I don’t know who coined the term “Americhristianity.” I’ve seen it mentioned here and there on other blogs, and it seems to refer to a general conflation of “American values” with Christianity.

I have grown up in conservative Christianity, and while the “conservative” label is no longer important to me (though it probably still applies in many areas), “Christian” is. I’ve also grown up under a good deal of patriotism. This includes things like listening to patriotic music as a child, attending Memorial Day parades, Independence Day fireworks, and other things. All good things in their way.

But I think Americhristianity goes deeper than that. It is subtle and largely unnoticed, which is why it’s a term that is so rarely used. I would define it as a fundamental understanding of American loyalty and allegiance as being an inherent aspect of Christian faith, though I’m sure there are as many definitions as people who try to talk about it. I also doubt it is limited to conservatives, but that is the only “side” I can speak from experience on.

It seems to me that a lot of the principles that I and many others have subtly understood as falling under both the “American” and “Christian” umbrellas are based on a few faulty premises, including this one:

America was founded on Christian values, and therefore is a Christian nation.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard this said or implied. I am less clear on which Christian principles, specifically, this is referring to. Surely it couldn’t be the principle of rebelling against the God-ordained king of England. I don’t remember reading anything in our constitution about our sinfulness and need for a savior, or about Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection. I assume it is making reference to the numerous mentions of “God” or “the creator” in America’s founding documents, but in that case, it seems just about any other theistic religion could fit the bill.

But when you internalize this idea that America has some degree of inherent Christianity about it, sometimes it’s easy to confuse the two, or to forget where one begins and the other ends.

Let’s consider the pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic
for which it stands,
one nation,
under God,
indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all

I didn’t have to look up those words. I recited them every morning of every school day for many years, despite the fact that I didn’t set foot in a public school until I took the PSAT as a junior in high school.

I have recited these words aloud more often than any Bible verse, nursery rhyme, tagline, or other phrase that I can recall. I’ve recited them far more often in Christian homes, churches, and camps than in any government-run facility.

Look at the parts in bold. The allegiance we repeatedly pledge is being described as to a flag, and then to a republic. God is given lip service in the version that most of us still say (though “under God” was only added in 1954), but he is certainly not the one being pledged to. It seems to imply that by expressing our allegiance to the American republic, we are by default pledging to God too, since it is “under” him.

As a child, I remember many instances of uproar and panic among conservative Christians when anyone threatened to remove “under God” from the pledge (or from our money, or any other thing it was inscribed on). I still remember the controversy over the apparent omission of this phrase from the post-9/11 Dr. Pepper cans.

Why do we place so much importance on an American pledge, as if it’s a sacred document vital to our faith? As if the removal (or addition) of the “under God” phrase has any actual bearing on a person’s Christian faith? As if proclaiming our allegiance to a political entity (on church grounds, no less) is sanctioned by God simply because we throw his name in there?

(To clarify, I am not against the pledge itself–I would have less of a problem saying it at a government-overseen place or event–my issue is mixing it with church teachings.)

Right now, the world is in an uproar, and rightfully so, over attacks carried out by radical Muslims in Paris, Beirut, and other parts of the globe. This uproar is channeling itself into fear as millions of refugees from the Middle East make their way west, with some hopefully to be resettled in America.

As I look at this situation, and read the words people are expressing, I’m again struggling with my own Americhristianity, and sense others are too. I have come to realize that when faced with a question, sometimes the “political answer” and the “Christian answer” are different. For a long time, I was under the mistaken impression that the American political answer was the Christian answer–the two were so closely intertwined in my mind, because if this truly was a Christian nation blessed by God, then we must protect it (and therefore, ourselves) at all costs, right?

I am torn because I know that I owe a debt of gratitude to millions of American soldiers who fought for my freedom and still continue to do so today. And Jesus said that “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:3)

I am torn because we are wired for self-preservation, and even, to a certain extent, stereotypes. If a certain “type” of person hurts us, we remember things about them to help prevent it from happening again.

