The editor of Zion’s Herald, whose blog I just found via Untied Methodist (no, not a typo), describes some of the hate email he got after he sent an article to an email list of Zion’s Herald
a quote from one:
“You people make me sick, you do not represent God, you only represent yourself. I wonder how many tears God has shed because you all are too lazy to do what is right . . . How embarrassing you and your fellow so-called Christians are to the United States of America.”
How sad that somoene on a list sent to church folks can make such a statement that so blatantly reveals such a fundamental missing of the entire point: Christians are to be concerned about not being an embarassment to God, and the question of whether we are emabarassing to “the United States of America” is an insult to faith. The loyalty to a global faith which is beyond nationality is one which reduces to absolute insiginificance any thought of what “America” thinks of us. An “America” that considers itself above those loyalties is not even an America I want.
BTW, the article had to do with the Iraq war and what to do AFTER the mistake has been made. But to suggest that this was a mistake (a bit of an understatement) is taken to be such a “sacrilige”; which offends me becuase “scaralige” is to defame God. Criticizing “America” is not on the same level. But this is the abaondoning of the truth that nationalism represents. The religion which exudes from nationalism is , by nature of its ultimate allegiance and rush to “defend its honor” above all else (including the sanctity of human life), idolatrous.
I just read the introduction to “A Better Hope”, and so the above quoted section of the email is frustrating, and brought about the rant, but somethng very basic in me. (BTW, Hauerwas writes such great Intros to his books. The first chapter is “On Being An American and a Christian”)
I was glad to find Untied Methodist, and also the link to the to the ZH editor’s blog….becuase it just so happened that I received a copy just this week, and wondered where it came from,. and I may have gotten one of these issues a couple months ago. Maybe it was sent as a sample to a Sojourners mailing list, but there’s a lot of Methodist people writing for it.
BTW, the above mentioned mag, Zion’s Herald, had an interview with Hauerwas in Jan. 2002 (read it here)
Speaking of Methodists and Hauerwas, Hauerwas was a Methodist when he wrote those books. I think he’s in the Episcopal church, or something like that now, though.