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We Want America Back |
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While browsing through some church choir books recently, I came across a song entitled “We Want America Back” - a popular contemporary Gospel song written by Jeff Steele. A sampling of its lyrics:
Something is wrong with America.
She once held the Bible as her conscience and guide.
But we’ve allowed those who hold nothing to be sacred,
Like Sodom of old, to push morals aside.
Where are the men who once stood for right?
And the women who championed their cause?
We must return to the values we lost,
Before this country we love is totally lost.
We want America back.
We want America back,
From those who have no self-control,
We want America back.
This nation is like a runaway train,
Headed down the wrong track,
It’s time for the army of God to arise,
And say we want America back.
And if you think those lyrics are bad, check out the original narration that goes with the song. To progressive-minded people, it sounds horribly bigoted and delusional. But to millions of Americans who attend conservative churches, these words sum up all their hopes and fears concerning both the nation and the religion to which they are fiercely loyal.
When it debuted in 1996, “We Want America Back” struck a deep and emotional chord, creating a hit Branson show and a series of passionate flag-waving rallies at mega-churches across the country. Today, this sentiment still fuels much of the religious and political fervor that, among other things, has led to the passage of Prop 8 and other anti-gay measures, as well as the appeal of political figures such as Sarah Palin.
The typical liberal reaction to this sentiment is outrage. “How can these people be so hateful and so close-minded?” For those of us who see the cultural shifts of the last few decades as significant steps forward, it is very difficult to understand how otherwise rational and good-hearted people can cling to such outdated beliefs and can think that things are worse now than they were in 1955 or even 1855. To us, the attitude behind “We Want America Back” is not only outrageous, it’s completely illogical.
As a progressive Presbyterian pastor in a conservative Southern congregation, I deal with the “We Want America Back” mentality on a daily basis. And while I disagree with many of the particular beliefs I encounter, I do understand the situation and the feeling that lead to these troublesome beliefs. The situtation is a rapidly changing world, and the feeling is grief.
To those of us who are excited about Obama and the changes that are happening, this feeling makes no sense. But grief is an emotion that doesn’t have to make sense. It might be true that life is better than it was 50 years ago. It might be true that millions of Americans now enjoy rights and opportunities that they did not back then. And it might be true that the world is no more or less of a dangerous place than it has ever been. But the people who resonate with “We Want America Back”, rightly or wrongly, are feeling a deep and profound sense of loss. To them, something good about this nation has been lost forever, and the future can only bring more loss and disappointment.
Of course, conservative politicians are capitalizing on this profound sense of loss. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the rash of anti-gay ballot measures, the anti-evolution campaign, and a host of other conservative movements all take advantage of this generalized feeling of grief and focus it in on specific political agendas. They all offer the illusory promise of reestablishing that “safer” and more “recognizable” world, even though such a promise is unattainable. But despite these political manipulations, the grief in the people themselves is very real and should be acknlowledged and treated with respect.
The challenge for progressives, then, is how to help people understand the true nature of their grief, that the world is changing whether we want it to or not, and that it is indeed changing for the better. If we simply call them bigots and closed-minded jerks, they will not be able to deal effectively with their feelings of loss. They will instead see us as the enemy, will despise the things we stand for, will believe whatever Rush Limbuagh or Bill O’Reilly tells them, and will fall back into the same racist, homophobic, and xenophobic attitudes.
But - if we can approach the “We Want America Back” crowd with a little more patience and understanding, perhaps we can help them to work through their grief - not by agreeing with things we disagree with, but rather by respecting where they are in this very difficult process of moving from one era in our history into the next.
(cross-posted at Discipline for Justice)
I’m sure the anguish that fundagelicals feel is genuine, as they watch America recede from their “high water mark” under BushCheney. Now might be a good time for them to reflect on how the millions of people felt who marched in the street protesting the Great Iraq Freedumb Adventure as the President mocked their appeals and invaded anyway. Or how the people in New Orleans felt as Bush abandoned them during Katrina to go eat cake and play guitar. Or the poor children denied medical care as Bush repeatedly vetoed SCHIP.
I’m sure there’s a moral lesson about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes in there somewhere that might help them grow up a little bit.
The “high water mark” happened a lot further back in history than the Bush-Cheney years. For some conservatives it’s the 1950’s; for others (especially in the Deep South), it’s somewhere in the early 1800’s. This runs a heckuva lot deeper than Iraq and Katrina. It has to do with an entire way of life that was centered around a monolithic culture based on Protestant Christian faith (and slavery and the subjection of women and homophobia and xenophobia).
