Is The American Dream God's Dream?

Editor's Note: HuffPost Religion is running a series of posts by Lisa Sharon Harper and David Innes on how Christians should view social issues based on their book Left, Right, Christ. The second issue is: 'Is The American Dream God's dream?

Is The American Dream God's Dream?
By Lisa Sharon Harper

I've been hearing a lot of talk on all sides about the American Dream lately. This has pressed the question: Is the American Dream God's dream?

The American Dream traces its roots to the United States Declaration of Independence. Our forbearers declared: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

From its foundations the American dream has trumpeted the equality of all humanity. Yet, all the while, our economic system has prioritized the "equality" of some while blocking its realization among others in order to secure the "happiness" of a few:

• People of African descent were denied their liberty, their happiness and sovereignty over their own lives in the antebellum south in order to secure the "happiness" of British descendants bestowed, by law, the mantle of "master" class -- literally.
• For most of the 19th century the U.S. removed native peoples from their lands. The lives, liberty and happiness of every Native American nation was decimated so that white miners and settlers might pursue their "happiness".
• 12,000 Chinese workers laid the western half of the First Transcontinental Railroad; securing the "happiness" of American commerce. But Chinese workers were excluded from the right to become citizens and in Oregon they were excluded from the right to own land.

The American Dream has always been at odds with itself, but our chosen economic system of the past 30 years has dragged America farther away from its common dream of equality.

In the past, economic policies like the Homestead Act of 1862 and the G.I. Bill of 1944 served to bolster and secure the lives, liberty, and happiness of at least the white middle class. But in 1980 Ronald Reagan ushered in a torked up brand of capitalism to our economic system. Neo-liberal free-market capitalism embedded the ideological language of deregulation and market sovereignty into our economic lexicon. Within eight years the American dream was deposed by the dream of corporate liberty and oligarchy.

Consider this:

• A recent Congressional Budget Office report revealed from 1979 the average income grew by 275 percent for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income. The top 20 percent's income grew by only 65 percent. By contrast the poorest 20 percent's income rose by 18 percent.
• Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, points out the top one percent owns 42 percent of all wealth (net worth minus the value of one's home) in the U.S. while the bottom 80 percent owns only seven percent.
• Last year top CEO salaries were up 23 percent, but the average worker only saw a .5 percent rise.

Then consider, nearly 50 million Americans are currently living below the poverty line (that is $22,000 for a household of four) and half of them are working full time jobs.
In our current economic system, the "happiness" of the super-elite is secured while the lives, liberty and access to basic needs of the rest are suffering. This isn't the American Dream and it isn't God's dream either.

The feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44), the institution of the sacrament of communion (Luke 22:14-23) and the movement of the Holy Spirit to create a commonwealth in (Acts 2 and 4) reveal God's sacred dream of the common good. At God's table all people are equal and therefore equally worthy of life, liberty and happiness -- yea, even flourshing.

Left, Right and Christ: Does God Want You Rich?
By David Innes

Is the American Dream God's dream? It's a fair question and a provocative one. But what exactly this question is asking is unclear. Is it asking if the hope that America holds out for opportunity seekers is identical with God's redemptive purposes in Christ? Clearly, the answer would be no. But why would anyone compare the two? It's worth a deeper look.

The American Dream is generally associated with social and economic rising with a view generally to modest suburban comfort. You arrive with a cardboard suitcase and three dollars in your pocket and you end up with a thriving business. You start out sharing a bedroom with three brothers in the moral squalor of a Brooklyn tenement and you end up with a big backyard and a pool on middle-class Long Island. With hard work and opportunity, you can make it here. The American Dream.

There is nothing necessarily ungodly in that. When God brought Israel into the Promised Land, he promised them security against their enemies and a land flowing with milk and honey, i.e., fat and plentiful livestock and flowering fields atop rich, productive soil. He promised them prosperity!

God has given us a potentially rich world that he wants us to develop and enjoy in human dignity and worshipful gratitude. In that respect, one may reasonably say that the American dream can be a godly dream, i.e., part of what God offers human beings somewhere on the other side of Christian repentance and faith.

On the other hand, God warns us not to trust in wealth. The Apostle Paul writes, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap" (I Tim. 6:9). God told Israel that even the enjoyment of the wealth he would give them would be morally dangerous.

"Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God ... Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase... then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God" (Deut 8:11-18).

The reason God packaged his good and generous gift with a spiritual caveat is that God's gospel, whether to Israel or to you, is not a health and wealth gospel. His gospel is Christ, and the Christian's chief enjoyment is not the creation but the Creator himself. It is a chastening reminder to my fellow lovers of liberty that while life is severely stunted without political and economic liberty, there is more to life than politics and economics. It is also a reminder to my liberal friends like Lisa, however, not to despise God's good gift by redistributing it under constraint instead of further unpacking it in liberty.

