by Salvatore Folisi.
I HAVE HEARD IT SAID repeatedly, especially out of the mouths of politicians and religious zealots, that “America is a Christian Nation.” This is stated as if such a thing was a blatant fact, regardless of the countless non-Christian peoples who are just as equally American citizens. While it is true that America has an enduring faith in Christianity via its extensive surplus of denominations, I would like to know in what specific ways our nation is strictly Christian, “Christ-like,” or an exemplar of Christian principles and tenets. Indeed, what are the collective lessons of Jesus Christ that we as an American society have integrated into our daily routines?
It is said that Jesus died on the cross by crucifixion so that we mortals could be saved from our collective sins and, henceforth, be redeemed into the afterlife in the glory of God. Therefore, it would seem that two of the main teachings of Jesus were: 1) sacrifice—as in sacrificing one’s participation in earthly life so that life in the next world, the eternal and divine realm, would be guaranteed—and, 2) forgiveness—for it is said that Jesus forgave freely those who bore false witness against him and made a mockery of his teachings, as well as those who ridiculed and eventually murdered him.
The essential distillation of the sacrifice and forgiveness associated with Jesus’ crucifixion appears to be one of overcoming the ego, or concerns about oneself, in order to bring well-being and wholeness to the world of others. Another aspect of the teachings of Jesus appears to be that of universal compassion—as in “Love thy neighbor”—or love for all people, including persons of every race, gender, and social class.
For, as we are told, Jesus died on the cross to redeem all of humankind, not just those who he knew personally, or who cared for and loved him.
In the living of his difficult life, Jesus also appears to have taught us something about personal integrity, as well as developing an alliance with a transcendent reality; call this God, the Cosmic Father, Truth, or a higher philosophy of living based on “selflessness” and service for the good of others. Through his life and crucifixion, Jesus appears to have maintained alignment with these principles, an unwavering trust in his higher or greater purpose, and a connection with his ultimate spiritual source.
Through a willing sacrifice of his own human life, of that which is mortal and temporal for that which is divine and eternal, Jesus taught that too much focus on materialism and this ever-changing, transitory world of things is unnecessary, and that an awareness and consideration of the eternal dimension of one’s soul, or fate, is of utmost importance. Although I do not consider myself to be a Christian in the traditional sense, as one who was inculcated into Christianity as a child, I have gathered these insights from my own exposure to, and understanding of, Christianity through the years.
To summarize, in my own limited, layman point of view, Christianity encompasses values such as forgiveness, universal love, compassion, kindness, nonviolence, personal integrity, connection to a spiritual source, willingness to sacrifice the personal for the divine, and a focus on the transcendent reality and fate of one’s eternal soul over that of one’s temporal life on earth. Judging by today’s standards, this is a rather tall order for us to live by, including those who consider the United States to be a Christian Nation.
Of course, Christianity professes many other virtues than these few which I have identified from my own personal point of view and understanding; however, I believe this is a sufficient point of reckoning from which to begin a critique of the claim in question.
If we are to continue to identify ourselves as a Christian Nation, it could prove fruitful to compare and contrast true Christian values—or Christ-like attributes—with our own current, working set of American values. Let’s begin with forgiveness and ask ourselves, “How does our society emphasize the Christian virtue of forgiving others who have harmed or trespassed against us?”
In order to answer this question, I will start by demonstrating how we do not emphasize forgiveness. Currently, there are over 2.5 million Americans incarcerated in jails and prisons—the percentage of the population incarcerated in the United States is dramatically higher than in any other country. Hence, it appears that our penal system—which we also refer to as our “justice system”—severely lacks the quality of forgiveness and, instead, highlights a profound capacity for inflicting revenge through prosecution and criminalization.
Our media, as well, demonstrates a fascination with crime and the indictments perpetrated by law enforcement, and is fastidious with informing us of every heinous act imaginable that is committed, could be committed, or is alleged to have been committed everyday by ordinary citizens who have crossed over the fence of normality into the derelict and aberrant forms of behavior we refer to as “criminal.” This is most certainly an expression of our shared social madness.
