Tag Archives: worldview

Myths America Lives By

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I’m having an internal struggle. Part of me wants to help people see the ugly side of American history, not in an attempt to make people look down on the U.S., but to move them toward a more balanced view of history. However, I also know that can be counterproductive; at some point the dissonance between this information and what we’ve always believed becomes so great that we reject both the message and the messenger. I can deal with personal rejection, but if the message goes unheard as well, then what’s the point?

For now, I’ll choose a more prudent course and relay information that others have presented. On Monday, I referenced Richard Hughes’ Myths America Lives By. He presents and debunks five myths that a large portion of our population accepts to some degree. These are the myths of the Chosen Nation, of Nature’s Nation, of the Christian Nation, of the Millennial Nation, and of the Innocent Nation.

  • The myth of the Chosen Nation. This goes back to the time of the Puritans, who envisioned themselves as modern-day Israelites journeying to the Promised Land. Others took that myth further, feeling the need to conquer this modern day Canaan as their spiritual ancestors had done in Palestine. Those who bought into this myth felt a moral license to do what needed to be done to oppress and subjugate non-Christian peoples.
  • The myth of Nature’s Nation. This myth sees the American way as the natural way. Men were intended to live in liberty, having freedom to do as they wished. Democracy and capitalism were God’s design from the beginning. No real justification needs to be presented, for the rightness of these ideas is self-evident. As Hughes says, this belief “might suggest that whatever foreign policies America might put in place are by definition just and right, regardless of their impact on marginalized people, and that the rectitude of those policies should be self-evident to all the people of the world” (p. 193).
  • The myth of the Christian Nation. Hughes argues that the intention of the founding fathers was to create a secular state, within which people could practice (or not) the religion they chose. Hughes admits that the belief in a Christian nation can be good when it calls us to live out Judeo-Christian morals, but it can be bad if it leads the nation to believe itself entitled by God to certain privileges.
  • The myth of the Millenial Nation. Originally, this myth was a belief that the United States was ushering in a new order which would culminate in the thousand year reign of Christ on this earth. With this nation being Nature’s Nation and a Christian Nation, there was an obligation to spread the American way to other peoples, by example or by force. Most are familiar with the concept of Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States was entitled to take over the North American continent… and the South American continent as well, many felt.
  • The myth of the Innocent Nation. Belief in the above myths lead people to believe that the America is pure and just and her enemies are evil. The 20th Century convinced Americans that they were in a struggle for survival against evil forces that sought her destruction, be it the Axis powers, the Communists or the terrorists. In the end, it’s a struggle between those who love good and those who hate it. Holding to this myth left Americans unable and unwilling to see any motives behind the 9/11 attacks except those of evil people wanting to kill good people.

A lot of what I’m wanting to look at these days is presented very eloquently in Hughes’ book. I know that I once held to most if not all of these myths, and I know the comfort found in clinging to them. I also know they are short-sighted views of the world, sustainable only by those who refuse to concede any value to other nations. We’ve got to get past this ethnocentric world view, coming to terms with both the good and the bad of every country.

Why are the Americans so bad?

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Last month, I read an interesting article called “Are All Americans Bad?” It was written by a woman in Cuba, whose daughter had posed that question. Let me pass along some of the article. Obviously the child’s perspective is similar to that of all children: a distortion of what they have been told, an attempt to reason through the adult world in terms of their own. I share it as a reminder that there is another perspective on the world besides our own:

“Mommy, why are the Americans so bad?” With that question and an anxious look on her face, I found my little girl when I went to pick her up at her elementary school several days ago.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“It’s that Posada Carriles is a murderer and they don’t put him in prison, yet the Cuban Five didn’t do anything but they won’t let them go free. Plus they’re killing people in Libya. Are they killing children there too?”

“Ah! – now I understand. Well, it’s true that Posada Carriles is in fact a murderer, as has been shown not only from proof but because he himself has confessed to it. But Americans don’t have anything to do with that. Posada himself is Cuban,” I answered.

“The teachers says the US people aren’t to blame for what their government does? Is that true?” she asked me.

“Exactly. The US government has done horrible things throughout history. It has dropped atomic bombs; attacked however many countries it has wanted, including ours; provoked military coup d’états, murdered its enemies – those things and much more have been done by that government, but you have to remember that it’s the government.”

“The US population doesn’t always agree with what their government does. On more than one occasion they have been tricked into supporting wars against some nations,” I added.

“I’ve already spoken to you about the government, so in terms of the question, the answer is no. The Americans aren’t bad. In the first place because no one is totally bad or totally good; in second place because most of them are regular and average people, the same as us. The difference is in their language, culture, customs, their standard of living and especially the level of economic development. That’s what makes them think differently.”

The simple reaction to this, of course, is to feel sorry for these people who have been duped by their country’s propaganda, leaving them unable to see obvious truths. Which is what much of the world says about us Americans. It’s worth thinking about.

Essay 3, Chapter 1: The Challenge of Faithfulness

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The third essay in James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World is entitled “Toward a New City Commons: Reflections on a Theology of Faithful Presence.” The first chapter of this essay is called “The Challenge of Faithfulness.” The abstract of this chapter, from Hunter’s website, reads as follows:

Two overriding characteristics of our time are difference and dissolution. The problem of difference bears on how Christians engage the world outside of their own community, while the problem of dissolution bears on the nature of Christian witness. Pluralism creates both a fragmentation among worldviews and the social structures that support these worldviews. These are social conditions that make faithfulness difficult and faithlessness almost natural. For pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. There are key aspects of contemporary life that take us into radically new territory; into a social and cultural landscape that has very few recognizable features from cultures, societies, or civilizations past. The negative aspect of difference and dissolution is that they present conditions advantageous for the development of nihilism: autonomous desire and unfettered will legitimated by the ideology and practices of choice.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

Hunter identifies two principal challenges that Christians have to face in the world today: difference and dissolution. He sees difference as affecting the way in which Christians engage the outside world and dissolution as complicating the nature of Christian witness.

