The End of America, Part II (continued political contemplations by an orthodox rebel)

(Note: Please read "Part I" before proceeding.)

The genius of the founders is matched only by their gamble. Take the wild wonder that is "freedom" and try to cage it in a basic notion of "God". It may hold (and did hold) for a while, but the nagging question still lingers: what's to stop "freedom" from eroding "God" away as well? Honestly, there was nothing. Perhaps a sense of idealism could make one think that all men would all be Christians (or at least theists) at all times, but such a notion is a pipedream. If we are built on freedom, including religious freedom, then God has to be open to dissolve just like any boundaries must be. And make no mistake: He has been dissolved, not actually but virtually, in this nation.

How God has been dissolved is a matter of debate, but I would identify three main dissolvants, which I will list in ascending order. The first and lowest would be the volatile and vocal presence of the so-called "new atheism". Believing god doesn't exist is obviously a means of dissolvement/destruction, but they are not a significant enough presence in this country to be the main means. The second and middle one is what I call the "new deism," which sums up American spirituality. Every poll or survey under the sun may say that the vast majority of Americans "believe in God," but you're kidding yourself if you think they believe in any kind of substantial God, a God that matters in all areas of life, a God of blood and flesh; in short, the Christian God. The God of most Americans is some nebulous power in the sky whose presence is ultimately irrelevant to my life.

If He ever does become relevant, however, then we have the third and highest and (I believe) true dissolvant of God in America today: postmodernism. I know some may roll their eyes at that, but I am afraid that I must hold my ground on this. I seriously doubt any average American knows what that term means (or has even heard of it), but the facts still remain: if you are a child of the late 20th century in the West, then you are postmodern whether you know it or not. You believe (in some form or fashion) that you are free to forge your own fate, your own identity, and than all other notions or claims to truth are simply opinions that can either serve as tools to your own ends or as means of oppression by white males (or whomever your ire is currently directed towards). In short, postmodernism is simply a fact of our times, a fact that eye-rolling does not change.

Perhaps you see why postmodernism would catch fire in America: both are based on a notion of freedom, except that America had a unifying factor for its freedom, but postmodernism lives to destroy all unifying factors. And in postmodern America, our freedom has been unbound, and God has been deconstructed and dismembered. He has ceased to be an objective reference point and has been turned into a divine sounding-board that validates my personal preferences: "Gay marriage is wrong because God says so!" "That's a lie! God made me this way!" / "God is against the greed and tyranny of socialism!" "No! He's against the greed and tyranny of capitalism!" / "God wants you to live right!" "God wants me to be happy!" How can anything be accomplished in such a mess? What use is God in such a political climate as ours? He has because useless precisely because of His overuse: He has become anything to everyone, and thus He has become nothing at all, dissolving away in the acidity that is the postmodern "conversation". It is yet another tragic irony of our age.

This is why America as we know it is coming to an end. This is why the country is "dissolving," why it seems to lack unity and identity and purpose. It is not because of gay marriage or socialism or gun control or some other political bullet point. Rather, it is a combination of two things: (1) our lack of a center, and (2) our fundamentally fragmentary force. To put it another way, we lost God (by our free overabundance of Him) and without Him America will tear itself apart by itself. It needs no other stimulant, no other motive than its own forward momentum. The nature of America is freedom, and freedom cannot help but literally go awry, to fray outward and onward until it unravels everything, including itself. Therefore, God's place as its head was necessarily a short-term deal. It was never going to survive the very nature of the nation. America will end, and it will end because it is America. That is yet another, and perhaps the ultimate, irony of our age.

An addendum to this gloom is required, and I will close with it. In the face of America's intrinsic destruction, what must we do? Here are some things to consider: (1) This cannot happen in a night. The "end" may be generations away. The point is that it will come if we continue on without a unifying factor. (2) A new (or old) unifying factor could save us from our end, but it may be equally devastating (like socialism), and furthermore it will not survive either. If we dissolved God, then we can dissolve anything. (3) The end of America does not mean the end of the world or even our daily lives. The decentralized structure of America means that if America were to completely fray, it would fray into a myriad of new, individual states with their own unifying factors (or lack thereof). I am not saying that these states will be good or bad things. I am only saying that they are the most likely scenario and an intriguing one at that. (4) Remember what I said before: God was not actually "dissolved". A notion, an idea, a phantasmic consideration was dissolved, but the true Almighty remains and reigns. He has been and always will be bigger than any nation's use or abuse of Him.