I am torn because in addition to protecting ourselves, we must protect our loved ones. I want my children to be safe, just like any other parent. Just like the millions of refugee parents making their way west, traveling through dangerous territories, not knowing where their children will sleep on any given night.

I am torn because I know Christians are and should be in American politics, and how do they weigh making decisions based on personal, faith-based convictions vs. protecting their own country? When does even well-meaning “protection” become an idol? I can decide to help feed and clothe and care for others, but how much power should the average person have to legislate others to do the same?

Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). He told us to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), setting up a stark contrast to the way the political systems, including our American one, operate. He told us to do to others as we would have done to us (Luke 6:31).

He also said:
“If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6: 34-36)

So many of my long-held American principles seem directly at odds with those words.

I am having to learn to ask myself difficult, honest questions: “Is my attitude being formed more by my Christianity, or by my American heritage?”

And if my American heritage and my Christianity give different answers to the same question, then which one wins? Which attitude should trump the other?

Am I a Christian American or an American Christian?

If an American political candidate says they are a devout Christian, and opposes resettling Syrian refugees in our country due to safety concerns, do I still support them? What would I do in that situation? How do I best attempt to imitate the Christ who identified so strongly with “the least of these,” who said “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”? (Matthew 25:40) How does a Christian politician decide which of Jesus’s commands should be legislated to the population at large, and which should be merely individual (and is there such a thing?)?

When do safety concerns become excuses? When does our desire to save our own lives become a refusal to lose it for Jesus’s sake? (Luke 9:24)

These are hard questions, and I’m certainly not wise enough to know the answers to all of them.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking.

I suppose I should follow up on my post about NaPoWriMo. It went well. I did a fair amount of regular writing, and ended up with around 4,000 words, which is about what I was hoping for. May followed with a 176,000-word proofreading project, so I totally forgot about doing any editing and posting on that until later. Here are a couple links to poems I posted on Fifteen Minutes of Fiction.

Silence

Lune

The Scream

This month I received an e-mail about a month-long online writing “camp” hosted by NaNoWriMo, happening next month, which caused me to remember that April is also National Poetry Writing Month.

What a coincidental combination. I couldn’t help but wonder that perhaps the two were happening at just the right time. Camp NaNoWriMo lets you choose “flexible writing goals,” the smallest being 10,000 words, so that’s what I put. I don’t know if it’s practical to expect that I’ll write quite that much, since poetry is so different than prose, but my personal goal is to write at least one poem each day, no matter how terrible.

I came across another site called NaPoWriMo that offers poetry writing prompts each day during April, so I would like to follow that as well.

Then of course, there is also our very own Fifteen Minutes of Fiction which offers weekly writing prompts, and a writer’s page to publish writing. We are also planning to post only poetry prompts during the month of April.

I have no idea how it will turn out, I just know that I need to get back into writing, and nothing’s going to happen unless I start. As a preparation, I’ve been reading poetry from different poets that I like, such as “Rough Cradle” by Betsy Sholl, who taught my Poetry Workshop class when I was at USM. I’ve also been reading Annie Dillard lately (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Teaching a Stone to Talk), and while she’s not a poet, her writing is so evocative and image-filled that it oftentimes seems very poetic to me. I’ve read a few more by Billy Collins too, who has the wonderful ability to say so much in so little space.

And that’s one of the major traits of poetry, isn’t it? An awful lot of feeling, imagery, and meaning, all packed into a small space, often written with meter and rhyme and other literary structures to hold it together. I love this stuff. Spring is no longer the only reason I’m looking forward to April!

Wait, what? The words “like” and “winter” in the same sentence? I admit, I’m sometimes (hopefully not too often) a bit vocal about my dislike for this particular season of the year. It’s my least favorite, there’s no way around that, and living in a northern climate means there’s no way it’s going to be a mild one.

I could list multiple reasons why I don’t like winter: it’s cold, you have to put on like three extra layers just to go outside sometimes, the car sometimes won’t start, you have to shovel and scrape ice and snow just to get out of your driveway, it’s cold, storms cancel things, driving is sometimes dangerous, you can’t see the grass, there are no flowers or leaves or anything growing, and did I mention it’s cold?

