Monday, November 16, 2009

Is Living Counter to American Culture Un-godly?

12:07 PM by Christi Bowman

I have been researching freeganism and this exploration led to my first dumpster diving encounter last Thursday. This activity is not exactly legal. I found much that was edible especially in the way of produce.

Yesterday afternoon my husband prepared some of the squash that my friend and I had rescued. As we were enjoying our meal my husband stated: "I love eating food that represents standing in opposition to the system."

There is something exhilarating, for some of us residing in the good ol' U.S. of A, about living counter to the culture especially when ingrained deep into that culture is the American Civil Religion that calls itself Christianity. I wear my hair in dread locks for many reasons and I have a piercing on my face. I don't exactly look like your "typical" American and I look even less like your typical American Christian. Many American Christians would not even consider me a Christian and in the American sense I don't think I am.

"For a long time I listened to other people to decide whether I was still Christian or not...the great relief was I decided that I got to say if I was Christian or not and so I have relaxed enormously...I say I am a follower of the Christ path... " ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

I came across a post written by Brian McLaren who recently visited Australia. He stated that in some respects Australia is many years ahead of us because of the absence of cultural religion.

I hear a lot of people barking these days about turning America back to her "godly" roots and that language bothers me. By calling America godly or saying that she once was we label the unholy activities she has been in or is involved with as somehow "Christian". When we insinuate that God is on the side of America than everything that she does gets a free pass and those that stand against her practices are not only un-American but they are also anti-Christian and therefor assumed to be un-godly as well (that is a dicussion that deserves its own post.)

America is famous for her dream and the personification of that dream is known for its certain look, its particular way of being, and its possession of things. America's very mantra of life, liberty, and happiness reaffirms her obsession with "my life, "my liberty", and "my happiness."

"Know ye, that not the happiness of this earth is the sign of God's grace, and not him whom the Lord loveth doth He exalt with happiness and good fortune. The possessions of this earth are not the prizes which God distributeth among His chosen. The possessions of this earth He giveth to the wicked for the little merit that is in them. Often He maketh His chosen one the target of arrows; His beloved ones He rewardeth with sorrows: He filleth the way of the righteous toward Him with thorns, for the sorrows of man bring him nearer to God." ~ The Nazarene (pg 301)

Some of us have been in the process of rejecting the dream for a long time and others of us are in the beginning stages of turning our heads away in disgust (and hanging our heads in shame). The rejection of the American dream can be seen in the many choices people are making that are counter to the culture that tries to swallow us up. For some, rejection of the dream comes in standing up for one's own sexuality or for the sexuality of others that has, for way to long, been seen as "counter to the system." For others rejection of he system can be seen in their political leanings. Some people choose to wear the badge of rejection by their lifestyle choices, how they shop (or how they live without shopping) and in what they eat; others display their solidarity against the system with their appearance. There is no ONE way to appropriately reject the dream; I have found that there is usually a mixture of the behavior practices I have mentioned in a single individual and there are more ways to reject the system than I have the time to mention or the mind to understand.

Calling America a Christian nation makes all the things that we consider American come under this very exclusive umbrella of "godliness". This makes prophetic voices against the American dream very difficult to hear. Americans have clothed their American lives in Christian-ese: Today, to speak out against the American dream is seen as an attack on Christianity and to live in opposition to it, in the myriad of counter cultural ways, is considered ungodly.

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