In connection to that thought, let me add this: I said earlier that biblical arguments were "useless" in political debates. I fear some may think I am viewing the Scriptures in a weak light. On the contrary, I answer that I am viewing them in their truest, strongest light. Scripture is useless in political arguments in this nation, not because they are weak but because they are about things that are so much bigger and greater than any nation. By the very nature of their eternal value, they are necessarily "useless" to fundamentally temporal things. They are true; all else is lies, and lies have no use of the truth. The truth is too strong for them; it either breaks them or outlasts them, and the truth of God's word will outlast the small speck in the whirlwind that we call "America". And this is its truth, truth you would do well to heed, truth that I leave you with:

God is our refuge and strength

     a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed,

     and though the mountains be carried into the midst

     of the sea;

though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,

     though the mountains shake

     with the swelling thereof.

[...]

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved;

     He uttered His voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

     the God of Jacob is our refuge.

 Come, behold the works of the Lord,

     what desolations He has made on the earth.

He makes wars to cease unto the ends of the earth;

He breaks the bow and cuts the spear asunder;

     He burns the chariot with fire.

Be still and know that I am God;

     I will be exalted among the heathen,

     I will be exalted on the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

     the God of Jacob is our refuge.

(Psalm 46)

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

 

The End of America, Part I (political contemplations by an orthodox rebel)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." -"The Declaration of Independence"

Most hot-button issues in American politics revolve around some particular thing that many accuse (amongst other things) of potentially destroying the country. Take gay marriage for instance. This is certainly a hot-button ("boiler plate," some call it) issue in this country, and the doomsday arguments have been made. They are not without their merit, mainly because they are not without logic (or historical precedent). The two main ones go something like this: since homosexuals cannot biologically or naturally breed, they cannot have children; and if they cannot have children, then they will destroy the country, because no society can survive without function family units, containing both children to be the next generation and parents who can pass on good citizenship and love of country to said next generation. Furthermore (and slightly in correlation to the previous), children in homosexual "families" are in danger of "damage"; if not spiritual or physical, than at least psychological and emotional (since they belong to a currently ostracized group). Thus is the thrust of the basic political argument(s) against gay marriage.

Unfortunately, neither one of them holds real water, not because they are not true (e.g., societies do need stable family units), but because we have found ways around their truth. For example, while it may be true that homosexual couples cannot have children biologically (i.e., the "plumbing don't fit that way"), they can and have used adoption, or (in the case of some lesbian couples) they use insemination services. Anyone who works in certain other social movements (pro-life, anti-sex trafficking, etc.) can tell you that their are plenty of children out there to adopt (and there is, apparently, also plenty of semen to go around), so anyone trying to stand against gay marriage on the grounds of social and national dissolvement has to recognize that homosexuals can form "family units" too. And as for the "damage" argument, the stories from children like this young man seem to effectively counter it. Even if he and others like him are the exception to the rule, their mere presence is enough to rob all claims of "damage" of its debatable force.

There are, of course, biblical arguments against gay marriage (and a myriad of other "social ills"), but I have come to realize that they are of no use in a political discussion in America. Again, it is not because they're not true (how could I, being a Christian, say they are not?). Rather, it's for two often overlooked reasons. First (more generally speaking), politics concerns itself with the passing cities of men while the Bible concerns itself with the eternal and coming City of God. To put it less abstractly, the Bible says things like homosexuality are bad, not because it will dissolve the nation, but because it will damage your soul. More to the point, it says that all sin is a symptom (one of many) of an already damaged soul, a soul that needs to be brought back to God through Christ. In short, it is concerned with our spiritual welfare, not our political one. As far as politics goes, all the Bible says about it can be summed as follows: (1) be a good citizen and live peaceably, (2) governments (even bad ones) are ordained by God and they (3) ought to, as far as you can, be submitted to, (4) ought to punish wrong and reward good, and (5) are always passing away.