When someone has been indicted on suspicion of having committed a crime, all the various media representatives arrive on the spot like vultures to carrion, prepared to rip apart and devour the flesh of the accused, to demean and destroy them, both literally and morally, to the legal extent that they are able. And this is even before the defendant is found to be guilty. As soon as anyone becomes vulnerable to the underlying prosecutorial wrath of his fellow man—as exemplified by the media—they are quickly consumed in horrible proceedings which entail extensive and debilitating character assassination and potential life ruination.
These all too common, culturally sanctioned behaviors have nothing to do with forgiveness but, quite to the contrary, are based in a model of aggressive attack and revenge, demonstrating a profound lack of adherence to the Christian virtue of forgiveness in the United States.
Psychologically speaking, perhaps our profound consensual lack of capacity for forgiveness—as expressed by our frenzied propensity for indictment and prosecution—points towards our inability to forgive ourselves based on an underlying presence of self-guilt. For when we point an accusing finger at others there is usually an unseen finger pointing right back at ourselves. I cannot accept or love in another person what I am unable to accept or love in myself. “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” But to enact revenge and torment upon one who has erred is perhaps an error in itself.
Our reactive nature towards those who have “erred” belies our own suppressed discontentment, anger, and hostility, which needs only a justifiable excuse to be released from our secret inner vault and vented upon someone who appears to deserve it. But what good does this do? In fact, this sort of reaction is not much more than a replication of the perceived transgression which instigated our own.
If we are to resolve wrong-doing, violence, or harmful behaviors, at some point the quality of compassion and forgiveness—along with an understanding of the fallible nature of being human—must enter into our awareness. At least this would seem to be a more Christian, or Christ-like, response to the many inevitable transgressions we will experience in our lifetimes, both personally and collectively.
As a military nation, we are neither forgiving nor tolerant. Did we even attempt any sort of negotiation with the Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor? No, we did not. In their attack upon the United States at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese killed 2,402 and wounded 1,282 American citizens. However, our response to their wrongful attack on us was to retaliate with two nuclear bombs, by which we killed approximately 140,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki—nearly a quarter of a million human beings.
The majority of the Japanese who died from these bombs were civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thousands more Japanese have suffered excruciatingly horrendous wounds and physical ailments, and more have died from the radiation fallout of these bombings since they occurred.
Our military actions over the years—from Vietnam to Iraq—have exemplified not forgiveness, but, in fact, its opposite: a severity of retaliation and punishment in the basest forms of violence, attack, slaughter and merciless killings. What would Jesus Christ—“The Prince of Peace”—say about so much murder? One of the foremost of the Ten Commandments of the Bible is: “Thou shalt not kill.” And yet, almost every day the United States government condones murder in the name of war. We also lawfully execute our own citizens when they have killed. According to my understanding, Jesus Christ did not advise violence, although he himself was murdered by bloodthirsty, misanthropic individuals.
These occupational wars engendered by the United States demonstrate our preponderance for massively destructive and violent societal maneuvers based on theories of defense and protection, first from the spread of communism and, later, from global terrorist attacks. These wars enacted by our military, based on the underlying protective credo of our American nation, are not very Christian.
Lastly, as is well known, the United States was tragically attacked on 9-11-2001. Sadly, nearly 3,000 people died that day, and it is estimated that 6,000 perished in the ensuing aftermath. The dead included many Americans, but also citizens from ninety other countries. Subsequently, under the misleading guidance of George W. Bush, the United States used this attack as a justification to invade Iraq in 2003. In late 2011, over eight years later, President Barack Obama finally made good on his promise to remove all American troops from Iraq, but not before the damage had been done.
According to official American reports, there have been approximately 4,500 American deaths and over 31,000 American wounded in action as a result of this invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. In terms of the number of Americans killed, maimed, and irreparable psychologically scarred, through our own retaliatory actions we have essentially inflicted another 9-11 tragedy upon ourselves.
