“God bless America” (Started in May 2012, completed Nov 2014)

Since I've been in America I've been learning many things, some in classrooms and some just by walking around with my eyes and ears open. Some of the things I’ve learned have been simple facts, like knowing where to find the Negev on a map of Biblical Israel, but one of the more intangible concepts I’ve been trying to get a handle on is what it means to be an American. Anyone in England who has ever been to a cinema or watched a television must have heard someone talk about ‘the American dream’, but what on earth is the American dream? I suppose there is no one, simple and correct answer to that; the American dream means many things to many people, but I have come to realise that it can be thought of as the hopes and aspirations of modern America. These hopes and aspirations are unified in some ways, but at their heart they are often about the rights of the individual, and it is fascinating as an Englishman to consider where some of these dreams may have been born.

Being a good Methodist, it is in my nature to presume that all things lead back to John Wesley (and/or Jesus); and whilst that is not strictly true of the American dream, it is truer than you might expect. When John Wesley brought his brand of Methodism to America in the 18th Century he was helping to fuel a movement of people who were seeking religious freedom in the 'New World’. Europe was filled with conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and many new denominations that were beginning to spring up were battling for respect and recognition. The established Churches, with their close relationship to the state or government of their respective countries, tried to fight such fractures with laws like England's 'Act of Toleration' - which, by the way, wasn't particularly tolerant. Under the Act of Toleration people could 'dissent' from the Church of England (as long as they weren't Catholic or Quaker), but would then be disqualified from holding public office or teaching in a University. Nice.

This is one of the reasons that in 1791 the first amendment was added to the American Constitution; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Skip ahead 221 years and we find an interesting situation; America is still living in the light of that amendment, it shapes the arguments that are had about religion in the public arena.

The curious thing is the number of conversations I have had in America about what it is like in England having a state religion, or having such a close relationship between church and state. I have to explain that, apart from the occasional grumpy news paper report about the Archbishop saying something that they think is outside of his remit as a stuffy old religious relic, the issue of the relationship between religion and state is almost invisible in England. It is of some concern to Anglican priests as to whom their boss is (i.e. God or the Queen), but this has little effect on the person in the street from day to day. By contrast, American politics is so filled with religious rhetoric as to often make it quite shocking to the average British ear.

One of the many paradoxes of modern America is that the freedom of religion that was sought has left this nation being far more culturally religious than England is today, and the religion in America is often more dogmatic, traditional and more closely related to power than back in the United Kingdom. By contrast, religious freedom in Britain has moved so far from the days of Wesley, that the thought of being persecuted for dissenting from the Church of England seems ridiculous. No political speech in the United Kingdom has ever, to my knowledge, concluded with the words ‘God Bless Great Britain’.

There are many complex issues that I could not begin to address with proper detail here. We need to improve attitudes towards Muslims on both shores and both nations have seen occasions where Christianity seems to have been unnecessarily side-lined by people in positions of power. However, for me the most significant issue is that the identity of God can become bound up with our sense of what is normal within our culture. 59% of the British people claimed to be Christian on the last statistical census but few of them are to be seen in Church from one week to the next. The phrase 'Christian values' is often used in both nations to suggest good morals, but only in America is there a sense that being a good Christian can be synonymous with being a good American.

Sometimes being a good Christian requires you to say no to the politicians and the leaders of your nation or just to say no to the prevalent culture of where you live. Jesus was well known for causing trouble with the establishment. Let's be honest, it's pretty much what got him killed. The first amendment was put there to give the freedom that was lacking in 18th century Europe, but 21st century America has a much more complex need for freedom; freedom from its own fears about the wider world, freedom from the politics of such a large rich nation that leaves so many people in poverty, freedom from the presumption that Britain and other countries are still living with the arguments of the 18th Century, freedom from the idea that affirming the culture of 'African Americans' will bring equality faster than simply saying that it's not ok to label people as different and freedom from the idea that the poor wouldn't be poor if they just worked a little harder.

And so this is my take on the American Dream, or what I hope that dream might become - With the right to freedom that America claims, should come the responsibility of freeing others without prejudice, because 'nobody's is free, until everybody's free'.

 

You know you're in Washington D.C. when...

You can't mix politics and religion, but this guy gets his own 'temple'

 

How old is America? (Started May 2012, completed Nov 2014)

How do you define the age of a nation? This is a question that never really entered my mind until I arrived in the US of A. If we were to be strictly accurate about the age of the country called Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Act of Union that gave us that title was signed in 1921. The Act of Union that brought England (inc. Wales) together with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain was signed in 1707. America on the other hand had its War of Independence (Revolutionary War, as Americans call it) from 1775-83 and the Civil War 1861-65. But this bought us only 36 of the 49 states that now constitute the USA, the last two of which were officially ratified in 1959.

All these facts say little about the true age of a nation; the overall cultural identity as well as the many subcultures that coexist within, the mixtures of language and accent, the dress codes and traditions, go far deeper than a name or an act of parliament. Perhaps there is some way of calculating the age of a nation based on a system of points. You could count the percentage of the population whose ancestors lived in that county in each century; you could measure the continuity of governance, the age of local and national traditions, continuity of language, of laws and the average age of the buildings that still remain standing. It would be a highly convoluted process and probably impossible for even most obsessive statisticians. One thing that seems instinctively true in spite of all these complications is that Britain, as a country, is far older than America. Even if we go right back to the ancient indigenous settlements of America, they are much younger than the stone circles, the brochs, and the occasional prehistoric cave dwellings the island that was once called 'Albion'.

It strikes me that in some way our two nations could be considered to be a bit like two people, one young and one old. The older is perhaps wiser, more humble, a little less inclined to see the world in terms of black and white extremes. They are full of rich stories of the good old days and they have learned which rules are important and which are there for the breaking. However they can also be grumpy, cantankerous, unnecessarily negative, forgetful and disinclined to listen to the young. There are occasions when they wallow in self pity over past mistakes and become convinced that it’s too late to change the things that they don’t like about themselves.

The younger one is full of life and joy, full of hopes and aspirations, ready to go out into the world and impress everyone. The young one is often more optimistic and still believes that there are truths worth fighting for. But like any young person they are prone to mood swings, over simplification of issues and the inability to see things from another person's perspective; that can lead to unnecessary conflict. They become convinced of their own superiority in spite of their lack of experience and believe that the world revolves around them. And the confidence they have is just as quickly turned to paranoia because they have not lived through the ups and downs that their elders have seen.
 

As much as these caricatures are true, they are also false. We have seen evidence in America that supports both the negative and positives of this generalisation. But we have also seen things that go against the grain, like mature and wise Christians who are as distressed by fundamentalism as I am and people whose sense of hospitality feels like it is rooted in generations of people who were brought up to say welcome and to mean it. We have also seen things like the buildings of Duke University, which in their pretending to be old, display a kind of sentimentality that is entirely out of character with any teenager I know.

As I began writing these words I was sitting in a courtyard in New Orleans; a place that feels like an old man who has just remembered what it’s like to dance with a beautiful woman. It is both weary and joyous, both wise and foolish; a place that drinks without caring about the morning after, but understands the subtle complex rhythms of Jazz that cannot be known without a memory of many nights before. It has suffered devastation but is still filled with an abundance of hope.

America gave us the blues and film noir, Britain gave us ‘Carry on’ movies and Pantomimes. The British are not always the grownups so let’s just hope we learn the best of each other’s habits and not the worst.

You know you're in New Orleans When...


...the baby Jesus has the best hat