THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX:

[Guest guest]

THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX: HOW A FAITHFUL NATION GETS JESUS WRONG

 

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten

Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of

the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may

be further evidence of our nation's educational decline, but it

probably doesn't matter all that much in spiritual or political

terms.

 

Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans

believe the Bible teaches that " God helps those who help

themselves. " That is, three out of four Americans believe that this

uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current

individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben

Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only

is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counter-biblical. Few ideas

could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons

to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans & #65533;most

American Christians & #65533;are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American

scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly

up.

 

Asking Christians what Christ taught isn't a trick. When we say we

are a Christian nation & #65533;and, overwhelmingly, we do & #65533;it means

something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make

real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons

inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S.

churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way

in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush

says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may

not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast

majority of Americans.

 

And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most

professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least

Christian in its behavior. That paradox & #65533;more important, perhaps,

than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet

of chocolate and cheese & #65533;illuminates the hollow at the core of our

boastful, careening culture.

 

* * *

 

Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth.

Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked,

somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel,

by way of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish. It is true that a

smaller number of Americans & #65533;about 75 percent & #65533;claim they actually

pray to God on a daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to

get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates

actual practice, it clearly represents aspiration. In fact, there is

nothing else that unites more than four fifths of America. Every

other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially

also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That's what

America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.

 

But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the

heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind

for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion & #65533;say,

giving aid to the poorest people & #65533;as a reasonable proxy for Christian

behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus

summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could

tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the

hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the

stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?

 

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after

Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per

capita we each provide fifteen cents a day in official development

assistance to poor countries. And it's not because we were giving to

private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases

our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents.

It's also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their

own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty

(compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much

any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose & #65533;

childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool & #65533;we come

in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin.

The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American

nation trails badly in all these categories; it's that the

overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these

categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention. And

it's not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department

of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that

were " food insecure with hunger " had climbed more than 26 percent

between 1999 and 2003.

 

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to

political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite

the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich

nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our

European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of

six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us

plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told

to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that

executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is

theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus' strong declarations against

divorce, our marriages break up at a rate & #65533;just over half & #65533;that

compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in

ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry

less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is

difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless

Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage

pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline & #65533;

like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit?

Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?

 

* * *

 

(To read the rest, pick up the August 2005 issue of Harpers Magazine)

 

Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. What it means to be Christian in

America. An excerpt. Originally from August 2005. By Bill McKibben.

 

Permanent URL

http://harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html

 

 

 

__

Start your day with - make it your home page

http://www./r/hs