Reports on the Iraqi death toll pursuant to our invasion and war upon them are much higher, ranging from 100,000 to 1,000,000. These numbers confirm our enactment of a colossal revenge upon them—much like we did with the Japanese. Tragically, as it turns out, the Iraqis were not even responsible for the 9-11 attacks, as it is now understood that our invasion of Iraq was based on falsified information connecting the government of Saddam Hussein to the Al-Qaeda group held responsible for the 9-11 attacks.
So the United States murdered 100,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqi people—wounding countless others, displacing families, and inciting a general state of utter chaos, turmoil, and social nightmare to an entire country—all in the name of revenge for an act neither they nor their government committed. This is plainly anti-Christian behavior.
This kind of behavior, in purely psychological terms, is also called “projecting your shadow.” The shadow is generally known as that part of our personality which we deny, repress, or hide from the world of others. Carl Jung coined the term, stating “By shadow I mean the ‘negative’ side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide …”
But the shadow is not only a personal attribute, it also pertains to families, groups, and nations, as evidenced through a homogeneous negative regard one group has for another—such as the unquestioned enmity the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had for one another through the long, cold war—as well as through the atrocities of actual war. Commenting on the relationship between war and the collective shadow, psychologist Sam Keen states, “The wars we engage in are compulsive rituals, shadow dramas in which we continually try to kill those parts of ourselves we deny and despise.”
In the case of Iraq, the U.S. shifted blame for something horrible done to us onto them. They became the alleged culprit, as their guilt was sold to us by our politicians. In essence, we were eager to blame someone, to have a face onto which we could project our outrage and disdain. Instead of reflecting very deeply on why 9-11 occurred, we went on a reactive, frenzied killing spree.
Our war upon Iraq is probably the most recent example of our corrupt governmental responses to aggressions—perceived or actual—against our country, in which we demonstrated our supreme talent with deception of our own citizenry in order to enact revenge and the violent exercising of our military power—which in no way can be interpreted as a capacity for forgiveness, though we continually proclaim ourselves to be a “Christian Nation.”
AND WHAT OF UNIVERSAL LOVE and compassion? Are we a culture that promotes these Christ-like qualities? Firstly, it must be stated that love is perhaps one of the most complex and diverse notions, celebrated and mourned down through the ages in most every culture. For purposes of this discussion, however, the point must be stressed that I am limiting my reflections of love to agape love, filial love, perhaps more well known as Platonic love, which, you may protest, is quite boring when compared with erotic love, or the love to which Plato referred when he said, “Love is a divine madness.”
In the current context, however, it should be emphasized that I am speaking of universal love and compassion, or lovingkindness, known in the Buddhist tradition as metta. As such, metta is characterized in Buddhist thought as “unconditional: open and unobstructed,” as “love that is not bound to desire.” So then, how does our society promulgate universal or unconditional love and compassion?
Or do we?
During the holiday season, we become more charitable and many of us give gifts—a practice which has become moreover a capitalist dream tainted with feelings of compassion. We also tend to respond generously in times of tragedy, such as natural disasters, when citizens of other countries have suddenly been made bereft of their essential needs. The United States as a nation makes significant contributions to humanitarian aid efforts throughout the world which are very admirable.
For the most part, our general populace is basically respectful and kind to each other. Overall, despite the draw of the news media, which hypes up the drama of any sort of shocking story, violence tends to be an aberration in the majority of our everyday interactions. And for many of us, there exists an overall atmosphere of tolerance and unspoken agreement to live together in a spirit of peaceful cooperation, however vague this may be.
Regardless, there is also an overwhelming and colossal amount of competition in our capitalistic society—which has very little to do with Christian values—wherein, making a buck and getting ahead of the pack are survival instincts that contribute to crushing our capacity for acts, let alone feelings, of compassion. From winning the game, to getting the girl, to landing the job, to scoring the business deal, we tend to live moreover in a spirit of competition than a spirit of interdependent and loving compassion.
It is only, perhaps, on Sunday morning, upon entering the church that our competitive streak is lessened and we allow our innate quality of compassion and spiritual community to come forth. Hence, for the majority of our lives we are moreover a Capitalist Nation than a Christian Nation. True Christianity, like any religion, is primarily concerned with the spirit; so how can we claim to be a Christian Nation when we are primarily obsessed with money and the competitive pursuit of materialist pleasures?