But even more than the obvious, rational things that happen climate-wise, there’s something deeper than that. There’s just this… feeling… of being “stuck.” Of everything being dead, and staying that way for so long, and just when you think it might be getting better, you get another snow storm. It can be hard on the spirit, not just the car tires.

So I’m making myself do a little exercise. This is by no means intended to minimize or gloss over mine or anyone else’s legitimate difficulties with winter. Or to pretend that “cabin fever” doesn’t or shouldn’t happen. Those difficulties and feelings exist as they are, and I can’t always make them go away. But I can choose to not just look at one half of the spectrum. Because the other half is always there too, and they are both co-existing, so today I’m going to think about both of them.

Things I like about winter:

1). No mosquitoes. This is the one everyone drags out at least once a year, and while I may be tempted to retort with “It’s not like they’d be able to sting me through my three layers of clothing anyway,” I have to admit that I am quite glad to have a nice reprieve from the stinging, and itching, and calamine lotion courtesy of mosquitoes, black flies, and horse flies.

It is nice to have a long stretch of the year without laying in bed trying to scratch my legs with my toenails, or hearing that pitiful whining noise of a mosquito somewhere near my ear (ugh, you can just hear it in your head now, can’t you?), followed by my typical paranoid-looking swatting/waving reaction aimed in whatever direction the sound seemed to have been coming from. Yep, definitely don’t miss looking like a crazy person in those rare instances.

2). No itchy, peely sun burns. No heat stroke. No sunblock. No aloe for sun burns. Maybe there are those who still manage to spend enough time out in the sun that they need to use sunblock, but it’s not something I have to worry about, and I’m quite okay with having one less concern to attend to when planning to spend some time outside.

3). The snow preserves things. It keeps a record of everything that imprints itself in it (at least until the next storm). It can be fun to look out the window and see the footprints and sled prints that I made with my little guy the day before. It can be amusing to see the spot where he stumbled and fell in the snow, or the place we ran down the hill. It’s like a physical story printed on the ground for us to read and remember while we still can.
Behind our house today I spotted some large deer or moose prints, that came right up to our house! What kinds of things go on when we’re not awake? There are rabbit footprints, and some kind of bird, and then raccoon tracks somewhere else. All quiet and unnoticed except for that preservation, that reminder. What a neat thing it is. It’s like getting a little peek into a secret world.

4). Snow preserves other things too. I don’t have to worry nearly so much about getting my groceries home and into the fridge as soon as possible. It’s okay to take a little more time if I need to… the milk isn’t going to go bad. If we run out of freezer space, or have a power outage, we can use the snow. If we want to keep vegetables into the winter, we can put them in the shed, and it’s cold enough that they won’t rot for a while. Winter slows down the natural composting process to give us a bit more time to enjoy things.

5). The cold can also cut down on smells. I’ve realized that I don’t notice our diaper pail, trash can, or litter box nearly so soon in the winter as I do in the summer when humidity causes things to decompose a lot more quickly.

6). Sometimes, it’s actually nice to not have plans. Winter can be a big contrast to summer, socially. Once Christmas is over, we tend to do a little bit of hibernating. We don’t always have plans every weekend. We don’t always do as much traveling. And yes, this wears on us after a while. It is nice to see people and places. But there are times when just being here and being together is what we need. It’s frustrating when a snow storm cancels things, and keeps us “tied down” to our domicile for longer than we might like. But things can’t be on-the-go all the time. Sometimes, we just need to make ourselves rest. Sometimes a nice cup of hot tea and snow pouring out of the sky can really remind us just how much we have right here.

7). Speaking of tea… ’tis the season for it! Not that I don’t enjoy iced tea just as much in the summer, and not that there’s really anything wrong with still enjoying hot tea in the summer too, but the warmth it provides seems so much more needed and appreciated this time of year. Or if not tea, then hot chocolate, or mocha, or whatever particular concoction of hot beverage we enjoy… winter makes it more meaningful, I think.

