CELEBRATING OUR INDEPENDENCE IN GOD'S INTERDEPENDENT WORLD

America declared its independence from the British Empire, as hopefully most Americans actually know.    

I’m grateful to those who wrote our original declaration and all who risked life and limb to sign it.   That took brains.  And guts.   I celebrate them!

However.

When will we have the brains and guts to declare our interdependence?    That one seems, in my humble opinion, long overdue.

Independence for us as human beings is what I would now classify as a youthful illusion. It resembles the way I thought of myself when I was a teenager.   Those were the days, actually years, when I found myself denying my dependency upon my parents.   I didn’t need them.   I needed freedom.  Independence!  

Teenagers!

Americans!

Not sure just how old I was when it became apparent to me that my parents and I were interdependent.  But it did happen.   And just maybe…….someday, some year……..America might figure out how really interdependent we are on each other, on our government, and on our neighbors around the world.    Now that we’re pushing 250, maybe it’s time.   Time we declared our interdependence upon each other as human beings here on planet earth. Time we grew up and passed those adolescent years when we thought we knew it all and could make it just fine on our own.

I find it interesting to note that those who signed on to our original Declaration of Independence back in 1776 were able to agree upon the existence of a God who established natural law and created us to be essentially then free to operate on our own.   There’s a strong hint of Deism within the first paragraph or two of their declaration, and why not?   The authors included a Deist or two and the signees of their final document would include several more.   God created us to be on our own.  Set us free. 

I could make a reasonable case for how it was that America grew in the early 19^th Century to discover our dependency upon God.   Things like Small Pox came along and killed far more people that King George III had ever taxed or tried to over-rule.   We entered what most historians came to call our First Great Enlightenment.    Our dependence upon God not just for our creation but for our ongoing survival was then declared.   Whereas Deism posited that God made us and granted us independence and left us to manage our own affairs rather happily after receiving our natural life and liberty, 19^th Century Americans grew up enough to appreciate that we had an interdependent relationship with God.   Dependency upon God became the cultural norm.    God went from a passive observer of 18^th Century America to an aggressive controller of 19^th Century America.   Independence from God was no longer a thing.   Deism was dead and buried.

I might make a case, as well, for how it is that despite two or perhaps even three more Great Enlightenments in America, we still hold to the belief that we have an interdependent relationship with God.   Period.    We depend on God, who then depends on us to pretty much take care of the world.   Serve as something of a babysitter blessed with authority over the other kiddos.   And I’m not so sure this isn’t where we are developmentally stuck today.   Teenagers left in charge by God over the rest of the kids in God’s household.     Puts us rather high up in God’s family of nations.    Maybe next to Israel at the top of God’s family structure.  

That, I would contend, is why Christian Nationalism is an actual thing here on this eve of our 250^th.  Proud that we are old enough to now be left in charge over the others who must depend upon us, or else.

Let us celebrate our independence!     We are now teenagers!

Ain’t it great?   Aren’t we great?

Except for this.  

If Jesus had anything at all to do with God, we have to consider something he said about God’s Greatest Commandment.     Matthew 22:36-40 puts it this way:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”   (NIV)

Did you happen to notice a difference between the question and the answer in that exchange.   The question was about one Commandment.   The answer was about two Commandments.   Two interdependent Commandments.   And, no, the interdependence was NOT just between us and God (where I believe American Christianity sometimes gets stuck in 19^th Century culture) but also between us and neighbor.   And who is our neighbor?  How about the foreigner who comes to do the work our own people refuse to do?   

Interdependence.

This is what Jesus declared nearly 2000 years ago.

When, I wonder, are we Americans going to be old enough, and Christian enough, to declare our interdependence upon all people here on planet earth?     Is 250 years long enough to grow out of our teenage level of development?    Are we grown up enough to know that we’re all in this thing together:  God, neighbor, ourselves?   That independence was a youthful illusion, and not the reality God commanded us to accept?                   

When can we expect to grow out of our habit of celebrating independence in God’s interdependent world?