I don’t agree at all with this mindset, but having grown up and lived most of my life in conservative southern areas, I think I have an understanding of this grief that many liberal and progressives might not. Simply mocking it will only make things worse.
These people are using religion to push a sinister political agenda. People who identify with a song like that don’t need my sympathy or understanding - they need a wake up call. My time is much better spent organizing against people like this and fighting to make them irrelevant in policy debates, than it is trying to understand why they prefer homophobia to acceptance, puritanical abstinence to 20th century contraception. As has been said about the recovery package debate in Congress: you can’t find common understanding with a brick wall.
Fortunately, the types who actually believe the filth spewed in that song are so out of touch reality they are ineffective politically, other than as a voting block motivated primarily by - you guessed it - hateful initiatives.
So sure, many of them are being taken advantage of by conservative politicians. But I have no sympathy or desire to understand the grief of those who would vote to make lovers into criminals or further segregate our education system. The policies espoused that are bigoted, no matter what you do to explain that cold hard truth away.
Josh - I agree with you on many things, but on this I disagree. Yes, the political agenda is sinister and the policies are bigoted. They need to be countered at every opportunity.
But if we can’t make the effort to see where the other side is coming from and why they believe what they believe, then we are guilty of the same close-mindedness that they are - and we also lose out on insights that will help us to advance our cause.
How can you effectively fight against something that you do not understand?
Easy - you point out the absurdity of their positions. The population of the United States, on balance, is too smart to fall for the Christian conservative BS. The role of religious doctrine in public policy has been steadily decreasing for decades. Progress slowly marches on, in spite of millions of Christians who try to get in the way. Beating them politically is difficult enough without spending time trying to empathize or find common understanding. I think there is an important role to be filled there - and I’m glad people like you are taking up the cause. As is often the case, I think it takes both sides. People like you working with them, people like me working against them. If we keep pushing from both sides, with carrots and sticks, maybe we can make discrimination unacceptable in our lifetimes.
Carrots and sticks. I like that. Just don’t beat on them too hard. I do have to visit them when they go to the hospital.
I am usually all about trying to see things from someone else’s point of view and trying to be understanding of their viewpoints. Unfortunately, I have read several studies recently (can’t find the links, sorry) that show that the more logical you are with conservatives and the more that you use that logic to show the fallacies of their viewpoints, the more entrenched they become in their viewpoints. It doesn’t matter how logical and understanding you are. You can use kid gloves and be open minded and try to calmly show them the error of their ways. It only makes them feel that they are being attacked since they can not divorce their views from themselves as they see them as being one and the same.
So, as previous poster Josh Nelson said, “My time is much better spent organizing against people like this and fighting to make them irrelevant in policy debates…”
Every time we approach these people in a reasonable fashion, we get the hystrionics of O’Reily/Limbaugh/etc. thrown back at us. It’s time to stop playing nice because these people now how to play mean much better than the rest of us since they already see it as a cultural war.
I agree with your idea whole heartedly. But seeking understanding is an amazingly hard sell (to both sides) as it is essentially an act of self-denial. Stridency is more fun and feels better to post on a blog. Stridency forwards more emails, inspires more anthems, and sells more media.
Meet stridency with stridency and what do you get? Some of the comments above illustrate nicely — more stridency. A neat negative spiral.
I am an Adult Pastoral Minister in a Catholic parish and I encounter this clash between the conservative and progressive all the time within my own Church as well as outside it. I try to deal with each side by getting them to be aware of the deep truths that they hold and are trying to protect. Truths that are self evident to both sides.
Fr. Ron Rohlheiser is a favorite of mine. He wrote an article called “Knock it Off” in US Catholic in which he said, “Don’t turn right. Don’t turn left. Go deeper.” Each side has a part of the whole picture — deep truths that must be cherished and protected. We get stuck in “either/or” mode when we argue on the surface of our belief systems without going deeper into the assumptions that underly those systems. We need to seek “both/and” mode, but that’s a very hard sell to people infected with the virus of ideology.
I always get the impression that we Christians are arguing over and defending the wrong God with atheists. But we never stop to understand just what this “God” is that we assume the other side is talking about.
You’ll change your tune when you grow up have kids and they are immoral statist. Who is your god? Who defines your morality? Is it yourself? What authority are you? Or is the state? Politically conservative does not equal christian conservative.
do you really need a god to keep you from committing immoral acts? are you that weak a person?
Excellent point. Some people may need religion to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong, but not everyone does. I’m atheist and I have morals. I don’t kill, cheat or lie, I volunteer and I donate to good causes. Morals are not exclusive to religions.
Yes, I do need God’s help. Yes, I’m weak and struggle with many things.
