In the United States, we Christians are the majority that likes to position itself as a minority. It keeps us scrappy… and gives us a useful excuse for being ineffective.
There’s an old Sprint commercial that’s pertinent to this discussion. I’ve attached the video… which oughta work so long that it actually stays on YouTube. I’ve found that various YouTube videos tend to disappear after a few months, which is a little annoying when I refer to old posts that have embedded videos. Well, that’s an off-subject rant anyway. Back to my point. The dialogue:
Assistant. Is that your new Sprint phone?
Boss. Uh-huh. With Sprint’s new Fair and Flexible plans, no one can tell me what to do. I can talk when, and how I want. It’s my little way of… sticking it to the Man.
Assistant. But… you… are the Man.
Boss. I know.
Assistant. So you’re sticking it to yourself.
Boss. …Maybe.
What makes this video amusing, naturally, is the idea that someone in the ruling class has a little bit of rebellion in him. It’s not enough that he can already do what he wants, whenever he likes; there’s just no satisfaction in it unless he’s annoying someone in authority. Sometimes it’s just fun to be the underdog.
Sometimes it’s not, of course. When you actually are the underdog, when you actually are oppressed, and you’re not “sticking it to the Man” so much as the Man is sticking it to you—that’s not so fun. That’s the sort of horrible injustice that God calls His followers to fight. We’re to put a stop to it, we’re to speak out against it, and we’re to try to undo what effects the injustice has done so far.
Most of the Prophets—the books of the Old Testament either written by or about God’s prophets—are about how God, in His great displeasure over an unjust, corrupt, spiritually apathetic Israel or Judah, is going to allow their enemies to overrun them. The Hebrews were figuring that they were prosperous, fairly secure, and were worshiping God enthusiastically; they had a nice shiny temple with plenty of singing and sacrifices; what more could God want? But their personal piety wasn’t getting beyond the threshold of their houses, and God had had enough.
Most Christians in the United States don’t bother to read the Prophets… other than the odd prophecy that’s about the Messiah, or the bit that are suspected of really being about the End Times. We’re far too busy reading the New Testament. Thus we don’t notice how frighteningly many parallels there are between the ancient Hebrews and the present-day American Christians… and how God’s messages through the Prophets might be applicable to a history that’s repeating itself.
But because we Christians don’t read the Prophets—but we do listen to all those End Times theories about how we Christians are in for some serious persecution—we all-too-frequently conclude that this persecution should probably be taking place right now. Doesn’t it say us Christians are going to be persecuted at the End? Isn’t that sorta happening?… what with all the shopkeepers telling us “Happy Holidays” instead of the proper greeting, “Merry Christmas”? And why can’t we put up our Christmas crèches in public places? Or crosses? Is this the End-Times persecution? Lord help us, they’re everywhere! It’s the End! It’s persecution! It’s HAPPENING!…
Honestly, I’ve heard this sort of hysteria from certain Christians. And you know, the minor problems that we Americans face with not being able to plaster public spaces with Christian stuff, are nothing compared to the true and horrific persecution that Christian evangelists actually undergo in countries where Christianity is illegal or culturally wrong. Christians get shot in Iran, mobbed in India, jailed in China, lynched in Egypt, beheaded in Saudi Arabia, and raped and murdered in the Sudan. That’s persecution. Hearing “Happy Holidays” from a store clerk? Persecution would be if you got shot for observing the holidays.
But, like the fella in the Sprint commercial, we don’t want to acknowledge our actual position in American society. We want to ignore the statistic that 80 percent of us Americans consider ourselves to be Christians, and figure that half of them—or more—are Christians in name only. We want to ignore that we’re the first country to embed religious freedom into our Constitution, and ban religious requirements for public officials. We want to make light of the fact that I can go to anyone in America—door to door, if I wish—and share Jesus with anyone who’s willing to listen, with no fear of prison, and no fear of getting murdered for my beliefs. (And, in my experience, a two-thirds chance that the person answering the door is a Christian already.)
We are the Man. But we’d rather think we’re not… so we can stick it to the Man.
And what inevitably happens, as a result of our “sticking it to the Man,” is that we come across as jerks. Raging, angry jerks. Ask any pagan. (Don’t care what the pagans have to say? Well, that just proves my point.) When Christians go on a tear about how pagans and secularism are ruining this country, the pagans just don’t feel safe. Why should they? We Christians really don’t have the kindest history when it comes to pagans. We’ve been awful to them in the past… and there’s little but the law stopping many of us from being awful to them now.
The fact is that it’s not the pagans ruining this country. Like the Prophets pointed out time and again: It’s the folks who claim they follow God, but don’t. They’re focused on their worship centers, their collections of religious tchotchkes, the books that make them feel spiritually wise, the music that makes them feel spiritually uplifted, the little rituals that spiritually center them. Their neighbors? The poor? They can go to hell.
Eighty percent of us claim to be Christians, yet we have the problems in America that we do? We can’t blame the pagans for that. They don’t have anywhere near that much power. We are the Man. It’s our fault.
The November ’10 synchroblog.
Yep, this rant was triggered by this month’s synchroblog topic: “Seeing through the eyes of the marginalized.” Supposedly we Christians are the marginalized, but that’s bollocks. The pagans are. Read the Prophets, not those End Times novels, and shift your view accordingly.
Links to other synchrobloggers are in the pull-down menu under the icon. Switching the menu takes you to that blog. Read. Enjoy.
Updated, 11/11: Added more blogs. They’re still coming in.