The challenge of difference is about how Christians consider and interact with a world that is different from us. It arises from the reality of pluralism in our world today. People have always had to interact with those that are different from them, yet not to the extent that people do today. Hunter argues that what exacerbates this problem in the U.S. is that there really isn’t a dominant culture. There was a time when the Protestant culture dominated our country, but that is no longer true. Hunter states, “Fragmentation not only occurs among worldviews, but in the social structures that support those worldviews.” (pp. 202-03)

The social conditions no longer exist which made the existence of God an inevitability. One has to work harder to believe in God. And those that do no longer have a common language of faith to use with those outside.

The challenge of dissolution speaks to this absence of a common language. Dissolution refers to the disconnect between language and the realities it represents. In other words, the meaning of words is continually called into question. If words can mean anything, there is no possibility of a common meaning. (Sort of like Hunter’s use of the term “power” in the previous essay, where he changes the meaning to fit his argument) In such a world, we can never really be sure of what is true and what is real.

Both difference and dissolution have their positive aspects, but they also present great challenges for the church. The world is not the way it was. Christians need to learn to live out their faith in the new reality in which we find ourselves.

Chapter 3: The Failure of the Common View

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. My primary reason for this is purely selfish… I want to use some of this material in the future, and this is a good way to force myself to analyze it and preserve the important parts.

Here’s the abstract of chapter 3 “The Failure of the Common View” from Hunter’s website:

If cultures were simply a matter of hearts and minds, then the influence of various minorities—whoever they are and whatever that may be—would be relatively insignificant. But they are not. The real problem of this working theory of culture and cultural change and the strategies that derive from it is idealism—that something non-physical is the primary reality. Idealism has three features in this view: ideas, individualism, and pietism. However, idealism misconstrues agency; underplays the importance of history; ignores the way culture is generated, coordinated, and organized; and imputes a logic and rationality to culture. Every strategy and tactic for changing the world that is based upon this working theory of culture and cultural change will fail—not most of these strategies, but all.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

In this chapter, Hunter talks about the apparent problem, the one articulated by “world change” advocates. This apparent problem has two parts: (1) Christians aren’t fervent enough; (2) There aren’t enough Christians who really embrace God’s call. Hunter argues that the real idea is what he calls “idealism,” the concept that what is real is the non-physical. The material world exists but what has “greater ontological significance” are ideas. To illustrate this concept, Hunter quotes Charles Colson as saying, “history is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas—the worldviews—that form our values and move us to act.” According to Hunter, this is the belief of most American Christians.

Hunter argues that this fails to take into account the material realities that drive culture. It ignores the “institutional nature of culture” and overlooks the fact that structure is “embedded in structures of power.” (p. 27)

In a coda, this chapter looks at Andy Crouch’s teachings about “culture as artifact,” culture being defined by the goods it produces. Hunter admits that this view overcomes the dualism of the primary view, but it doesn’t recognize the structures holding culture up.

Both of these views, idealism and “culture as artifact” focus on the individual, rather than the church. Hunter insists that there must be an alternative view. That view will be expressed in later chapters.

Chapter 2: Culture: The Common View

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. My primary reason for this is purely selfish… I want to use some of this material in the future, and this is a good way to force myself to analyze it and preserve the important parts.

Here’s the abstract of chapter 2 “Culture: The Common View” from Hunter’s website:

The “common view” is that culture is made up of the accumulation of values held by the majority of people and the choices made on the basis of those values. If a culture is good, it is because the good values embraced by individuals lead to good choices. If people’s hearts and minds are converted, they will have the right values, they will make the right choices and culture will change in turn. Common View Summary: 1) Real change is individual, 2) Cultural changed can be willed into being, and 3) Change is democratic—from the bottom-up by ordinary citizens.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

The style of this chapter is quite interesting. You go through the whole chapter with Hunter making a case for this view, presenting the evidence to support, quoting from a wide range of religious leaders. In the next-to-the-last paragraph, Hunter says:

At the end of the day, the message is clear: even if not in the lofty realms of political life that he was called to, you too can be a Wilberforce. … If you have the courage and hold to the right values and if you think Christianly with an adequate Christian worldview, you too can change the world. (To Change The World, pp.16-17)

Then he drops the bombshell:

This account is almost wholly mistaken. (p. 17)

I’ll admit, the last sentence came as quite a relief. I mean, on the one hand, I understand the importance of worldview and its role in culture. Yet so much of what Hunter seemed to be advocating was the “rah, rah, let’s make this nation Christian again” rhetoric that mixes spirituality with nationalism. My interest in the book rose as I realized Hunter was not going to repeat the usual mantras of Americanized Christianity.

Little did I know that Hunter had in store several more roller coasters of expectations for his unsuspecting readers.

I know it’s early on to react to much of what Hunter is saying (since he’s mainly presenting views he doesn’t agree with), but I’d like to know if I’ve explained his point well enough for you to see what he’s saying. Feel free to ask questions. I’ll do my best to answer according to the content of the book, not just my own ideas.