#5: Blessed but Stressed

You've got to change your evil ways, baby,
Before I stop lovin' you...

	Santana, 'Evil Ways'

If you’re reading this, and you’re blind, you may just want to click here so I can read it aloud to you:

Around the time of that fateful 1992 presidential election, I sat about 20 rows back from the Philadelphia Spectrum playing surface, surrounded by the rest of our youth group. We were there, in part, to witness yet another glorious victory for the Philadelphia Wings, powerhouse of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League. Yeah, I know, it’s a niche sport, but in Philadelphia, you take all the wins you can get. Besides, we weren’t there only for the action-packed lacrosse. What followed the match would be an evangelical rally to pump the blood and stir the soul.

Christian nationalists have a tried-and-tested playbook for this sort of thing, and this evening would be no different.

Step 1: Summon the faithful to a holy gathering.

Check. Here we were, potentially thousands of eager teens from hundreds of youth groups across the Delaware Valley, dressed in our dope 90s threads, packing the Spectrum seats in every direction. We were the youth of America and if they could capture our hearts and minds, a new generation could indeed rise to carry the Christian nationalist torch when its current carriers passed away.

The match ended. The floor was cleared and the stage was set for Step 2.

Step 2: Put on a spectacle to dazzle the eye and captivate the mind.

And nothing focused the apathetic minds of late-Gen X teens like martial arts. I mean, we all played Street Fighter at the arcade, and Jean Claude Van Damme totally kicked ass in Double Impact. I myself was partial to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. Of course, we’d never get Bruce Lee to one of these functions, given our sceptical posture toward minorities, and the fact that he died in 1973. Chuck Norris, now he was more our kind of people. Yet someone producing cinematic gems like Firewalker and Hero and the Terror wouldn’t work the room for the spare change from the dashboard these organizers were paying.

So when a kind of poor man’s Chuck Norris, a middle-aged white guy in a karate gi, walked on to the floor, I wasn’t surprised. In his train followed a troupe of other pastier, younger martial arts students.

Then it was on. First, a few stock-standard displays of high kicking and board breaking. After that, the leader called for absolute silence in the stadium. A member of his team tied a blindfold around his eyes and handed him a razor-sharp katana sword, then took up a position at the rear corner of the stage, with a continental cucumber protruding from his teeth. With eyes covered, the swordsman weaved and danced his way across the floor and between obstacles. He halved a watermelon perched on a stand through its middle. In a final flourish, he found his way to his assistant’s position and, twirling his wrist, deftly sliced the cucumber, piece by piece. We gazed up at the big screen in awe, watching the close-up, slow-motion replay of that innocent cucumber meeting its grisly end.

Step 3: Once entranced into a suggestible state, present the audience with your appeal.

No sooner had the blindfold come off then this blond-haired samurai launched into the evening’s message (You had to admire the seamlessness of it. The cucumber wasn’t even dry on the blade!). God had uniquely blessed our nation. Yet we shouldn’t take His favor for granted. Our country needed real warriors of God, disciplined and dangerous, ready to chop Satan’s cucumber into tiny slices, so to speak. Only they could keep her on a moral and God-fearing path. And only then could His purposes for America find fulfillment. It was up to us to keep our hearts pure and committed to God and His democratic ideals.

Step 4: The coup de grâce!

To hammer home this message into our very souls, the organizers chose to finish with a big, emotional, patriotic number. Enter from stage left a stocky singer with flowing chestnut locks, a goatee and a bolo tie. The gentle keyboard intro led to lyrics about how ‘the flag still stands for freedom’, which gradually built to the rousing chorus:

And I’m proud to be an American,
Where at least I know I’m free...

And I’ll gladly stand up next to her and defend her still today. 
There ain't no doubt I love this land.
God bless the U.S.A.!1

Just like that, the Spectrum transformed into a cathedral of American Christendom. Imagery of red, white and blue flags, undulating in slow motion, shone from the stadium screens. We were transported into religious ecstasy, waving our arms to and fro above our heads, as one. A final repeated chorus and extended coda brought the house down. From somewhere in the nave, the crowd took up the ancient Gregorian chant of ‘U.S.A.! U.S.A.!’

STATING THE OBVIOUS

Not that we needed a song to convince us God had blessed America. Almost everyone in our circles accepted that as gospel truth. We were sure he had chosen the United States, set her apart from all other nations for His special purposes, and bestowed uncommon favor upon her. How did we know?

