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