8). Whether we notice it or not, frost and snowflakes are really beautiful. It just hit me one morning, a few years ago, when I was cleaning my car off in preparation for going to work, and as usual I was running right on schedule and not wanting to be late, and a bit frustrated with all this stuff that kept covering up my windshield and causing me to take more time before I could go. When all of a sudden, I looked at it. Really, looked at it. It’s amazing stuff. The patterns are so intricate and they go on forever, and the coolest thing is that it is formed just like that in the dark, in totally innocuous places, and it doesn’t care who sees it or doesn’t. It’s beautiful just the way it is, and then it disappears. It inspired this
poem as well.

9). How many other seasons can you just pick up a big pile of whatever’s lying on the ground, and wing it at someone, and both have a good laugh about it? Snowballs are fun. Even once you get boring like me, it can be fun to watch kids enjoy the snow. Kids know how to have fun in this stuff. I did too, when I was a kid. Sometimes it’s fun to remember, and to watch the creative and imaginative possibilities that present themselves to those around us. And now that I have a toddler, watching him learn about it can be fun for me as well. Maybe there’s still a little bit of that “winter kid” left in me too, if I look hard enough.

10). There are always winter sports. I don’t play any of them, because I would fail so hard and run off shivering and/or injured after only a few minutes, but they can be fun to watch. I actually did used to enjoy ice skating, but that was at rinks you could use all year so it doesn’t really count. But there is ice skating on TV, ice hockey, skiing, snowboarding, and once in a while, such as this year, the Olympics. Oh yeah, and snowshoeing. Doug enjoys it more than I do, but I’m glad he got me into it, because it gives me a reason to get out of the house and get a little exercise once in a while, which doesn’t happen often enough this time of year.

11). Scarves, hats, boots, gloves, jackets. By the end of the winter I get tired of putting them on, but scarves and gloves can be fun, and allow for another area of creativity in color-coordination and general appearance. Boots are fun, especially the long ones. Which reminds me, there’s also no leg shaving. Well, less of it. Well, it depends on the person, but I definitely do less of it. Just thought the Internet might like to know.

12). Spring. I know, this probably shouldn’t really count because it’s not winter, so it can’t be something I like about winter. But it’s not so much spring as it is the hope of something better. I’ve been reminded of this several times this winter. By enduring this, we have a greater appreciation and understanding of the rest of the year when it comes. We see things in ways we wouldn’t if they never changed. By weathering the cold, we can see more advantages in the heat, if we allow ourselves to. And we have the reminder that there is always hope. Spring always comes. It has come before and it will come again. And because we know that, we have the ability to see beyond just this one moment and the barren foliage in front of us. That doesn’t mean cabin fever won’t happen, but at least we have some tools to fight it with, and doesn’t it just feel so sweet when it finally slips away for the year? In the meantime, winter is still here. But so is hope.

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of posts shared from the Matt Walsh blog. I gather that Walsh has a radio show somewhere and the blog is an extension of that.

Some of the posts of his that I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed, even if I didn’t agree with everything in them. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that if you took a one-sentence summary or thesis of the main points of his blog posts, I’d probably agree with the overall gist of most of them. What’s really disappointed me though, especially considering how viral some of these posts go, is the manner in which a lot of these opinions are expressed. And with his latest post on homeschooling… well, I just felt like I had to write up a bit of a response to it (okay, a really long one – whatever!). To be fair, I have never met or listened to Matt Walsh, and this is in NO way an attack on him or even his core beliefs – just a response to what he said in this post. I don’t exactly want to give him more traffic, but I do believe in citing sources, so here it is: We Are Going to Home School Our Kids But That’s Only Because We Hate Education.

For starters, it should be noted that Matt Walsh is not currently a homeschooler. His children are not yet school age, and he was not homeschooled himself, so it’s fair to say that while I’m no more of a homeschool parent than he is, being homeschooled for 13 years probably means I have more experience with it than he does, and likewise, he has more experience with public (pre-college) education than I do.

