Responding in Piecemeal

I have yet to sit down with the entire 95 Theses, but I think I can begin to start working on response/definitions to your post without them.

Part of the objection to "American Christianity" I think is simply the objection to Americans as a whole. One hundred years ago, it likely would have been the objection to the British. America is an imperial power. And while we don't go in for colonies on paper, we have a lot of de facto colonies (military bases in other countries), and we most decidedly have the attitude that it's our job to keep everyone in line. No one likes the policeman, even if it's a good policeman. A policeman that they didn't agree to have, who has a different culture and values than they, and who occasionally acts from suspect motives? That policeman will be REALLY unliked!

Likewise, Americans abroad have the attitude of untouchability. We know without thinking about it that a phalanx of Marines will come after us if something happens to us (via the government, not private parties). Add to that that the Americans who go abroad are very unlikely to ever have known real poverty, ever have had to suck it up when something is unfair, and are stubborn about trying really unfamiliar things or learning the language - you get a very poor national representative. I've read over and over how people in other countries are SHOCKED to get to know a religious American, who isn't all about Hollywood values.

So - first we have the sterotypical "Ugly American". Added to that - while America is thought of as a Christian nation, we aren't. Most of the people would identify themselves as Christian here... yes. But by that a very large chunk of them merely mean they went to Sunday School as a kid, believe in God, and pray once in a while. Their religion to them means no more than that. Did you hear the study where most Americans identified as Christians and then couldn't name even one gospel? Yeah... I don't mean to dis my countrymen, but that's not "Christian" to me.

So. We have Christians in name only, we have the Ugly American. Let's address patriotism. I don't think there is a single thing wrong with patriotism. Obviously we should be more loyal to our God than to our country. And I think that most of the *serious* Christians you will meet, American or not, are. But because our nation is sold as a Christian nation, because we're raised on Little House in the Prairie and Leave it to Beaver, we tend to want to push back the clock of our national behavior rather than concentrating on our individual behavior. It's sad, the largest and most influential Christian organizations buy into that. So - effort is put into defending corporate religious displays instead of putting nativity scenes in our own yards. (I got a great forward on this, and will post it). We *think* our government was once Christian, and so we try to make it again Christian. Wasted effort - far better to live as Christians, with all that that implies. But again... how many of us are there, and how mixed does the message get? And what does it mean to "live as a Christian" in an external, easily seen fashion? Surely it's not the fish bumperstickers I see everywhere. :)

But ... real American Christians? They give huge sums to the poor. They give to missions. They get out there and DO things - the churches here are forever going to Mexico, money and shovels in hand to fix orphanages and set up churches. My cousin's church sent a group to Africa to do much the same thing. Yes - we have imperialistic attitudes, and no doubt our Lord will wash us clean of those (looking forward to it!). But we also have a sense of nobliesse oblige. We know our Lord has blessed us materially and we try to spread that blessing around.

Where are our weak spots? I'd say other than imperialism, a huge one is that we're forever weakened by trying to be part of the culture at large. Because we have been spoonfed the doctrine that we're a Christian nation, we fight the insidious elements of decay rather than turning from them. A pastor gave this metaphor a long time ago - it applies to our thought life, but it works for this. As a Christian, we're travelling down a long straight road. That road goes straight through a big town. Hanging from every window in the town is someone trying to get us to deviate from our path. The mistake many Christians make is not turning - it's turning our heads to ARGUE. If we stop to talk... we've stopped. If our attention is off of the road ahead and our Lord at the end of it... it's off Him. The enemy wins! The enemy doesn't have to get us to go off track to stop us, he just has to distract us. So - do we worry about the movies Hollywood makes, or do we just get picky and only go to the ones that match our ideals? Do we yell about sex-ed, or do we teach our children at home or take them out of class on that day?

Should we fight and fuss and go on about liberty? Yes. There are good things to be gained there, even if those "good things" are mostly getting out to the community what's happening. But some of us are still infected with the leftover attitudes of the turn of the century. This world is not perfectable. Democracy is not the perfect government. We will get a perfect government when our Lord returns to reign. Absolute monarchy, absolute control. Until then, I agree... we need to let Him reign in our hearts.

Enough for now, I'm going to post the forward I got and come back to this later/tomorrow. Thank you for the birthday wishes. :)