 

 

 

Follow Lisa Sharon Harper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisasharper

Comments

[gemmax]

09:32 AM on 11/09/2011

I do not know of any country or political system that has anything to do with "God's dream". The very term is erroneous. "God's plan" would be amore accurate one. God's plan is salvation and redemption through the blood of Christ, by faith. That is it. There is no other way. Faith in anything having to do with mankind is futile and meaningless. What good is money when you leave this earth?

[rsttho557949]

09:19 PM on 11/01/2011

I can speak for God on this: He doesn't care if you have three cars, a huge house and Bill Gates money. He doesn’t' care if you're Republican, Democrat or Independent. The ONLY thing that He truly cares about is if one has the Blood of Jesus on his/heir’s soul right now. The most important thing to a person is his soul; lose that and all is lost.
It’s really a silly question whether God wants a person to live the American Dream; His dream is for you to live in peace with Him for the Eternity. The ONLY way that is going to happen is not to:
1. Listen to the teachings of Joseph Smith Jr.
2. Sit on some mountain top in a yoga position and think that chanting a mantra and meditating is going to do it.
3. Face some Middle Eastern city and bow and pray all night low and think that is going to do it.
4. Think that a person is "good" and moral enough to BS God into letting him/her into Heaven because, "God knows my heart".
5. Think that because one is an ancestor of the Chosen People that s/he has a free pass to Heaven because they go to some temple on Friday night.
6. Listening to some "spiritual" person’s nonsense that there are alternative roads to Heaven.

Only through Jesus is Eternal Peace going to happen. Do not be deceived or beguiled.

[PATOISJAM]

01:57 PM on 11/01/2011

God’s sacred dream?” Dreams are thoughts or mental images a person has while asleep. The Scriptures refer to dreams from God, natural dreams and false dreams. Since God does not become drowsy and require sleep He does not dream. To say God dreams is to accord him status as a human which is I strongly believe is irreverent.

Psalms : 121 3 & 4

3. He cannot possibly allow your foot to totter.
The One guarding you cannot possibly be drowsy.

4 Look! He will not be drowsy nor go to sleep,
He that is guarding Israel.

[Chaotician101]

01:03 PM on 11/01/2011

LOL The American Capitalist system is an anathema to the purported message of Jesus! Everything about the 1% and especially the .1% is greed and avarice, hubris and depravity, corruption and death! And one of the pillars of Corporatism is religion, the ignorance and corruption of religion that gives these evil men protection from the justl anger of the people looted by these pious strangers!

[PATOISJAM]

09:40 AM on 11/01/2011

Paul was not one of the designated 12 apostles and to be fair he never included himself or claimed to be one. Prior to Pentecost and as a result of Peter’s Scriptural exhortation, a replacement was sought for the unfaithful Judas Iscariot and Matthias was selected, not Paul.

However, Paul was in a class by himself being designated as an “apostle to the nations.” Acts 9: 4-6 & 15 validates the assignment given to him by Jesus Christ. An apostle is a “sent one” “champion” or “promoter” and this Paul proved to be being the most travelled apostle.

Paul recognized this as the purpose of his particular apostleship and contributed much to the establishing of the Christian congregations particularly by his ministry and by his writing a large portion of the Greek Scriptures. See 1 Timothy 2:7, Romans 1:5.

[PATOISJAM]

08:44 AM on 11/01/2011

Throughout the Scriptures the emphasis is placed, not on the possession of material riches, but on a good standing with the true God. That “good standing” that can only be maintained by a person’s continuing to do the divine will by faith. Jesus Christ, our exemplar encouraged others to be “rich towards God” and to store up riches in heaven which meant a person’s record of good works would be like riches deposited with God, assuring lasting blessing.

Granted, many patriarchs such as Abraham and Job were wealthy but they were not materialists. They knew that their material prosperity was due to God’s blessing, and they were not greedy for riches.

Jesus’ disciples were given a commission to make disciples of people of all the nations and fulfilling that commission required time and effort. A person who is wealthy, strives to be wealthy and fails to unburden himself sufficiently to be able to use his time and resources to fulfill that commission, cannot rightly be called a disciple of Christ. Hence Luke 18: 24 7 25.

In defense we may say in our hearts, yes I pray, meditate and love God, and yes that’s great but that is not God’s will for humans in this time of the end as stated at 1 Timothy 2:: “whose will is that all sorts of men should be saved and come an accurate knowledge of truth.”

