American Independence?

Today is the day we celebrate American Independence. It seems ironic. Perhaps we should be celebrating the comfortable illusion of American independence, or maybe, we should just call it what it is—American Dependence. Because the truth of situation is we can’t function without the rest of the world. We need foreign resources like oil, we need cheap outsourced labor, we need European and Asian countries to buy our exports, and frankly, we need unstable parts of the world to hate us so we can arrogantly flex our muscles. We thrive on it. And, even more sickening, we’ve shown that we’ll fight—killing innocent people—to ensure and secure it.

Roughly 200 years ago, we fought to secure our independence from tyranny and oppression. Today, we fight to secure our dependence on the rest of the world, our addiction to power and dominance, and exploitation of resources, all of which ultimately turn us into the very thing we fought to destroy. This country was formed in the name of liberty, diversity, and freedom of expression, all good causes—that is until someone is too diverse, too different, or too expressive. Then those rights are stripped from them in the name of justice. We should just call in what it is—maintaining the status quo.

The line distinguishing the difference between status quo and the truth has become so blurred that we don’t know the difference anymore. Truth telling is rarity and the prophetic voice is being traded in for a different commodity, complacency and greed. This can be seen everywhere, the government, the media and yes, even the church—the one place where truth should be cultivated. Perhaps we’ve become more interested in the dangerous arrogance of over-zealous nationalism and imperialism than the kingdom of God. This time of the year we are oh so quick to throw around “patriotic” buzz words and catch phrases like, “freedom,” “independence,” and most disgusting “God Bless America.”

It would be nice to be truly free and truly independent, to resist the temptation to destroy another country’s infrastructure to feed our addiction, but we shown that we can’t. Worse yet, we can’t even admit when we’re wrong, but we sure can point at the speck in everyone else’s eye while chanting our mantra, “God Bless America.” First and foremost our allegiance isn’t to democracy, the United States, or even the American church. Our allegiance is to justice, humanity, and the kingdom of God. Not a pie-in-the-sky dream, but a present, tangible, reality and is a working force in the world. This should be the essence of our patriotism. It’s time we start taking the catch phrase “Jesus is Lord” seriously and start acting like we mean it not using it as some short secret qualifier for church membership and pseudo-evangelism.

So, it is with bittersweet emotion that I celebrate the founding of our country. Bitter because I know we can do better, but lack the motivation and leadership; and sweet because I believe we will change in time as long as the disciples of Jesus Christ remain diligent, truthful and committed, to the task of transformation that has been given us. Most of all, I believe it because as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “the moral arch of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The hour is late and the time has come; let us not forget it.

Happy 4th of July and God Bless Everyone.

~bh ><>