That explains a lot. Pagan Christianity is the cause of that sick narcissism of ours, of our love of flattery, of our exceptionalism and our shallowness. It is in our love and our hate. German perception of faith became the most vulnerable to the intrinsic transformation exactly as it proved itself vulnerable to the takeover by the Nazi concept of occult. German Jesus is the only one who adapts. Other Jesuses do not. That's makes Him the one and only American God, the same as an apple-pie.
Thus we should not be surprised that He protects His interests. The seemingly stupid fight against evolution is quite understandable; the Bible sales will go down significantly if people adopt the evolution as a fact. Evangelical God enjoys the life of luxury in the US and He would be a fool to lose it whether it is due to evolution, Global Warming or lack of sales on Christmas. Same as everyone of us.
Everyone of us. That's the word. American God is like us. He has all our qualities and nothing of Divine. He basks in our sins and celebrates our joys. He is all- forgiving. He is very much alive and is always a great patriot. He loves the July 4th fireworks, fast cars, baseball and golf. He eats at McDonald's . He loves to have beer with folks and prefers Michelob. He runs in the morning with a fat Jewish girl, receives a confession from Michael Corleone and goes to the Mosque with the Imam. He does Yoga and Pilates. He is our pal and just like us he is honest until proven otherwise (per John O'Hara). The God that blesses America is ours to keep. We love Him. So what bothers us?
We are not happy. It can be proven by our vehement noise about our unique happiness. We howl about us being the greatest, the freest, the most productive, the most generous, the most" the most". But we are not. Something is wrong. We can smell it. We suddenly go after other religions, we ponder over Sharia laws which have nothing to do with us, we are in discontent. Why? We have our American God, what more can we wish for?
Deep inside we know. Our Jesus has no honor. It is an old story but the paradox of any religion is that any God loses his honor as soon as people buy Him. And with His honor their honor is lost too. Some may say that it is a Satanic invention and those whose God loses honor become true Satanists. The honor of God is His ability to be in another planefield, over the people, to emphasize again and again that worship does not make you special, that the Love of God is distributed equally among ALL people on Earth the same way Jesus could feed the crowds with five loafs of bread. The honor of God is His Divine separation. As soon as he becomes a pal he loses it and honor goes away. What remains is just an empty shell, a totem as I have mentioned above. We dishonored ourselves and we know that. There's no way to escape it because fear that others might discover it is overwhelming. We are afraid because we"ve got what we wished and now we have to live with it. Our God is a nice fellow but he doesn't care.
He proved himself useful as a God of an individual endeavor, he helped our ancestors to take over this place but in the process he sort of forgot that divine business. We are on our own.
So what kind of tune would the French sergeant play to describe the US? I am afraid it would be a tune of perpetual boredom mixed with a dance macabre. If Heinrich Heine had written a story about the US he would have called it "America, The Winter Nightmare'.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).