The other day at my work, the slogan “Make America great again” came up in conversation (take a breath, this is not a political post nor does Donald Trump have anything to do with it, so calm down people, it’s just my intro based on my real life). One guy said something along the lines of, “As if America was ever really great. We’ve not been great to a lot of people.”
First off, I totally get what he was saying. Yes, America is responsible for some bad stuff. I’m not ignoring that. I am fully aware that America is not a perfect place. Still, can we stop being so down on our country? Actually, I think it’s really important that we’re not so down on our country, and not because of politics.
Bad vs. Good Is Too Simple
This seems to be a trend in our world today: we judge things only by their worst moments. America is a terrible place because it made slavery lawful for part of its history. George Washington is a terrible person because he owned slaves. The church is a terrible thing because of the Crusades. We can’t then pay any attention or give any validity to what any of the above mentioned “bad” people/countries/organization have done because they are bad.
The problem is, when we judge by the worst part of a person/country/organization’s life, there are no good people, countries, or organizations. There are no heroes and there are no good guys. The truth is everyone is sinful. Everyone has done something bad. Organizations and countries are made up of lots of sinful people working together, therefore those countries and organizations are impacted by the sin not just of one person, but of many.
Paul in Ephesians 6:12 seems to suggest that governments are more likely to do harm because there are spiritual forces uniquely at work within governments. We don’t expect governments to be good. Our country, considering its size and diversity is actually doing better than many when it comes to the whole justice thing. That doesn’t mean that we stop trying to improve things (we still have a long way to go, no one would deny that), but it does mean we should have a balanced view of our country. Otherwise or imbalanced view of things will affect every area of our lives.
Not Perfect, But in Progress
The truth is America is not a perfect place. But let’s be real, no country is a perfect place. Every country has their own skeletons in their closet (granted some have bigger skeletons than others). Why? Because regardless of our leaders or our military or whatever else, we’re made up of people. People are messy and they do terrible things to one another. Every country (unless it’s only been around for 5 minutes or less) has some less than stellar moments in its history.
However, just because there’s a skeleton there, doesn’t mean that we should write that country off as bad. The same is true of people and organizations. Just because a person, country, or organization has done something bad doesn’t mean that it’s an inherently bad person, country or organization. If that were the case, everything in this world would be only bad because everything in this world is broken and messed up and has a streak of evil in it because of sin.
The Progress We’ve Made, Does It Count for Anything?
The truth is, I do think that America is great because America has strived to do something great. The goal of our country has always been to create an environment where people can be free, a place where people are viewed equally before the law/government. Have we always lived up to that standard? Absolutely not. However, we’ve kept trying.
To be honest, we’ve made some strides in the right direction. A group of 13 colonies made up mostly of farmers over several hundred years has turned into one of the most populous and most wealthy nations in the world. We haven’t just kept that wealth to ourselves either. Our economy and technology have had international consequences. Because of our industry and technology, we’ve invented the internet and spread technology to even the poorest countries.
We went through a civil war where brothers were literally fighting against each other and we were able to reconcile afterwards. I mean, it’s not like northerners are still trying to shoot southerners and vice versa. We might jab at each other about that old divide, but talk about a complete turn around in a relatively short period of time. We enslaved black people and yet slightly 150ish years after they were emancipated, a black man was elected President of the United States, twice.
Evil Is Not Limited to Any One Nation
Yes, there are some dark spots in our history. We enslaved blacks and took land from the Native Americas. However, we weren’t the only ones that did that. Blacks were enslaving each other (and selling their fellow Africans) before America was even “discovered.” Some Native American Tribes also had slaves. Native Americans were also pushed out by the Spanish and by the French and English. I don’t know that there’s any crime that’s unique to America. Native American Tribes fought and drove out each other too. Other nations were involved in all the same things. The crimes might be accentuated because of the size of the US, but they’re the same crimes that have been around since the beginning of history. In fact, I don’t think there’s a people/nation anywhere that hasn’t had issues with racism, sexism, oppression, etc.
The Point: The Church and Countries Have to Be Judged Equally
The thing is, I’m not saying all of this because I think you need to go around saying America is great and ra ra ra America we’re the best. The reason this is important is because if we judge a country, person, or organization by the bad things it’s done instead of looking at it as a whole, we will totally misjudge it.
Many people would say that the church isn’t great. It’s been involved in all sorts of terrible things: The Crusades, The Children’s Crusade (which was way worse, look it up), the Inquisition, corruption (you should totally look up the pope who dug up his predecessor after he had been dead several years and put him on trial because he had insulted that pope while alive or something, crazy stuff), hypocrisy, anti-Semitism (you should read Martin Luther on the Jews), the current scandals involving priests molesting kids. There’s a lot of bad there. Should we then say that the church isn’t great?
My answer (you’ll have to come up with your own) is no. Yeah, the church, like America, has been involved in some bad stuff. However, that doesn’t make the church a bad guy in history. It makes the church human. Humans mess up. People are corrupt. Men and women do terrible things.
Despite all that the church has done that has cause harm, the church has also done lots of good things as well. Hospitals and universities exist because of the church. Churches have given to the poor and needy for thousands of years and have provided for uncounted numbers of people. That’s just the humanitarian stuff. It’s hard to quantify the spiritual impact that the church has had for the past 2,000 years.
Look at the Whole
I’m not trying to say that America and the church are one in the same or even on the same playing field. I’m just trying to show that you have to use the same system of evaluation of good versus bad for both. You have to look at the whole, not just the part.
This idea is true of people too. Every hero that you can think of (besides Jesus, but that’s different) has some sort of shadow side. Gandhi really didn’t like black people. Martin Luther King Jr. had affairs. David was an adulterer and a murderer. Does that mean that the things that Gandhi, MLK, and David did/wrote/said are invalid because they had a black spot in their lives? No. if that were the case nothing in this world would be valid because we’re all human and we all have black spots.
It’s Not Black and White, It’s Gray
We seem to try to make things so black and white in this world. He’s bad or good. That organization is holy or evil. The truth is, life is way more complicated than that. Everything is gray. Everything is both bad and good. Things are usually more good or more bad, but it’s still complex and takes more than a momentary glance to decide which is which, it takes some intense thought. And at the end of the day, we’re all a mixed bag.
I think it’s totally fine to say America is great. We shouldn’t ignore our black spots, but we can’t ignore the good our country has done either. If we do, if we start making things so black and white, there’s no hope for any of us.
Photo by Rafael De Nadai on Unsplash