Theses 11 - 18

I am not sure what the point is about Theses 11 and 12. I am not sure if the writers of these 95 Theses are saying that they think that the founders of America should have based the country only and entirely on the Bible, specifically the New Testament? If they are not saying that, I am not sure why they are saying anything at all about it. If they are saying that, then I think they undermine their own point, which is that we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven first and that Kingdom has nothing to do with kingdoms of this world.

Maybe they worded it that way because they think that there is a large body of American Christians who believe that the intent of the founding fathers was in fact to create a Christian, New Testament style country? Is that what you think a lot of American Christians think the intent of the founding fathers was?

I am thinking that these Theses, based on the preamble, was probably written shortly after 9/11, and the beginning parts of it, have some of the same fever of irrationality about it that spawned some of the more hideous comments by a small sector of Americans shocked by what happened (like the people who said to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, to nuke them and say they didn't care how many died).

I don't think that most Americans felt that way. I think a lot may have felt a burning desire to do something, even a desire for revenge, right in the aftermath of 9/11. That's what humans do. When we are hurt, we want to lash back but for most of us, as the anger subsides, the desire to shoot ourselves in the collective foot if necessary to obtain that revenge also fades.

I see it more as a hysterical reaction on the part of most who felt that way than an actual wish that the US would have done those things. But these Theses, in these first examples we have been discussing, also exhibit some of the same hysteria - an hysterical response to an hysterical response to 9/11 - in my humble opinion.

I could be wrong since I'm not an American. I was shocked beyond words when 9/11 happened. Sickened beyond belief. When they have replays of what happened on 9/11, I am still as speechless and frozen in front of the TV as I was the day it happened and for many days after.

I agree with Theses 13 that they did create a space in which a new civil American religion could arise. That religion I would label as excessive love of country (patriotism), in that Americans often show (and this is shown statistically often enough on American news broadcasts) that Americans very often are completely ignorant of what's going on in the world around them, in other countries. One of the things Americans often say is that they 'live in the best country in the world.'

I have always wondered what the standard was for 'best country in the world.' It can be a throw-away saying, just something people say but don't think about but I have come across a lot of Americans who believe they are the best country in the world. I have come across Americans who seem to believe, literally, that in other countries they don't have freedom of speech and that freedom of speech really only exists in the US. I have come across Americans who believe that Canada is basically communist, since we have a national health care plan.

My impression has been that because they have heard 'best country in the world' so often, to them it has to mean that no one else has the same amount of freedom of speech and that in other countries, even democracies like Canada, we are in constant danger of the thought police throwing us in jail.

Since I have generally found that people who have strongly held beliefs like that aren't interested in facts, I just kept my mouth shut. So I am only guessing as to what they might or might not mean :-)

I therefore also agree on the same principle with Theses 13 and 14 and 15, that this patriotism has a religious fervor about it, as does what the Theses calls the 'highest value' of this new religion, that of personal liberty. I think that any idea can become a person's religion, so yes, I think that personal liberty, in and of itself, can be a religion.

The word 'liberty' is a sacred cow in the US. That is how I see it as an outsider. I shift uncomfortably when Americans talk about liberty and try not to look at their impassioned, glazed-over eyes. Fanatics make me nervous. I don't think that Americans realise how non-Americans react to American speeches about liberty. I feel fairly confident in saying that this idea that liberty is a religion for Americans is something an awful lot of non-Americans would agree with. Sometimes you have to be an outsider to see something like that. I think that the emotionalism about the US flag and flag-burning as a form of dissension, and the famous saying, "Give me liberty or give me death" and your hand over your heart thing that you do, and the Pledge of Allegiance are all pretty weird and do indicate an unhealthy obsession with personal liberty.

Not that I have any desire to burn your flag. I'm just sayin'.

One of the more wise sayings that I read a long time ago was, that if you want to make a point, wash the flag, don't burn it.

I agree with Theses 15, that liberty is a virtue but not the highest virtue. It makes for a much more comfortable life, but Jesus never told us that being comfortable was what we were to strive for or what we were to expect. What is most comfortable isn't always best for us. When we are made uncomfortable, we are forced to grow.

He told us that we would share in his sorrows, every time we were persecuted - in other words, when our personal liberty is taken away, we have a tried-by-fire liberty in God.

Which also takes care of Theses 17 and 18 for me.

Layla