Soapbox

     Driving home from the store today I saw a bumper sticker that said:

"Put America Back in God's Hands."

     Idling in traffic behind the pick-up truck which sported this sentiment, I found myself drumming my nails on the steering wheel and considering what this might mean.

    “Back” in God's hands implies that once, in some golden age of America’s past, we were in God's hands. I wonder when that was.

     Was America in God's Hands in the 50's when blacks could only shop in the white grocery stores if they had on a maid's uniform, when they were allowed to give their lives for this country- but not good enough to do it along side white soldiers? Was it the golden age when a girl who got pregnant out of wedlock was ostracized and debased as a sinner but the boy often got away with no sanction because he was “sewing his wild oats”?

     Maybe it's been longer than that since America was under the direction of God.  Perhaps the truck driver is thinking of the good old days around the turn of the century, when women  couldn’t vote and were the legal property of their husbands, to abuse as they saw fit- because God says the man is the head of the family.  
    Back when rich business owners locked their poor workers in dangerous factories and beat or killed anyone who tried to organize for safe working conditions… and then went to church. Was that when God was in charge?

    Could be he's looking even farther into American's past to find the days when  the Big Guy was running the show and everything was as it should be. Maybe he's thinking of the time when blacks were property- because the Bible says slavery is OK.
     Or perhaps it was when we were deliberately exterminating the native Americans with lies and guns and small pox, because they were in our way, hogging all the good land and they were just a bunch of heathens anyway. Maybe that's when we were truly a Godly nation.

   As a country I believe that America is no more f**ked up than some and much less than others. But I grow tired of the boast and swagger, as if we have some God-given right to tell others how to live their lives.

   “Put the carpenter in the White House” in another sentiment I”ve seen driving around town. Please! As if he’d want such a shitty job!!
   The first time Jesus suggested that we talk to our enemies instead of bombing them, the first time he pulled that “rich man through the eye of a needle” crap on congress when they wanted to cut taxes for the rich and make the poor pay for it- they’d crucify him! Metaphorically, of course:  
    “Socialist!” “Nazi!”  “Terrorist lover!” 
   Why they’d probably accuse him of being a closet Muslim and suddenly remember that ~gasp!   He wasn't even born in this country!!!

     People don’t want Jesus, or even someone truly Christ-like, to run the country. What they want some ayatollah (excuse me- preacher) in an expensive suit with a gold-trimmed Bible agreeing that their weirdo, different-thinking neighbors are going to hell and are responsible for everything that goes wrong. They want their personal beliefs and faith turned into civil code so that everyone has to live as if they share that same religion. That's their idea of living like a "Christian Nation" even though Christ never wanted any such place.
    The folks who talk about turning the country over to God, who see the separation of church and state as a personal assault on poor, oppressed Christians, don’t want more faith- they want more of their faith.
    It’s that whole validation thing. They want their “God in charge” because if you are forced to make the same choices they make,  then they’ll know they made the right choice. They want everyone to follow the rules that they believe in. Which is understandable.
     But it’s not about God.
 

     I do not believe that bumper sticker has anything to do with faith. If you really have faith, you aren’t threatened by people around you who make different choices. Because you have faith- see? 
    You know that God doesn’t want to lead, he wants to lift.
    And not lift the nation- you . Just you.
    With faith, you don't set up foundations and think tanks to try to take over the government. You concentrate on turning yourself over to God, and you let the nation run as it was designed to do.
   Whatever God you pray to, you'll find a message that is remarkably similar: Look inside your heart. Make the choices that the voice within you says are right, and let others do the same for themselves.
    Which makes a lot more sense. Because if it’s not a free choice, it’s not faith, is it?