Theological Journal – July 21 Lee Camp: Scandalous Witness (5)

PROPOSITION 5 The United States Is Not the Hope of the World

From Jefferson’s first inaugural address in 1801 to Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address America has been promoted as the hope and salvation of the world. Both the right and the left have indulged this blasphemy.

 Christians “must insist that such logic betrays the gospel, for in employing such logic America has laid upon itself the mantle of redemption, which is rightfully only laid upon, taken up by, the Holy Trinity.” (Kindle Loc.898)

The word hope can be used in different ways with difference nuance and meaning. Camp notes: “But when hope is used in an ultimate sense, it is a different matter. When we speak of the direction of history, the ultimate purpose of humankind, the meaning of life—when we speak of such ultimate concerns in terms of hope, we deny the most basic tenets of the gospel by claiming that the United States is the ‘last best hope of earth.’” (Kindle Loc.909)

The practices that support and inculcate such a bastardization of hope and the gospel form us on levels deeper than mere intellect to take exceptions to it with hostility and even violence. Even though we espouse a separation of church and state this does not mean our state cannot (and has not) become an idol. “Central to the practice of idolatry,” Camp writes, “is giving ultimate status to some power that does not rightly wield such status. It is a practice that shapes our allegiance, our appetites, and our desires. It is a practice that engenders our sense of security, our sense of neighborliness, our sense of who our enemies are, and our sense of where to build walls and when to build them.” (Kindle Loc.940)

At the time when Lincoln was calling America “the last best hope of the earth” and legitimizing the nation’s participation in the bloody and destructive Civil War, the dome of the Capitol building was painted with a picture of George Washington ascending into heaven as a god. “The Apotheosis of Washington” is a powerful scene of the founder of our nation taking his rightful place among the deities. While we don’t take this literally it nevertheless has a powerful impact on how we perceive and evaluate America’s actions and status in the world.

Further, the “Apotheosis” shows

“Washington among the goddess Victoria, representing Victory, and the Goddess of Liberty. Arrayed between them are thirteen maidens, representing the original thirteen colonies, some with their backs to Washington, perhaps representing the rebelling colonies. Above Washington’s head is this: E Pluribus Unum. This assertion of “out of many, one” served as one piece of the ideological justification for the civil war then under way.” (Kindle Loc.961)

But there is more: “. . . directly beneath Washington is Columbia, goddess of war, with her raised sword and a shield that looks like an early model for Captain America’s comic book shield, she trampling upon her enemies. The gods and goddesses of agriculture, science, commerce, mechanics, and the seas likewise are depicted, the various sources of American power, ingenuity, and accomplishment.” (Kindle Loc.967)

During this same time “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” with its sacralizing of military might and power, became popular.

“The rhetoric of the sacred, the effect of the melody and harmonies and climactic ‘Hallelujahs!’ and the social and historical contexts of this liturgy all combine for a profound and moving formation of both the private and the public self: that America and its military triumphs are manifestation of the triumph of God in the world, a foretaste of the consummation of the end of history.” (Kindle Loc.973)

The power and ubiquity of this conflation of Christianity and America as the best hope and savior of the world present a strong challenge to the profession and practice of Christian faith.

-it challenges our profession of faith by inviting/requiring us to speak and condone a falsehood. America is not the world’s savior or its last best hope. Christians need to have the courage to call BS on this!

-it challenges our practice because it leads to the death and destruction of other peoples.

“To take on messianic visions and wed these visions with imperial might and military force is to embrace a violent zeal against all those whom one counts as Canaanites, as those who are not us. If we are the chosen people, then others are not. The “other” then becomes the target of our violence and contempt. They become the legitimate targets seen in the dispossession of the people from this land, our fire-bombing of cities, our employment of torture, our dropping of the A-bomb, our harsh policies of exclusion.” (Kindle Loc.1005)

-it challenges both our profession and practice by hindering us from seeing and acting on the new visions and reality the gospel brings into the world. We fail to see and act on the truth of where the world’s hope truly lies, on a “God who has revealed the ways of suffering love, vindicated in the resurrection, and now calling together a people not bounded by geographical boundaries, a people who will sow the seeds of such hope and possibility into the rich soil of human possibilities.” (Kindle Loc.1018)