It’s the time of the year when the United States celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom. These days there is always something “up in the air.” One of those things is the fact that the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was found flying over the vacation home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. (My family often flew this other flag while on vacation.) I think this issue would be illuminated if we get past the usual virtue signalling (racist/bigoted/homophobic/transphobic/etc.) and come to the issue that supposedly drives everything is our society–power, because it is here where we find the real reason for the angst over this banner, which is deeply rooted in American history.
If we go back a couple of hundred years or so, we’ll find that religion in general and Christianity in particular was criticized as escapist and the “opiate of the people” (to used Karl and Fred’s phrase.) It was there to dull the pain of their oppression; get rid of the opiate, and the people would revolt. And it’s true that the capitalists of the day, many of whom sat in their reserved boxes in church on Sundays, looked at it in the same way. That’s led to people criticizing Christianity as “pie in the sky” where all of the indignities of this life would pale besides a reward in the next one.
That last point is true, but those in positions of power and wealth look at it entirely differently these days.
These days we have a secular (sort of, definitely non-Christian) elite which fancies itself as the measure of all things and in control of the situation. For people to rise up and appeal to heaven in any way is a personal offence, because a) it means that they are not the final judge of people and b) people can and will eventually escape their clutches and find life beyond their realm. If there’s one thing control freaks (and our elites are that) hate more than anything else, it’s for people to escape from their rule.
The reality of this inverted situation hasn’t quite sunk in to elitist and Christian alike. The elitist would like to use it as a club to push back against the relevance of their opponents to the present life. In this respect they owe their Christian predecessors an apology; if you know what you’re doing, it’s easier to keep a lid on people who have their focus on the next life. The Christians appeal to a more Biblically based United States when in fact a path towards restoration is beyond their grasp and has been for some time.
It’s worth noting that Christianity is not alone in having an eternity as a motivator; we also see this in Islam. The fact that we have “gays for Palestine” marching in our streets shows that elite opinion hasn’t figured this out either; failure to come to grips with people who are fundamentally different from us isn’t an American strong suit, but in this case the consequences could be dire.
The appeal to heaven is really all we have these days, isn’t it?
Positive Infinity 