Is The American Dream Conflicting With Discipleship?

April 2011

“Chasing the American Dream” is a common saying among us. What does it mean? Is it interfering with our churches’ ability to make disciples? Is it at odds with the Christian life? I believe the question is worth some ink.

What then is the American Dream? Wikipedia says that it is a “national ethos (an attitude) of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success.” According to a WordNet search it is: “the widespread aspiration of Americans to live better than their parents did.” These ideas of the American Dream are rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

There it is. Our infatuation with freedom, prosperity, success, and happiness may be jeopardizing our ability to follow Jesus, the Way, in the way he prescribed. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the declaration or ethos our wise ancestors gave us. This ethos has been at the forefront of the world’s march toward better health, better education, better economic welfare, freedom to pursue human potential, the world over. The ethos is wholesome, motivating, and captures the aspirations of the human spirit. The problem resides in the ways we interpret the Dream. Wrongly interpreted, it’s easy to justify greed and envy, ambition and jealousy as good attitudes and deeds. It’s easy for this interpretation of the Dream to spill over into daily life as long hours at work or keeping up with the Joneses. It can lead us to a frantic life, and to buying the latest, new and improved gadgets, just because. We’re always socially connected but not to the Source of Life. Even if we don’t succumb, the temptation is constant.

Are we happy yet?

The net effect of this distortion of the Dream is the loss of emotional, and spiritual energy. Pursuing the Dream in the wrong way leaves little or no vitality to pursue the radical life of the kingdom Jesus teaches. The Christian life is inclusive of everything in life. Little time and vim and vigor are left for ministry, for serving others, and for living a sane and a grace-filled Christian existence. At the end of most days many of us crash into bed, exhausted and incapacitated by the buying and selling, the rat race, the long hours of work, the schedule on the calendar. We end up paying for it all with a currency that robs us of our joie de vivre. We’re spent and we know it. We’re frustrated and unhappy. Our pastors know it. We attend to our religious duties weekly giving our emotional and physical leftovers to God. Can apprenticeship to Jesus in kingdom living thrive under these conditions?

Please don’t misunderstand me: I am only reflecting on the way many of us interpret and chase the Dream as we pursue it with our fallen nature. How much of this interpretation of the Dream drives the way we do church and the Christian life today?

In contrast, what then is the Biblical Dream for life with God? The prophet Micah promises a much simpler dream for the people of God, for kingdom living. Petersen, in the Message, translates 4:4-5 this way: “Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her own garden. God-of-the-Angel-of-Armies says so, and he means what he says. Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish, picking and choosing their gods. But we live honoring God, and we’re loyal to our God forever and ever.” How’s that for a Dream worth pursuing and is Life giving? The same biblical writer also puts the Dream this way: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women, it’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously” (Micah 6:8).

Or take the dream Jesus has for us: A life of repentance and trust, carrying crosses daily, self-denial, loving God and others and caring for ourselves, and following in the footsteps of the Master in kingdom living. Would we consider poverty an aspiration in this life? How about contentment with little? How about making hungering and thirsting for righteousness the primary thing in life so that our lives are then full of God? Do we even dream of these as Christian aspirations any more?

Some might object to such a suggestion. After all, Scripture does not forbid prosperity especially if it is used for the purpose of blessing others, nor does it promote laziness. Others don’t see the conflict at all: You can be devoted to Christ and devoted to doing your own will. You be the judge!

What then are churches to do? How should church leaders handle the conflict between the biblical dream and the American Dream their people face? How can we continue doing the same thing expecting different results to occur?

It’s not that I have the solution, or that I’m exempt from the struggle. I’m simply putting a question mark on our life’s pursuit of happiness as it conflicts with the call of Jesus to be his apprentices in living sacrificially and abundantly at the expense of the excesses engendered by the frantic chase of the American Dream. I’m satisfied with asking the question for now. Next month I will suggest some ways to get at this issue. Those who walk with the Master must constantly evaluate whether they are truly following the Master in the way he prescribes.

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