The second reason why biblical arguments are of no use in a political discussion in America is because specifically in America, one of the safeguards for our freedom is that no one religion is allowed any kind of special weight, treatment, or consideration. All voices are to be equally valid voices, and no one is to dominate the space. Thus, the best a biblical argument can hope for is to become just one voice among many, a voice that easily gets lost (or diluted or mutated) in the onslaught of competing ideas and notions. Simply put, the very freedoms that we have and hold to be so precious are the very things that nullify the effectiveness of biblical arguments (a point I'll return to in "Part II"). If we are to remain "free," then we can never become a theocracy, no matter how sympathetic we are to its doctrines. Hence, the frustration of the "moral majority" and its adherents: playing the game by its own rules necessitates your defeat. The whole thing feels like a unbeatable cheat, a necessary evil.

It was at the end of these ponderings that I was struck by a dilemma: "Well, if all of my traditional political arguments are nullified, and if all of my precious biblical arguments are true yet easily cast aside by the system itself, then what can I say against such things? Where is the real argument against them?" Though I never really arrived at any better arguments, I nonetheless stumbled upon certain facts that stumbled me further along a certain progression of ideas that lead me to one inevitable conclusion, a conclusion that troubled me deeply. It appeared that when I spoke earlier that homosexuality (and any other sin) was merely a symptom of some deeper ill, I hardly knew the truth of what I had said. America will be destroyed. It will be dissolved. But things like gay marriage are only symptoms of the deeper dissolvant, which is America itself.

You see, America is fundamentally fragmentary in its construction. Of course, there is the idea of decentralization, i.e., the federal government is divided into three separate branches (one of which is divided further into two), and every state is a nation unto itself (with their own constitutions, laws, resources, militaries, etc.), and every city contains its own government, etc. In addition to that, however, is the fundamental premise of American "freedom". By its own basic definition, freedom is necessarily fragmentary: it is a centrifugal force, moving outward beyond all boundaries. I believe our founding fathers knew this, and that they also knew that while freedom is necessary for human happiness, no nation can survive solely on its shifting sands. There has to be a unifying factor as well, some solidifying variable that could enter the equation and allow the whole edifice to hold together and stand erect. They found their unifying factor, and its name was God.

I'm quite sure that historical reconstructionists everywhere are already gearing up the torches and pitchforks. I would humbly ask them to hold their ire for a moment and face certain facts. It may be true that the founders were not traditional Christians, that they were deists or Unitarians or else various shades of agnosticism. I grant the possibility of such a premise; I also hold that it makes no difference whatsoever. Even if they weren't all Christians (an idea I hold suspect), and even if the Bible played a minimal role in their decisions (an idea I hold as possible), the fact remains (in all their subsequent writings) that they all believed in "God," a God somewhat analogous to the Christian God (for what other God was there for white, European males?). They held that there was some absolute, all-powerful Being who ruled over all. Furthermore, this Being had a moral character that had been transmitted to us (either by holy writ or other, more deistic means) as moral conduct. It was from this God that we received our "inalienable rights," and it was to this God that our rights were to be directed. This is what would unify us: a God-centered and God-based morality. It would give our freedom focus and our nation solidarity. Now we had liberty, liberty to become better men and women with a manifest destiny to change the world for that same "better". We were free, free to follow and spread the ten commandments.

I may be oversimplifying a bit, but I am not overstating. God haunts our political structure to this day (in debates, in documents, on buildings, on currency), because He was the glue that held it all together, that kept our nation from scattering to the four-winds, that kept our fundamentally fragmentary freedom from tearing us into pieces. The principle is found in the "Declaration" itself: our inalienable rights include "Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," both of which speak to freedom and its fragmentary power. But prior to these rights, we are told that we were "created" and "endowed" by a "Creator". In America, God must be the first premise if freedom is to be kept sane. Deistic or otherwise, a "God" of some sort must be there. What's more, if you want to "dissolve" or "destroy" the nation, then you must dissolve/destroy its unifying factor. In America, you must dissolve/destroy God.

(To be continued in "Part II")

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013