He starts out the post sharing very short snippets of comments he received after a broadcast. I didn’t listen to the broadcast, but if it resembles the nature of his blog posts, I imagine there was probably a lot of ranting, raving, and judgment. So it’s really not surprising that he would receive negative comments from people who were offended, as anger and judgment tend to stir up more anger and judgment. He uses these out-of-context snippets as the launching point for the post.

One of these comments, of course, involves Hitler, which seems way too early in any piece to be bringing up Godwin’s Law, but it strikes me as an especially inflammatory way to start a blog post. Sure, that does sound like a pretty terrible thing to say to someone, regardless of what the actual context of the comment was, but it also provides an opportunity for Walsh to begin his post from a reactionary point of view – encouraging the notion that he is under some form of “attack” for expressing his beliefs (a tactic that he has employed in several previous posts as well).

He goes on to talk about some of the horrible things people have told him about public schools. And yes, I’ve heard some horrible things about them too. Some of them were even from sources other than Fox News. Only one of these examples he uses includes any kind of source citation.

This leads into what is probably his main point, that government schools exist to instill the beliefs and propaganda that the government wishes people to have. I think this point makes sense, and can be helpful in encouraging parental awareness of what is being taught, but I believe it also unfairly minimizes the extremely nuanced realities of each school, school district, and teacher. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are over 100,000 public schools in this country, employing over 3 million teachers. Numbers like that mean there will be a lot of variables when it comes to the ways in which education is carried out. It seems an oversimplification to present the government involvement as a guaranteed means of mind control.

Even then, I’m still not completely clear on what specifically Walsh is accusing government-run schools of doing. He states:

Sure, take a look at your Facebook newsfeed and you’ll find that most of us can’t write coherently, or express a formed thought on any topic, but government education has still been enormously successful. Decipher these ramblings and what do you find? Not much, and that’s the point. Score one for Government Education. Now try this: write something really outside of the mainstream box. Write something that questions our cultural values and societal priorities. Post it, and see what happens. The trolls came out of the ground like Lord of the Rings to viciously attack, probably wishing death and destruction upon you, right? Score two for Government Education.

Walsh implies (though how exactly he made the connection is unclear) that government education leads people to viciously attack others for having unpopular opinions. Not only is this paragraph inflammatory, but given the fact that 1 in 10 students do not attend public schools, it also seems like it would be rather difficult to tell which of the “attackers” or “people who can’t form a coherent thought on facebook” he mentions are actually products of public education and which are not. Did he take a poll? Does he keep tallies of which of his friends produce poorly written status updates and cross reference that data with their educational backgrounds? Unlikely. That entire paragraph is based on a lot of generalizations and weak assumptions. If you start with the assumption that government schools are evil, then just about anything you find in society can be attributed to that if you try hard enough, which is why it is generally inadvisable to start with a conclusion and then work backwards.

I’m just going to go down the line with a few more key quotes/points:

And this is why people hate home schooling. They hate it because it’s against the grain. It’s too far “out there.”

Hmmmm… I have to ask – how many people really hate homeschooling? And which people? And to what degree? I mean, aside from Hitler. I’ve certainly had encounters with people who were uninformed about homeschooling. Even some who actually disagreed with it. And that is their right, just as it’s anyone else’s right to disagree with public schooling. But is disagreeing with homeschooling the same thing as hating it? That would be a pretty strong assertion, and I think the answer is no. Now, maybe when my child is old enough to be homeschooled, all the haters will come out of the woodwork and start attacking me, especially if I start getting all arrogant and publicly putting down other parents’ choices of educational venue. In which case I would deserve some pushback. (Note: I’m certainly anticipating that I might receive questions and even pushback from some sources anyway, but that’s not the same thing as hate. I’ll keep you posted as to how much “hate” I find myself on the receiving end of.)

