Faith...Maybe

This tumultuous year draws to a close. I am reminded of the old-fashioned cartoon images of Father Time, who at this point in any given year is depicted as ancient and ragged while the fresh-faced babe of the following year waits for his turn. American democracy has come through the year intact but not unscathed, and dangers still lie ahead.

On this Christmas Day, the culmination for many of the Christian faith of the year and certainly of the period of watchful waiting called Advent, I imagine an America with an undergirding philosophy of true Christ-like love—a human love that is found in the deep soul of humanity, regardless of religious expression, be it Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or one of many others—or, indeed, none at all.

Our society has been challenged to understand a number of gun violence incidents in recent weeks. To be sure, our society has too many guns. Period. But their presence is not the real issue. Rather, we must acknowledge that the problem is American reliance on a shoot-first-ask-questions-later, Wild West mythology-driven philosophy that espouses peace through threat instead of love and reason. If this violent philosophy were discarded and the fear-mongers suddenly fell silent, Americans would realize that all the guns are unnecessary, that in fact we are less safe in a gun culture than if there were no guns at all.

Sadly, true Christian love is still overshadowed by the loud Christianist radical right, which wields the Bible like an assault weapon. Though various groups adopt various labels, they hold in common a philosophy that is homophobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic. They mouth platitudes and deceive those who do not look beyond their rhetoric to see that they are deeply anti-Christian and anti-democratic. Far more than the radical Islamists, who pervert their own religion in the same way, this strident faction, collectively, presents a greater danger to American society and American democracy—and by extension to a peace-loving world—than any other threat now visible on our national horizon.

I would like to envision a United States in which conservatives actually seek to conserve the best values of American democracy, balancing those values against the march of time and tide. But many who today are labeled “conservative” actually conserve nothing, instead espousing an agenda of quasi-religious radicalism and a winner-take-all greed that has already succeeded in increasing the wealth gap between rich and poor in our country. These “conservatives”—the same Christianists who often beat their breasts over the supposed moral woes of our society—are trammeling the least among us, those whom Christ actually embraced and held up.

I would like to envision a future in which these things will change, in which we will narrow the gap between rich and poor, in which we will ensure an intact social safety net with strong public schools and universal health care—because they are the right thing to do from every perspective, whether Christian, democratic, national, or international. But I confess, my faith in the will of the American people to assert an inclusive, truly democratic governance in the face of these strident anti-Christian, anti-democratic elements is challenged.