of legislation that required a radical redistribution of wealth every 50 years. The effect of such legislation was the prevention of aristocracy and the rise of generational poverty. For example, Bill Gates might indeed strike it rich and live greater than all the kings of history but his grandchildren wouldn’t inherit a $50 billion jumpstart in life. Rather than this, the wealth of the elite was redistributed so that a common good could be strengthened and set the groundwork for the type of social infrastructure that truly brought about a commonwealth.
Just think: Wouldn’t it be great if every baby born was raised in a society that provided the basics of free health care, education, food and provision for shelter? Wouldn’t that be true homeland security? Wouldn’t that be a far better socialism than the military socialism that dominates our nation and its budget priorities today?
Bible-believing church leaders don’t much talk that type of smack. Rather, they mostly grouse about guilt and shame and what a friend we have in Jesus. Jesus is a superhero who offered himself as a substitute whipping boy, absorbing the wrath of an angry god who is pissed off because boys sleep with boys, married couples divorce and most folks have little quirks that cause them to act in ways that pissed-off papa doesn’t like. Actually, the Bible-believing god sounds a lot like an insecure, control-freak, alcoholic father who continually blames others for his own impotency.
The weird thing is that Bible believers exert all kinds of energy, complete with well-done but emotionally manipulative music, to bring the congregation into ecstatic trance and keening submission. The submission is to a god who, coincidently, just happens to be in agreement with the pious pontifications of their preacher. I left wondering: How do you love? That is: How do you have grateful affection for someone who, if you do not obey his every whim, will punish and torture you forever? How do you ever get to the point of trust and affirmation?
The Bible-believing god bears a lot of similarity to national political leaders. From elite political pulpits we are continually told to fear others, even to the point of killing them and destroying the infrastructure that makes their communal life possible. Such holy war — total war — has become our way of life. No talk or practice of Jubilee or compassion.
And so I wonder: How can we love our country anymore? How can we trust it with our grateful affection?