It was self-evident, because we were so awesome. America was scoring goals everywhere you looked. First of all, we were the envy of the world, thanks to our extraordinary liberties. What other nation on Earth could match the freedom every American citizen enjoyed? Canada? Please.

Secondly, we were the greatest military power in the world. You could just ask the Iraqis, if you could find any of them willing to emerge from their hiding places after we reduced their Kuwait ‘invasion force’ to a laughing stock. The American armed forces strode across the world, policing global affairs, because somebody had to, and God had chosen us.

Economically and culturally, moreover, the United States dominated the globe. We exported our movies, our music, our restaurants, our technology. And our bevy of Fortune 500 corporations raked in the profits. At home, we all lived in pretty houses, with spacious, well-manicured lawns. Except for the black people in the inner cities, but that was their own fault, because they were lazy.²

Yes, that was how God blessed the people in His favor: by giving them wealth and power and civic freedom. It said that in the Bible somewhere.

WATCHING OUR EVERY MOVE

Ongoing favor wasn’t guaranteed, though. Apparently, God was a ‘What have you done for me lately?’ kind of deity. Just like that, He could turn the tables on us. Begin to stray from His stringent demands and the nation could find His approval rescinded. If that happened, the whole civic, military and financial apparatus could fold like a cheap suit.

That’s why that 1992 election augured potential doom, since Bill Clinton would surely shepherd America down the road to moral atrophy. By installing him in the Oval Office, the country was turning its back on God. And God was watching. Well, if that was what we wished for, so be it. God would know where He wasn’t wanted. He would take His ball and go home. We’d soon learn our lesson, though, when, without His hand on the tiller, our nation became a mere shadow of her former self and our freedoms were snatched away.

Fortunately, God and His blessing could be summoned back with some dutiful penitence and a few grand gestures, like gathering around the flagpole to invoke His presence, or – oh, I don’t know – voting for ‘pro family’ candidates, who were all conveniently located on the Republican side of the ticket. Then, God would see we meant business.

Because if God’s people, who are called by His name, would humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, then God would hear from heaven, and forgive our sin and heal our land. It said that in the Bible somewhere too. Not just somewhere, but 2 Chronicles 7:14. It has featured prominently in impassioned Christian nationalist speeches and looks great stitched onto a wall hanging or throw pillow.

Ongoing favor wasn’t guaranteed, though. Apparently, God was a ‘What have you done for me lately?’ kind of deity. Just like that, He could turn the tables on us.

Adam Lee Benner

A DIFFERENT LENS?

Now, many Christians would argue this verse (and others like it) belong to an ancient Near Eastern culture, set within a temple dedication narrative. It was written specifically for them and their situation, and therefore doesn’t directly apply to us. They would say an Old Testament verse such as this takes on a different meaning when interpreted through the lens of Jesus. That lens redirects the focus of God’s purposes away from nations and governments and onto the people of Jesus, who come out of every nation and form a new kind of kingdom. They might even suggest that, since Jesus talked so much about the trials his followers would experience, about suffering and about carrying crosses, we might need to rethink exactly what it meant to be ‘chosen’ or ‘blessed’.

So should we have learned anything from these thoughtful interpretive perspectives? Of course not. The verse in Chronicles and other verses about God’s favor had to apply to us, because America was so clearly blessed by God. How else would we have become such a strong and free Christian nation? And really, why wouldn’t He bless us, when we were such a strong and free Christian nation? The logic was rock solid.

In the years to come, I would start to ask questions: questions about who and what God really blesses, questions about what ‘blessing’ looked like, questions about America’s actions throughout history, and whether they pointed to God’s approval, or something else.

As we left the Spectrum later that night, however, I was in no doubt God had conferred His blessing on America more than any other nation. Yet she stood on the edge of a knife. God had no stomach for her dalliances with liberal values and politics, so she could soon find herself falling from His good graces. And everything we had just seen and heard told us it might be up to us to set her back on the proper course.

Until next time…

May the God who chooses from all the world's nations,
Calling us out to become one from many,
Bless you with a sense of connection
To every tribe and tongue and people.

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1. ‘God Bless the U.S.A., by Lee Greenwood (Yeah, the Trump Bible guy)’
2. Ridiculously, this is what we actually thought, at least in the quiet of our own homes. Sometimes, we even said the quiet part out loud.