As Americans, we are raised to be weary of strangers, conditioned to protect ourselves from any perceived or imagined threat, and, above all, to “look out for number one” by advancing ourselves financially or socially whenever possible. The holy dictum “Love thy neighbor” has been degraded to “Suspect thy neighbor” because we’ve come to believe that no one can be trusted when it comes to our security and our belongings. Why else would we have locks on our doors, alarms on our cars, and passwords to our bank and email accounts? In the modern world, it has become almost unnatural to think of living any other way.
Did Jesus Christ advocate such a way of life?
The way of the isolated individual protecting his every possession and constantly working to become “better than others” by improving his social status?
No, he did not.
In fact, he spent the majority of his time with those who had naught. Yet this incongruity does not stop Christians or Americans from our selfish, materialist ways while simultaneously proclaiming ourselves to be devoted to a higher purpose or principle, to a God-figure that heralded love and spirit and suffering in the name of truth and liberation from the flesh.
Conversely to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, in our American society we have chosen Capital over Christ, matter over spirit, self over other, safety over love, illusion over truth. But how many of us are willing to admit it?
In our modern world, we are constantly compared and contrasted with the performance of others, measured against the successes and failures of our fellows, all of which leads away from treating one another with Christ-like compassion and towards an atmosphere of interpersonal contempt. We are bombarded from all angles with messages that instill us with fear of one another, causing us to reclude into ourselves, to become overly self-protective of our belongings and our station in life, and to defend ourselves against any and all potential intruders upon the sanctity of our slice of the pie.
Most of us would agree that the opposite of love is fear, for where there is fear how can there also be love? Yet in almost every way our society, our media, and our way of life emphasize fear over love, thereby damaging our potential for living compassionately with one another.
When it comes to social problems which involve the suffering of individuals, families, and communities—such as homelessness, unemployment, the lack of healthcare or any failure to meet ones basic needs—we could improve upon the role that our current standards of compassion play in helping to ease one another’s pain. Approximately 3.5 million people in America are homeless for a portion of every year, and every week about 842,000 Americans are homeless.
Of the total homeless population in America: 40% are families with children; 49% are African Americans, (who comprise 11% of the general population); 35% are Caucasians (who comprise 75% of the general population); 46% report chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancer; 55% report having no health insurance (compared to 16% of the general population); 58% report having trouble getting enough food to eat; 54% were incarcerated at some point in their lives. Of this total number of homeless individuals, 72% experience a period of homelessness for over 4 months, and 20% for over 5 years.
These statistics portray large numbers of individuals suffering in ways that one would think could be averted in this Land of Plenty. But in a capitalist society, you can only get what you need if you have the cash, credit, or commerce needed to buy it. In a capitalist society, there will always be those who “fall through the cracks” into the marginal zones of day to day survival, struggle and strife. In reality, there is enough food, enough clothing, enough housing, and enough resources to go around; unfortunately our economic system encourages those who are “uber-wealthy” to horde these things while others go without.
Our economy is not based on compassion, but on competition. And the focus on competition generates greed, with success for some and failure for others. Some people work sixteen hours a day and are barely able to provide for their families, while others work half those hours but earn more money than they know what to do with—though they find ways to spend it on ostentatious extravagances.
In a society completely entrenched in capitalism, how can we consider ourselves to be a “Christian Nation?”
Globally, the United States ranks #1 in the total number of crimes committed with nearly 12 million crimes per year; #1 in assault crimes with about 2.25 million per year; and #5 in murders with over 16,000 murders per year—of course, this does not include the number of people we murder in the name of justifiable occupations and wars upon other countries.
According to these statistics, in comparison with the rest of the world, we don’t appear to be employing any convincing examples of kindness to one another, be it “Christian kindness” or otherwise.
Insofar as we Americans live with an experiential relationship to a spiritual source, or are able to sacrifice our material, worldly endeavors for spiritual concerns, well, ahem … these are, indeed, very rare qualities in the general populace. We seem, contra wise, to be increasingly disconnected from the spiritual side of life and much more caught up in exploits of technology and the material realms of our own making.
