Take Paradise; Put up a parking lot!

So Adam and Eve, we’re told, were in Paradise, the Garden of Eden. It was a wonderful place, an ideal place. They had everything they could’ve wanted.

But one day a snake sowed discontent into their minds, and they began to see negatives where there really were no negatives. God had only and always given them the best and done the very best for them. But they began to think He wasn’t that great after all. He was keeping things from them. He didn’t want them to eat from one particular tree, because that would make them gods, like Him.

Ya know, they began to think, this place isn’t really that great after all. We could have a better place, where we’d be like gods. Things could be a lot better than they are here. God has ripped us off!

Thinking like that led to doing something that was clearly forbidden, and the next thing you know, judgment fell upon them and they were kicked out of the very Paradise they’d been enjoying, but had begun to think less of! If only they’d understood how good they had it! If only they’d appreciated all that had been done for them!

So there was this country, the United States of America. It had just about everything going for it. Every kind of resource, even more coal, oil, and natural gas than any other country! It had lots of beautiful territory and was naturally protected from enemies by two oceans. It had a river system that enabled shipping of all its produce cheaply. It had a Christian heritage that gave it the best government ever. It had an economic system of free enterprise, that enabled people to do the very best they could for themselves, so it was the most prosperous country, not only on earth, but in all of human history! A Christian heritage. Capitalism. Free enterprise. Prosperity. Resources. Freedom. Human rights. Together, it all made for the best system of all time!

But then some snakes began to spread lies. This country really had never been that great after all! It was racist. It was just for white Europeans. It had exterminated the native peoples, and enslaved millions from Africa, and all those things were still at work everywhere. Its economic system was seriously flawed. Why, there was inequality, and everybody didn’t get the same as everybody else.

And the so-called Christian heritage America had, why that was just terrible! After all, that belief system caused wars and homophobia and led people to hate one another. It was just a fairy-tale. Don’t pay any attention to the human dignity it brought, freedom from slavery, the rights of all human beings, and the high valuation and sanctity of life it brought! Those were all lies!  

And all the resources? Well, they were nasty, destructive, unnatural! If America didn’t stop using them, the whole world would be destroyed! Just because all those cheap, abundant, and highly efficient fuels were right there under the Americans’ lands, that didn’t mean they should be used to fuel freedom and prosperity anymore. No! It would be much better if we covered the land with ugly windmills and solar panels, even though they didn’t produce a fraction of what fossil fuels produced!

Capitalism? Why it was evil! Just because it produced prosperity, that didn’t mean it was right! Wouldn’t it be much better to throw that system out, tear down the whole economy, and build a more equitable socialistic system, that had been proven time and time again to not work at all and to bring whole societies down?

Yeah, the snakes’ voices began to prevail. Lots of Americans no longer believed America was a good place. They no longer trusted the God who had so blessed them. They no longer believed in the economic system or the beliefs and practices that had made them so prosperous and free and had worked so well for so long. They no longer believed in E pluribus Unum, from the many, they could all become one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. No! They believed what the snake said, that they were best divided up into tribes, black, white, brown, liberal, conservative, progressive. That way, they could get more power and make a better world!

Oh, America, America, will you not learn from others’ mistakes? Will you not see what privileges and blessings you have enjoyed, and understand where they came from? Will you not see how the snake has always brought only misery and destruction, banishment and fear and division and chaos?! How long do you think you can continue to listen to the lies and still prosper? Turn away from those snakes and that leader of the snakes, the devil! Stop believing those lies and get back to the truth!

The Bible teaches you the truth. Christ is the Truth! America has been great and can continue to be, but only if it continues on the “ancient path” that leads to greatness. Sure, there are things that need to be fixed, things that aren’t perfect. But are you sure you want to just tear everything down, when you don’t even know what you’re going to replace it with? When you don’t even realize what made it all work in the first place?