welcome to the story.

Disclaimers: I�m not a communist, a socialist, a Marxist, or a fascist. I�m a capitalist by default (although, one could make the argument that God was much more of a communist than he was a capitalist by reading the book of Acts). I�m also neither a Democrat nor a Republican, a liberal or a conservative, a Christian or a non-Christian. I am simply a God follower seeking freedom from all labels and definitions that come from anyone or anything other than Him. Today is July 7th. Three days ago we celebrated July 4th. Great day with warm fuzzy feelings. Flags, fireworks, and patriotism. And now my thoughts. To servicemen and women, veterans of wars to quickly forgotten, patriots who are protecting and fighting in my place, on my behalf, today . . . I say thank you. You have more heart, courage, and strength than I could ever muster. I applaud you and stand by you. To my government, I think 75% of you are corrupt because you use 25% of my earnings to finance your thousand dollar meals and your thousand dollar prostitutes. You waste money. You use me. You lie to us. You use events, policy, and people in an effort to maneuver for power and position. And for that I am disappointed. The only thing more disappointing is that I continue to sit still and do nothing to provide a better solution. I am a part of the problem as much as you are Mr. & Ms. Politician. To the 25% of you who aren�t corrupt or who are only half-corrupt, thank you for wanting to be a part of the solution and fighting for me when I won�t fight for myself. To the church . . . (notice the barrage of quotation marks that are about to follow) the �godly�, white, suburban, middle-class, �Christianized�, Republican, �patriotic�, �moral�, �right wing�, �Conservative Christian Coalition�, American Church. I dislike you. I continually fight to have the same amount of grace and patience for you that God has for me. But its hard and I�m not going to pretend that its not. I dislike you more on days like the 4th of July. I dislike you more for what you turn that day into in your churches. You romanticize our government�s leaders. Democrats are going to hell. Republicans are Christian angels with your best interest in mind. Sarcasm implied. In fact you don�t just romanticize. You over-romanticize. You�ve created a fairy tale of what our government is today. How it was created. And how putting God back in our country, the 10 Commandments back on the courtroom wall, and prayer back in school is going to save our government in the future. As if policy had more potential for life change than God does. Now for my thoughts on the over romanticizing of God and our country by the church on this 4th of July. We sing the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, and talk about how God is on our side and we are his chosen people. And everyone else in the world is wrong and immoral and unrighteous and sinners. And yet we are some of the fattest, most obese, consumeristic, racist, jealous, prideful, laziest, apathetic, money hoarding people in the world. We are the immoral. We are the unrighteous. We are the sinners. I am the immoral. I am the unrighteous. I am the sinner. As to the forming of our country. Remember, that those who write history are usually the people who are in power. Therefore, their historical perspective comes from the fact that they �won� the fight, �won� the battle, �won� the argument, �won� the right to be heard. All of history is written from that perspective. Those who win get to write how they won and how those who lost were wrong. But what about those who have lost? Do their voices have value? Do their perspectives have value? Are they able to offer their voices when it comes to writing to history? Now as to the forming of our country, an address to the over-romanticizing of its Godly heritage. We talk about how our forefathers were seeking freedom. And wanted religious freedom. It�s important to note that they were seeking �freedom� FROM things not �freedom� FOR things. They were not seeking freedom FOR the oppressed or marginalized, i.e. women, slaves, men who didn�t own property. They were seeking freedom FROM Britain, FOR themselves (white, wealthy landowners) and themselves only. Enough of the over romanticizing that they were seeking freedom for those who didn�t have voices. They were simply seeking freedom from their �big brother� who kept beating up on them. They were looking out for themselves, the wealthy, white, landowners. They were paying money and taxes to Britain that they didn�t want to pay. It had nothing do with God or moral purposes as history claims. It was not even for social purposes. It was for their own economic purposes. They were probably nice guys. I�m not saying they were evil. Or there seeking freedom was wrong. Or that I wouldn�t have done the same thing. But I am saying that they are not martyrs. They were not Christians fighting for God�s rights, God�s freedoms for all. They were using God to justify their own economic oppression and used God as a tool to oppose it. And that�s all I have to say. My blood pressure is going up. Hebrews 11:12-16 That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions. Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that--heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them. 1 Peter 2:11 Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it.