Category: How Americans Think Page 4 of 8

Does God Want Us to Fight For Our Freedom?

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On February 16, 2022

In Fear, How Americans Think, Living Like a Missionary

Early in our marriage, Gil casually mentioned that he wasn’t sure he would have been on the side of the Patriots in the Revolutionary War.

I wondered if I had married some kind of Benedict Arnold. Movies, songs, and Christian school ingrained in me that Patriots were on God’s side – they were the good guys, the heroes. The Loyalists were filthy rotten traitors who had no right to call themselves American, let alone Christian. 

But Gil has always been one to question the status quo; it drives me crazy, but that’s part of why I fell in love with him. He explained that he is deeply grateful for American freedoms, and he is not necessarily a pacifist. He simply doesn’t know if “taxation without representation” was a biblical reason to go to war.

That’s my Gil; he always has to bring the Bible into it. I wish it was easier to ignore him. 

(If you’re wondering if I am heading into the realm of crazy talk, please, don’t deport me yet. Hang in there with me.)

I sense a pervasive worldview among Americans: God wants us to fight for our freedom. Let your memory roll through American history – the wars, the invasions, the protests, the marches. Americans believe that fighting for freedom is a God-ordained right….even a responsibility.

But is this biblical truth?  

Ironically, first-century Jews expected Jesus to be their George Washington, leading them in their own Revolutionary War. The oppression they experienced under Rome went far beyond unfair taxation. Jesus’ disciples waited with bated breath for the moment when he would call them to arms to overpower the Romans. 

Except, he never did.  

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Back When I Took Scissors on a Plane

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On August 27, 2021

In Book Recommendations, How Americans Think

20 years ago this month, Gil and I were boarding our first flight to Tanzania.

As we went through security, my carry-on bag got pulled aside. I watched patiently as the agent unzipped my black roller bag, poked around, and pulled out a full-sized pair of Fiskars scissors.

I was mortified. “I’m so sorry,” I fumbled. “I was using those for cutting tape for boxes and I meant to take them out before we left for the airport. You can confiscate them.”

He shrugged, put the scissors back into my bag, and waved me through. 

I was taken aback. I recall telling Gil, “Fiskars scissors are really sharp. I’m surprised they are allowing me to take them on the plane.”

I don’t remember anything else about that journey. But that memory stayed with me because it was just a few weeks later when 19 terrorists with knives about as big as my scissors forever changed air travel, America, and the world. 

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My Authentic Self Does Not Like Ticks

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On July 14, 2021

In How Americans Think, Life in Tanzania

Last week I told my cousin about our year in Tanzania infamously called the War of the Ticks. It was so nightmarish that every day I pulled 25 of them off my tiny dog and I stopped even trying with our big dog and they had infested my kitchen and we rarely let the dogs in the house anymore but the ticks kept crawling in under the door anyway. 

We paid the children money for the number of ticks they killed and so there were always cups of water sitting around with dead ticks drowned in them by my children. Drowning did not always work though, because ticks would go through the washing machine cycle and come out alive. I became an expert at beheading them with a fingernail. Sometimes the engorged ones would fall off the dogs and burst open which meant the live ticks would crawl through the dog blood and leave their tiny tracks on the floor.

When I found ticks in my daughter’s bed, we contemplated putting the dogs down. We had tried every tick prevention we could find, and until a friend of a friend sent us magical tick pills which killed them all in 24 hours, that year felt like some sort of creepy tick hell. 

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To the 68% Who Aren’t Thrilled About Refugees

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On May 11, 2021

In Book Recommendations, How Americans Think, Living Like a Missionary

So I’m still trying to figure out why people pay money for ripped jeans and why cauliflower has become a pizza crust so I guess you could say that there are a lot of things that still really confuse me around here.

But there’s one thing that has me especially perplexed: American Christians’ aversion to refugees. 

A couple of years ago, a Pew Research Center Study reported this: “By more than two-to-one (68% to 25%), white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees. Other religious groups are more likely to say the U.S. does have this responsibility. And opinions among religiously unaffiliated adults are nearly the reverse of those of white evangelical Protestants: 65% say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country, while just 31% say it does not.”

Seriously, I don’t get it. Help me out here; I need to understand. What is it about being a “white evangelical protestant” in particular that makes a person so averse to America accepting refugees? Now, I get that saying “the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees” isn’t the same thing as saying, “We don’t want them here.” But the sentiment is related. Right? 

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Analyzing My Allegiance

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On April 19, 2021

In How Americans Think

There are two things I remember about chapel in third grade at my Christian school in California.

First, I remember the enormous, wall-sized, stained glass window of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus hovered over us as we sang “Whose side are you leaning on?” in the padded pews. 

Second, I remember we started every chapel by pledging allegiance to the American flag and the Christian flag. In that order. 

I never questioned this exercise, of course, as kids never do. And after all, I was leaning on the Lord’s side. And after all, I didn’t want to mess around with wall-sized Jesus. 

But as I think back on this routine, now I have questions. Why, at our Christian school, did we put our hands over our hearts and pledge allegiance to a country? This regimen is actually pretty unusual among democratic countries. Isn’t that something that children are required to do in, say, communist countries? In fact, don’t we teach children to celebrate the biblical heroes who refused to “pledge allegiance” to government powers? 

And, why did we always pledge allegiance to the American flag (and to the Republic for which it stands) first and pledge allegiance to the Christian flag (and to the Savior for which it stands) second? Doesn’t that subtly communicate a certain set of priorities?

Things that make you go hmmm.

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