I’ll simplify the problem even more. Change is scary.
“Who is your god? Who defines your morality? Is it yourself? What authority are you? Or is the state?” - Indiana
As a non christian these are the questions that I find lackin in the minds of those of christian faith. Instead of finding their own answers they blindly follow what has been dicatated by those before them. Thinking is hard and often leads those to realize they are not as important as they would like to believe which crushes their world view.
As a preacher, I find the best compliment to be, “You made me think,” or even better, “You made me think about that in a way I hadn’t before.” So please be aware that some Christians do like to think and encourage others to think as well.
Being an extreme conservative is not about politics or religion: it’s about anger (always mad, upset, distraught about something), enemies (more important than friends because it gives them clear objects to hate and attack), and privilege (although I appear to hate to admit it, I’m better than you therefore I resent you).
It’s not surprising so many people are ultra-conservative: their lives are filled with anger, bitterness and resentment. They can’t/won’t trust others. Winning makes them feel good. Right or wrong is beside the point.
Look past the politics and you’ll see a boiling pot of poisonous emotions.
Unfortunately, the same things can be said about the far left.
Please give an example of the far left’s hatred. They fight for equal rights and the far right fights to treat certain groups like second class citizens.
You could say those things, but they wouldn’t be accurate. An overwhelming majority of non-conservatives feel anger and betrayal because they perceive so much injustice, inequality, and lack of fairness. And rightly so.
The far-right claims to be concerned about injustice, but consistently reveal their motives as selfish and self-centered. Justice for them is most important, not justice for all.
Emotions do not always eminate from the same motives. I.e., my anger with regard to lack of fairness in the criminal justice system is very different from my anger over not having 10 million dollars in my bank account.
The thread eventually comes down to emotions we can’t control, feeling of righteousness plaguing many…The direction I don’t want to and am not able to discuss any further.
But the question I have is, Jim, can you nail down some specifics of this “sense of loss” - What is lost? What are the things people grieve deep inside? I am an immigrant, in this country for almost 15 years, start to feel the universal struggle from almost all the sides of daily life. To truly understand it, probably requires a lot more than some descriptive words. But at least, shed some light or point me to better resources. I truly want to take the step to “Don’t turn left, don’t turn right, go deeper”.
There is a sense in many conservative people that the country is losing its moral standing, and as a result, the culture is deteriorating. Changes such as increased acceptance of homosexuality, the elimination of prayer in public schools, a decline in church attendance, and the loss of a “small-town sense of safety and community” are all held up as examples.
What they’re missing are significant social advances in areas such as civil rights, women’s rights, communication, technology, and other areas - and in fact, many consider these advancements to be signs of decline, believe it or not. You won’t believe how many older people in my church I hear complain about “those kids and their darn cell phones.”
Also lamented are things that are perceived to have happened but that are not true - such as increased crime and decreased worker productivity.
All in all, it’s a group of priviliged people (white Protestants, middle and upper middle class) who are nervous, threatened, and grieving because the ordered society in which they were once the top dogs (and still are in many ways) is no longer as ordered and offers other groups the chance to rise to the top.
Jim,
Great post. I’m not sure that someone can have a real sense of loss if the thing that is lost never really existed in the first place. The idealized America of the 1950s (and moreso the 1850s) was never as perfect as they are often described. Simply looking at newpapers of the time will confirm that. What is a healthy response to someone who is mourning the loss of something delusional? In theological terms, the problem is not grief, but idolatry. The song is mouring the death of the golden calf, which never really lived.
The real issue is not grief, but fear. The world is changing rapidly and privileged positions no longer seem so privileged, the illusion of control is less tenable. The problem, at its core, is not a political one, though its expressions are most felt in the political realm. The real issue is a theological one. The theological response to fear is love, the theological response to idolatry is prophetic imagination. Ministering with these folks is not about berating them, but helping them to see that the ‘other’ is actually neighbor. One way of doing this is “peopling the issues”, helping people see that the undocumented worker, the lesbian, or the liberal are real people, not just media stereotypes or political punchingbags.
NO.1 GOD IS REAL AND IS OUR CREATOR!
NO.2 WE BELONG TO HIM.
NO.3 SATAN IS REAL.
NO.4 HE “WANTS” US TO FOLLOW HIM.
NO.5 IF I AM WRONG IN MY BELIEF WHAT HAVE I LOST?
NO.6 IF I AM RIGHT WHAT HAVE YOU LOST?
(IN CASE YOU DONT KNOW. YOU WILL HAVE LOST YOUR SOUL AND ALL OF THE BLESSINGS OF HEAVEN AND YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY WITH SATAN IN HELL.)