There is much, much more ego and self-centeredness in the typical American than one would believe was to be found in the figure of Jesus Christ.
If we were truly a Christian Nation, we would not be so nearly as obsessed with collecting personal items of material wealth as we are. I think it would probably be a better world if we truly were a Christian Nation, if we were truly “Christ-like,” and if we did truly emulate and practice the teachings of Jesus Christ. However, in the final analysis, although some Americans proclaim the United States to be a Christian Nation, this is obviously moreover lip service and self-serving ego-enhancement than it is the truth. Either that or we truly aspire to be a more virtuous people than we are and just plainly fall very short of our intended goals.
BEFORE CONCLUDING this assessment of America’s tendency to identify itself as a Christian Nation, I should state that I have been deeply affected by my own encounters with Christianity, mainly growing up as a child, then later as a young adult. At these times, Christianity was proposed to me in a coercive form, with the assertion that only through Christianity would I be able to go to heaven, and that, should I refuse to become a Christian, I would surely go to hell. Although, as an adult, this kind of high-pressure proselytizing approaches the ridiculous, as a child and young adult such “factual” and “authoritative” presentations were rather disturbing and disillusioning.
I later learned that the Christian faith involves a concept of original sin by which we are all primordially guilty for being humans; that, due to the actions of Adam and Eve, we are all “sinners” who must be saved by a “Saviour.” Amongst all religions, this concept of original sin is unique to the Christian faith. I was never taken or convinced by the Christian belief system and the foundation of original sin upon which it rests, and so never, as an adult, have I considered myself to be a Christian.
As an adult, I learned that Christians, historically and often times as missionaries, have enforced their religion on the non-Christian peoples they encountered during the European colonization of the world—including Native Americans from Canada down through the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America, as well as indigenous Africans, Australians, and East Indians.
Historically, Christian missionaries have been consumed with converting non-Christians, especially non-whites—who they initially referred to as “heathens”—to the Christian faith and a puritanical lifestyle.
This practice is utterly appalling to the non-Christian.
Why do fundamentalist Christians feel they need to convert others to their own unique belief systems and cultural values?
Why do they so often have such little tolerance for other people of other cultures who practice their own unique cultural ways and spiritual traditions?
This tendency of Christianity to force its religious beliefs and practices upon non-Christians is revolting.
That is, it provokes revolt because it subsumes the superiority of Christian thought over non-Christian thought, while denying other people of other cultures and other perspectives their own freedom of religion and uniqueness of identity. In short, Christianity, as other forms of fundamentalist religion, provides a mono-vision of reality which, to many folks, is merely an overly-myopic paradigm with socio-political undertones.
An essential aspect of any humanitarian value system is the allowance, respect, and support of the innate dignity of every human being. This innate dignity necessarily includes one’s freedom of religion.
The fundamentalist—I should say extremist—Christian practice of converting non-Christians through coercive means is similar to the Western way of imperialism, in which we conquer other nations and enforce our way of life upon them so that we may benefit from their labor, resources, and materials.
This sort of thing is not merely a relic of the past—it still happens around the globe in third world countries where Christian missionaries are teamed up with lucrative corporations and big government.
However, there are many Christians who utilize their religion in a loving, kind, and respectful manner. I appreciate intentions and actions of this sort and believe that the true teachings of Jesus Christ did not include the unfortunate abominations which have been enacted throughout the centuries by many followers of the Christian faith.
In the United States, we are learning more and more about appreciating diversity, mainly due to the influx of many different cultures and ethnicities from the entire planet, not just Europe.
Appreciating and celebrating diversity is essential if we are to create anything resembling peace and harmony on this planet. Christianity is one religion among many, and people of all different religions would benefit from understanding each other because, as there are many different ways of living, many different traditions, and many different kinds of people, so there are also many different ways of approaching the divine.
“Christian Nation?” is an exerpt from Salvatore Folisi’s book Eros Over Logos: Revolt Against The Madness of Modernity.