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EDITORIAL

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Beneath the surface of a presidential campaign controversy lies the deeper issue of how Americans view their nation. Reactions to the words of Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to Democratic front runner Barack Obama, depended largely on whether one is inclined to emphasize America’s virtues or its sins.

For Mennonites and other Christians who reject nationalism because it tends to justify self-righteousness and war, the furor over Wright’s “God damn America” rhetoric is instructive as we consider how to encourage our nation to live up to its ideals of justice and equality.

Advocating what is good may include denouncing evil. That was Wright’s approach when he said, “God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” Wright’s choice of words was a double-edged sword, drawing attention but also offending — and guaranteeing that many would quickly reject both message and messenger.

Christians who claim allegiance to God first, and who try to identify with humanity as a whole more than with any one nation, can support Wright’s basic point about God’s judgment. God does not single out America to be blessed, no matter what a famous song says. In fact, God might well condemn the actions of modern America, or any other nation, even as God denounced those of ancient Israel through the biblical prophets.

But who will listen? Discomforting words of warning must compete with what author Richard T. Hughes calls a national myth of innocence. Guided by this myth, “a preoccupation with national virtues . . . crowd[s] out any serious consideration of the nation’s shortcomings,” Hughes writes in Myths America Lives By (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

Declaring the United States righteous and innocent places it above judgment. It enables the nation to claim the power to define good and evil — or, in Wright’s words, “she acts like she is God.” By this reckoning, whatever we do is good, including what we would call evil if done to us.

U.S. leaders’ acceptance of torture is a prime example of this. A 2003 memo declassified this month reveals new information about how top government officials justified the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on prisoners, some of whom turned out to be innocent. This is American exceptionalism at its worst: Torture is wrong, except when we do it.

Christians — citizens of the kingdom, or nation, of God — are called to defy the myth of American innocence. It is a hard message to convey. Many Americans are deeply attached to the belief that their nation is morally superior to all others. And many will refuse to listen to a critique presented in the bombastic style of Jeremiah Wright.

Perhaps the tradition of Mennonite humility can serve us well in a prophetic role. So can the example of Jesus, who used a combination of boldness and gentleness to challenge the prejudice and self-righteousness of his day.

The image of “a city on a hill,” adopted by the Puritans to refer to the New World as a moral beacon, comes from the mouth of Jesus. The vision belongs to his followers in all nations. American Christians bear the unique burden of speaking truth to the greatest worldly power. — Paul Schrag