Once again, this goes back to the beginning of the post, striking a tone of persecution. I know there are homeschooling families who have been persecuted for what they do, so yes, it’s safe to say that some people DO hate homeschooling. That is a terrible thing, and I have a lot of admiration for the attorneys who are fighting for their freedom. Because homeschooling is a parental right. But I would be careful in putting forth too generalized of a “people hate homeschooling” message. Maybe people just tend to get their dander up when listening to angry rants that rely so much on assumptions and paint others with broad brushstrokes. Certainly Walsh is not happy with those who make negative assumptions about homeschooling based on anecdotal evidence – why is it okay for him to use the same tactics to vilify public schools?

Only in America (and other nations where the family structure is disintegrating) could we decide that parents are incapable of helping their children “develop the powers of reasoning and judgement.” In fact, in more primitive times, folks would have been crazy enough to think that ONLY parents are suited for that job.

I definitely believe that families are important, and that the disintegration of the family unit is a bad thing. But I find this statement misleading in a number of ways. First of all, the existence of public schools and the encouragement of their use does not mean that we believe parents are incapable of helping their own children learn. I’m sure some do, and that is unfortunate, but these things are not mutually exclusive.

Then the second sentence suffers a bit from the “noble savage fallacy” – the act of idealizing people from more primitive times and cultures, with the assumption that they possessed some kind of innate wisdom that we have since lost. The fact is, if you’re reading this, you’re not living in a primitive place or time. Some primitive practices and ideas were timeless and are still valid today, and if so that’s because they are good, not because they are primitive. I’m glad my parents, while still using traditional values, aimed to raise me to be successful in the era that I am in – not in one that no longer exists. I’m also glad they took control of my education without limiting it to such a degree that they were the only people in the world who were allowed to teach me anything.

Lastly, we come to the final paragraph of the blog post, which is probably the one I agree with the most:

But indoctrination and education are dimensions of each other. Indeed, indoctrination can be defined as “teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view.” Doctrines and principles are inexorable parts of the process of passing on knowledge and information. The question before us is: who ought to be in charge of this task?

Both Walsh and I have the same answer to this question: parents. I believe that the best step to a good education is involved and invested parents, because both my husband and I have seen that at work in the families we grew up in, even though I was homeschooled and he went to a public school. But where Walsh and I differ is that, even as a homeschooler and hopeful homeschool mom someday, I also believe that good parental involvement does not have to mean homeschooling, nor should educational options be presented as objectively hierarchical! Which really shouldn’t be an extreme statement at all, but based on the elitism and “all or nothing” sort of approach that is put forth here about homeschooling, I think it needs to be said.

One of the many things that rubbed me the wrong way about this piece was that early on, Walsh seems to give a bit of a disclaimer:

If you don’t want your kid subject to government propaganda and government control, then don’t send him to a government facility 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 13 years of his life. Or go ahead and send him — perhaps you have no choice, I understand that — but confront the reality of the situation.

He admits that some parents have no choice as to where they send their children to school. But does he even allow for the possibility that some parents DO have several choices available to them and still choose public school, and that that may even be the right choice for some families? I hope he doesn’t think we’re all simply divided into two groups of “those who homeschool” and “those who can’t.”

And while it’s wise to “confront the reality of the situation” – i.e. being aware that government schools have disadvantages, and will teach principles that some parents disagree with, that doesn’t mean some parents don’t still choose, for their own reasons that certainly do not need Matt Walsh’s approval, to send their children to these schools.

Yes, parents are the chief influences in their children’s lives, and are ultimately in control of their education, but this is true regardless of which educational choice(s) they make for their kids. Either public, private, or home schooling (or a combination!) have their pros and cons, and can be best for one family or child, depending on the situation. It pains me to read blog posts like Walsh’s that paint such choices as so “either/or,” using paranoia and hyperbole to air his opinions. He’s preaching to the choir. Those who already agree with his premise might feel happy that he’s validating their choices (or just be annoyed at tactics that are inflammatory rather than informative), while those who disagree with his premise are going to be enraged rather than “converted” by his rantings and judgment. The point that parents are ultimately in charge of the task of education is a point that, while important, could have been made in a much more compassionate and less sensationalized way.

And I certainly hope that any non-homeschoolers who read the opinions in that post do not take them as indicative of what all homeschoolers believe, because they are not.