I am re-reading a favorite novel. The protagonist describes in one section the division in the country during the Vietnam War Era. He was in his late teens and early twenties during this time, and is writing about the fears present in his generation in response to the growing conflict in Vietnam. One of the things he mentions is a bumper sticker that he sees on a car saying, "America, Love It or Leave It!"
Lately I saw a bumper sticker with a similar message: "If you don't love the US, I'll help you pack." At least it was something like that.
I am part of a book club that is reading and discussing a book entitled Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson. The book chronicles racial disparities in the United States going back to the colonial past. She argues effectively that "Caste" is a better term for the system we sometimes call racist and sometimes classist in the United States.
In our discussion this past week, a question was raised about how, knowing the history of the institutions that I serve, I can continue to serve in those institutions. Having thought about this for several days now, I have at least a partial answer.
Inherent in the message of a bumper sticker that says "America, Love it or Leave it!" or something similar is the notion that if I want America to be something different than it is right now that shows a lack of love. My response is that loving an institution or a nation is not the same as loving another person. Most of us would agree, I would think, that when you love another person, you accept them the way that they are. It is unfair to enter into a relationship with someone and then work to change them into what you want them to be. That is not so with nations or institutions.
As someone who deeply loves our country, I have a responsibility to look into its flaws and past mistakes. It is important to uncover the falsehoods upon which systems are based in the place where I live, and when I do that, it is important to try to make corrections in the future course of our country to right those wrongs. That isn't a lack of love, that is, to my mind, a higher form of love. Because I love the United States, I cannot ignore the fact that it is based on a history of violence, ignorance, and abuse of people who have not been in power. In the case of the United States that has been People of Color and Women. It has also been any others society has labeled as somehow deviant, or different from the "norm" which in earlier days may have been European immigrants from non-favored European nations, but has been consistently applied to members of the LGBTQ+ community.
If I seek to expose those foundations and work to eradicate the negative consequences of those foundations for fellow Americans, I do not consider that I love the United States less. I consider that I love the United States and what it represents enough to try to help it hold to those principles that set it apart, principles like freedom and equality. Those principles are in our paperwork, but not in the ethos or where we live, and they will never be until we recognize the abuses of those principles and work to repair the harm.
The same applies to the Church. I know many people who have left the Church because they have seen these same abuses perpetuated by the institution of the Church and have found the hypocrisy so abhorrent that they feel they could never support the Christian Church. My work is to recognize, to point out, and to start to repair those same breaches within an institution that I love. The principles of the Church are the principles of Christ, love of God and neighbor, care for the stranger and those who are in need in our communities, and ultimately offering God's kindom to all. If the Church misses that mark, and it has many, many times, then love for the Church moves me to work to bring the church back to the way of Christ. This is not to say that I do this with perfect fidelity. Just like all, I stumble and fall. But I do not blindly follow the institution, and this is not for any lack of love for the Church, on the contrary, it is because I believe the Church can be what it aspires to be, the very embodiment of a loving Christ in the world.
That's our work in all the places where we have membership. In our communities, our work environments, our places of worship, wherever we find ourselves. There is no need to tell someone that if they don't love the US or the Church the way it is right now they ought to get out. Far from it! The hard work of love is the work of trying to call those institutions to become what they have promised to be.
At least, that's my view today...
