Some Thoughts on American Exceptionalism

Full disclosure: I have a lot of strong feelings about the openness of America as a nation of immigrants and about the call that many people feel to national service.  I am a third-generation American whose family immigrated here as refugees fleeing a genocide, my grandfather and aunt both served in the armed forces, and my uncle Albert was KIA in World War II.

As you can probably guess by the above paragraph, I think America is pretty nifty sometimes.  Considering the xenophobia that existed (and exists to this day—just look at all the countries getting fined for racism at this year’s European Championships) in many European countries, my family immigrating here made sense, even though they did encounter racism here after arriving.  And after going on mission to Mexico and Africa, I try very hard to not take for granted the advantage I unfairly received for no other reason than being born into the First World.

At the same time, man, we can sometimes suck, too.

Making the viral rounds of the internet is a clip from Aaron Sorkin’s show The Newsroom, which features, among other acting talent, the venerable Jeff Daniels, who, when asked in a symposium why America is the best country on earth, eventually explodes and rattles off an array of statistics, albeit in some cases with questionable degrees of accuracy.  But the CIA World Factbook does note that despite all of our economic and civic advantages, we Americans rank:

50^th in life expectancy

48^th in infant mortality

180^th in income inequality (per the Gini coefficient where a higher # means more inequality)

…and despite all of this, we are 2^nd in our amount of health care spending as a percentage of our GDP, behind only Malta.

Daniels’s character then notes that we lead the world in three categories:

Number of incarcerated persons per capita

Number of adults who believe in angels (this one I’m proud of)

Defense spending

If we really want to be the city on a hill that Jesus alludes to in Matthew 5:14, and that John Winthrop preached to the pilgrims, well, we’ve got a long, long way to go.

We can say that America is a God-ordained nation all we want, but there is nothing in Scripture to directly support that belief.  Even if there were, the Big Guy’s stamp of approval doesn’t seem to have kept us from turning in subpar performances on a number of issues, including two that Jesus emphasized—healing the sick (see above statistics on life expectancy and infant mortality) and caring for the poor (see above statistics on income inequality and incarceration).  And given the amount of money we are spending on, say, health care, we seem to be doing that subpar job rather inefficiently as well.

What we are left with instead is the need to acknowledge that Christianity is NOT exclusively American.  It was born in a time and place not our own, and to try to make it exclusively our own is an exercise in vanity, and to make it a part of American exceptionalism is Biblically inaccurate.

It’s good to be patriotic.  My proudest day as a college student (aside from graduation) was representing the United States’ National Parliamentary Debate Association in a public debate against the Irish national debate team at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado (please be praying for all of the Colorado residents who have lost their homes and livelihoods in the recent wildfires).

And it’s good to do things that uphold our democracy.  I believe immensely in civic engagement—I happily vote, pay taxes, follow the news, research candidates, and would serve on a jury if summoned.  As my AP government teacher wrote to me at my high school graduation, “The highest calling of any American is that of citizen.”

None that means that God wants me to be patriotic, though.  God wants me to be just, and righteous, and loving—characteristics that God may have in abundance, but that I still sometimes lack, and characteristics that our country (and, it should be noted, our church as well) sometimes struggles with.  America, for all its strengths, still has significant flaws to be worked on.

And it is, I pray, far better to be truthful about our flaws than to turn a blind eye to them in the name of superficial patriotism.

We can be exceptional.  But we’re not the best.  Not yet, anyways.

Let us have the humility and openness to other nations and cultures to affirm that reality.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July, dear readers.

Yours in Christ,
Eric