Catholic Thinker

During his homily yesterday the priest, whom I love but do not always agree with, brandished a bumper sticker, which I have seen around previously, which read, “God Bless the Whole World. No Exceptions.” It’s a very high-minded notion of course, and something which all Americans have a solemn obligation to pray for, for solidarity with the rest of the planet.

Still, I find the bumper sticker just a bit unsettling, because I think I can discern what the subtext behind the message is. For I started to see the bumper sticker for some time after we all started seeing the bumper stickers and signs everywhere saying “God Bless America,” which mostly started popping up after 9.11. For a brief period following that awful day, the rest of the world felt solidarity with the United States, and shared in our mourning over the 3000 lives lost (many of whom were not Americans).

That period of solidarity, however, is most decidedly past now. Today it is once again quite fashionable to say that America sucks. Anti-Americanism, blame-America-first, is more popular today than perhaps it ever was. And this is why I can’t help thinking that the message of “God Bless the Whole World; No Exceptions” is not so much a sincere invitation to pray for the whole planet as it is a backhanded response to the explicitly patriotic message that came before it: “God Bless America.”

Of course we should pray that God bless the whole world, regardless of borders. The slogan “God Bless America” doesn’t imply otherwise, unless one is of the opinion that this country sucks.

For the record, I am of no such opinion. I am of the very low-minded and ethnocentric opinion that my country is pretty great. I believe that “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is at the bottom of things an accurate description of this nation. I believe there are people here of real nobility, of real virtue, of real love, and I pray to God they don’t lose that when they go to college.

I believe many of these men and women of nobility and virtue are presently serving in our military. I have the same reservations about their mission as many Catholics do, but I’m not nearly so quick to pass judgment on the mission as is fashionable in Catholic (and political, and academic, and media) circles today. I believe that they believe in their heart of hearts that they are out there doing precisely what the bumper sticker really wants us Americans to do, which is to get up off our lazy bums and do something good for the rest of the world. They’re just doing it in a way that some people don’t like, because it is also fashionable these days to be of the opinion that military engagement is intrinsically evil, unless of course you’re an anti-American insurgent.

Of course we’re not perfect. We’re materialistic, yes. We’re wasteful, yes. We’re hedonistic. Very hedonistic. Yes. We are indeed too violent too often. Yes. We’re addicted to many things. Yes. We’re voyeuristic and narcissistic. Yes. We could all go on and on with the number of reasons why America is not perfect. But it seems to me this is that much more of a reason to invite God’s blessings in a special way down upon the Land of the Free. One could just as well create a bumper sticker that reads, “God Bless America, Cuz They Damn Well Need It.” (Although for the record, many of those imperfections just listed and otherwise apply just as much if not more to the rest of the world as they do to the Home of the Brave, which is a whole ‘nother can of double-standards.)

Having said all this, I do have my own reservations about the patriotic mantra, although of a different sort. The problem I have with “God Bless America” is that it’s one-directional. It makes a request of God without offering any measure of sacrifice or praise on our own parts.

My counter-sticker then would be “America Bless God.” It’s a message that would certainly be worth spreading around these days, what with the ongoing assault (mainly in our courts) on all things Christian in the public square which bears the misnomer of that great (un-)constitutional mythology known as “separation of church and state.” If we focused primarily on our own duty to give credit where credit is due, that is, to be religious, to give thanks and praise to our God and King, we would have very little to worry about in the way of God giving us all the grace we need to continue as a nation and a people to be great, and to be greater.

Having said that, I do think that the long-standing patriotic slogan serves a valid purpose. For love of country is an entirely healthy and even necessary form of Christian charity, provided it does not lapse into idolatrous nationalism. All the saints, even the Americans, were patriots—they loved their countries. Part of that love indeed involves challenging the cancers that infect the national culture.

But what I see in popular culture today is not so much a desire to challenge the culture as a seething desire to witness its very demise. What I see is an ostensibly high-minded and fashionable hatred of country. To the extent that such hatred exists, it is impossible for real love to thrive. If Americans are to become saints, they must love their country. And to the extent that this supposedly ethnocentric mantra can begin to rekindle a healthy love of this fruited plane, I have no problem saying it.

Therefore, Happy Fourth, Let Freedom Ring, and yes: God Bless America.