[sweetlilthing]

05:34 AM on 11/01/2011

1) I disagree that Paul is an Apostle since he never met Jesus except in a dream.

2) Any message about the greed seen in America should be directed at the 1% and not at the 99%. America Society isn't under a spell of greed and cold heartedness as evident by the OWS demonstrations. Among that 1% I see mega church leaders who line themselves up with Republicans who's actions and message clearly put themselves on the side of the 1%. One religious leader says God wants you to be rich! Get your house in order before you preach from a pulpit seemingly brought and paid for by the Republicans.

[wbthacker]

06:36 PM on 10/31/2011

Both authors are evangelicals, yet they seem to ignore the clear teachings of Christ. Even I, an atheist, understand that the bulk of Jesus' message was "Share the wealth." He practically equated wealth with sin when he warned that a rich man could not enter heaven. He taught his followers to abandon all wealth and trust God to provide for their needs.

He owned no suburban home, no donkey to ride, no retirement investments. (Well, he probably had insider knowledge on that last one.) But it's not hard to imagine him telling people today, "How can you keep so much money in the bank when poor people need it now? Liquidate your IRS and 401Ks and do good with that money today. Trust God to provide for your retirement, oh ye of little faith."

Jesus was no capitalist, he sought equal distribution of wealth, a classless society where everyone was an equal child of God. The American Dream is all about class; specifically, about raising yourself from a lower class to a higher one. I don't see how any Christian can argue that the American Dream is compatible with Jesus.

I'll further speculate that Jesus not only wanted equality of wealth, but universal poverty. I don't think he liked luxuries; I think he saw them as distractions from the spiritual life.

[Claude Hosch]

08:38 PM on 10/31/2011

Well said.

[Pro-Reformation]

05:26 PM on 10/31/2011

There a song called THE DREAM WILL COME TRUE, and it refers to a personal dream as well as the REAL American Dream --- not the one that was designed to benefit the wealthiest few at the expense and to the detriment of the majority of the people --- but the real one.

The Real American dream is of government that is actually of, by, and for the people, where we have actual religious freedom and pluralism, where we all have fair and equitable incomes, and where there is domestic tranquility and real justice for all.

But, as most Americans know, that dream has pretty much been shattered, and in America many people suffer because we have an inequitable political economic system that favors the wealthiest few, produces conflict and division, and fails to establish real equity or justice.

Quoted from and continued at http://www.soundclick.com/ttap

[TylerDurdenSays]

04:56 PM on 10/31/2011

"god" despises equality. Have you actually read the bible?

[Rayosun]

09:09 PM on 10/31/2011

As a Christian clergyman for all of the adult years of my 75 years, I've read the bible cover to cover twice and many parts any number of times. As anybody who's read Bible extensively knows that it is impossible to say decisively this, that, or practically anything, because of all of the competing arguments that can be pieced together from a various parts of the Bible. As for God himself, there is so much in the Bible that portrays God in a bad light that I've compiled a page that I've published to the web called what kind of God.orc. http://www.whatkindofgod.org.
As for TylerDurdensays' claim that
"god" despises equality. Have you actually read the bible?, whatI I have found in MY reading of the bible is ample evidence TO THE CONTRARY, which I lay out in great detail at http://liberalslikechrist.org/Godvsgreed.html & http://liberalslikechrist.org/challenge.html .

[leighton1010]

03:24 PM on 10/31/2011

The poor favor the rich. The rich favor more riches. So the love for God isn't in them. I understand the worries of the rich and wealthy. They can't multi task. Seek God and everything shall be added onto you.

[Syllogizer]

01:38 PM on 10/31/2011

Lisa's claim that those three passages, " (Mark 6:30-44, Luke 22:14-23, Acts 2 and 4) reveal God's sacred dream of the common good. " is bizarre beyond belief!

Why, to believe this, one would have to have completely missed the main points of ALL the Gospels, such as that as the world hated Christ, so it will also hate his followers, who will then suffer as Christ did. No "sacred dream of the common good" there.

[Willie Krischke]

02:23 PM on 10/31/2011

Syllogizer's claim that the main point of ALL the Gospels is that the world will hate Christ is bizarre beyond belief!

Why, to believe that, one would have to assume that suffering and persecution are good things and we should not only endure them, but pursue them! It is called the GOOD news, after all - what's good about being hated and persecuted?

Clearly Lisa, in quoting those verses, was talking about the establishment of the Kingdom of God, a new world order (sowed by love, advanced in submission, opposed by enemies of God) and the pursuit of the Kingdom of God necessitates the pursuit of the common good. Love your enemies. Salt and light. Blessed to be a blessing.

Now THAT'S Good news. That's the Gospel.