July 27, 2005
Our Christian Nation
Although the entire Harper's article isn't available online, enough of it is to make the point:
Every other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That’s what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion—say, giving aid to the poorest people—as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior?
While religious hypocrisy is nothing new nor is it something that's hidden in this nation, this article lays it out succinctly. Not only are we a nation or morons, but also a nation of self-righteous hypocrites ignorant of their own religion. While I respect those people who study their particular religious texts, are well-informed about their doctrines and attempt to follow them humbly and sincerely, those sort of people also seem to be in the minority. Instead, most people seem to be slotted into a religion by default and follow the rituals with varying degrees of conscientiousness while neglecting their meaning. And for this, they consider themselves righteous and moral. This a pernicious effect of organized religion—it allows "believers" the delusion of morality without the requisite questioning of their actions and intentions. They thus reduce religion to a fashion statement: those wearing the right label are inherently better than others unable to buy it.
The author of that article accuses us of being stingy because he doesn't feel we give enough money to developing countries, "[a]nd it's not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead," he writes. Nonsense. Last year, Americans gave $250 billion to charity, and $188 billion of that came from individual donors. McKibben compares us to Europe, but there's nothing more Christian--or even inherently Christian--about higher government spending on social problems. He's confusing Christianity with liberalism.
"Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens..." Whatever you believe about the death penalty, Christ's statement about turning the other cheek is not a prohibition against a government executing murderers. The author might have found other other New Testament passages to bolster his case, but hey, he's the one claiming to have a true understanding of how Christianity should be implemented, not me.
Feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked? Visiting the prisoner? Comforting the dying? In any town in America, you can find countless Christians (and, of course, numerous non-Christians) who do all of those things, from extremely conservative Catholics to far-left Unitarians. They do their good works privately and in silence. Even here in D.C., a city with more than its share of problems, I regularly see generosity consistent with Christian tenets, and mostly by people who'd not consider themselves Christians. Heck, in suburban Maryland, Muslim doctors have started opening free or low-cost medical clinics. If McKibben can't see the huge and humbling streak of volunteerism and private charity in our country, then I'm not sure that he and I even live in the same country.
His argument is about the nation as represented by the actions of its government, not by citizens. While I certainly agree with you that he neglects to mention the many private organizations that do good works (at least in the portion of the article available online), you can't really argue with his point that those are not priorities for our government. How is it liberalism to want the government to promote the same values and concerns that one lauds in private citizens?
I think it's liberalism--I word I'm not using perjoratively--to think that the government must be the best measuring stick for the morality of a society and the last, best hope for solutions to that society's problems.
For example, I don't think nationalized, government-provided health care for everyone is a good idea, but that opinion isn't rooted in some disgusting, Scrooge-like contempt for the poor; instead, it's based on my understanding that finite goods and services must be rationed and that government-based rationing would be worse for a larger number of Americans than market-based rationing. I want to see public and private efforts to get health care to people who desperately need it, but I can't pretend that I believe the federal government is the best way to do that, and I don't believe that it's "un-Christian" to think so.
I suppose that's really the crux of it for me: While I am not a libertarian, I don't think it's always possible for the government to promote the same values and concerns that we laud in private citizens, at least not with the same degree of flexibility or success. I've worked with, around, and occasionally for the federal government for a decade now, in a city where various levels of government have wrecked the schools and let poor folks rot in housing projects. As a result, solidly entrenched in my gut is the conviction that the federal bureaucracy is incapable of demonstrating the sort of "Christian" compassion that Bill McKibben wishes it could, despite the efforts of some hard-working government employees, and despite the good intentions of people like McKibben himself.
That's certainly a respectable opinion, though I happen to disagree. I think, first of all, that it is, in fact, the government's duty and primary purpose to care for the people. The purpose of the market, however, is to make money; this inevitably leads to a neglect of the poor. A look at the general success of veteran's hospitals shows that there is a model on which we could pattern a universal system. Granted, the government just as often causes harm when intending good, but that seems to be only a problem of implementation that should be able to be fixed. Maybe I'm just naively optimistic.
A fair point, but it depends on what you mean by "care for." :)
Seriously, though, I think it's important to assess not only what governments are good at and what they're not good at, but also what a specific government is good at or not good at. I'm not entirely sure why the American government can build a superb interstate highway system while failing miserably at creating public-housing systems; the experience in another country may be exactly the opposite. That's why I was skeptical when the author of that article cited stats about America alongside those of European countries, because I'm not convinced that's always an apple-apple comparison. Whatever the case, I think we need to be frank about what our government does poorly and will probably always do poorly. Despite McKibben's pleas, our efforts to be more "Christian" with regard to government charity could, in some cases, create a worse hell for poor people if the government goes gung-ho in an area where (for reasons I admit I don't fully understand) it's either culturally or bureaucratically incapable of doing good.
As always, I appreciate the opportunity for civilized debate!
That's very true. The examples you chose seem rather telling about our government. They're good at creating infrastructure that helps promote trade; bad at creating decent living conditions for the desperately poor. I suspect, though, that has more to do with priorities than innate competencies. Of course, creating roads is a far simpler matter than creating homes, but it does seem like part of the reason projects have traditionally turned out to be so bad is because they're the sort of thing officials build then forget. I don't know, though. I'm nothing close to a sociologist; maybe there are far more complex reasons for the living conditions in the projects. Medical care seems different, however, in that we have numerous other countries to look to for models of what to and what not to do. Couple that with the relative success of veteran hospitals in this country (due largely to modernization of patient-tracking, etc.) and it seems like there's a good chance for quality, universally affordable health care. Furthermore, it seems to me that the potential benefits of even acceptable-to-fair health care outweigh anything but near certainty that the government will mess things up. If we have a reasonable chance of succeeding, are we not obligated to try?