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swalker523's review
5.0
This book asks hard questions and doesn't necessarily give answers; which is exactly as it should be.
In recent years the lines between what is "Christian" and what is "American" have become blurred; resulting in a religious culture that seems more interested in amassing power for itself than in caring for its neighbors. Through the style of thought-provoking essays, D.L. Mayfield calls us to question American values that the Church has embraced as her own. It humanizes those that we've pushed into the margins. It calls us to examine our motives as we make choices about where we live, socialize, and seek entertainment.
One would assume that a book about such a heavy topic would be a hard read. It is not. This is a book that can be consumed while curled under a blanket on a cold rainy day. When put down in order to deal with other responsibilities, the book calls the reader back. I *highly* recommend it to anyone who has questions about America's unique version of Christianity.
In recent years the lines between what is "Christian" and what is "American" have become blurred; resulting in a religious culture that seems more interested in amassing power for itself than in caring for its neighbors. Through the style of thought-provoking essays, D.L. Mayfield calls us to question American values that the Church has embraced as her own. It humanizes those that we've pushed into the margins. It calls us to examine our motives as we make choices about where we live, socialize, and seek entertainment.
One would assume that a book about such a heavy topic would be a hard read. It is not. This is a book that can be consumed while curled under a blanket on a cold rainy day. When put down in order to deal with other responsibilities, the book calls the reader back. I *highly* recommend it to anyone who has questions about America's unique version of Christianity.
andi_h's review
5.0
I knew this one was going to be good long before I actually started reading it. I’ve been following D.L. Mayfield on social media for years, read her first book, and deeply appreciate her perspective and wisdom. The introduction convinced me that alongside the good, it was going to be hard and probably a little painful. And it was. The contrasts Mayfield draws between the American Dream and the scriptural blueprint for a society where everyone flourishes are sharp and uncomfortable. Confronting our privilege and complicity in the systems that marginalize, oppress, and dehumanize other image bearers is never easy. Doing so without getting lost in a fog of paralyzing guilt and fear is even harder. But we’re called to live humbly and act justly; and we cannot truly act justly without a renewed idea of what justice for all looks like. I’ll be processing this book for quite a while.
spacerkip's review
The author had some good, thought-provoking points, but she constantly muddled her message with overwhelming white guilt. Owning your privilege is good, especially when bringing to light the economic disparities that exist in our country, but constantly bemoaning it and acting like it is a sin to find joy amidst suffering defeated what I felt was the purpose of this entire book.
kaitlinlovesbooks's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Racism
ellenauer's review
2.0
I really want to agree with what Mayfield is saying. I think she’s onto something and though she says many concerning things, I can appreciate some of the ways that she challenges the lazy Christian to wake up. I actually thoroughly support her point in chapter 14, which after the first 13 chapters was a pleasant surprise. But overall, though I know where she is trying to go, she missed it. It’s just close enough to true that I fear this book could mislead many, and I highly recommend reading the 3-star review on here by Grace for more on that.
My brief review is: She gives a partial solution to a problem she partially addresses, and by omitting the most crucial part of the Biblical solution, failed to make a Biblical point. It’s a spiritual, mystic book that mentions Jesus, but not a Christian one.
My extensive review is... She has valid points about our tendency to believe in a passive Christ. He wasn’t passive or distant. He really did call out the elitist Pharisees. He really did care for the oppressed. He really did take tangible action and do miraculous ministry. He didn’t come just to get through those 30 years and die and resurrect so we could get through our 80 years and die and have eternal life. She’s right there. I also agree with her that many American Christians have sought affluence, autonomy, safety, and power over Christlikeness. Idolatry of the self is rampant in our culture, and we’d do well to evaluate Jesus’ life and teachings. He wasn’t teaching others to seek security and comfort. American ideals are not Christian ideals.
The problem is, disagreement with culture doesn’t mean you discount doctrine. Along with some offhand theological claims, somehow she has defined the “American Dream” as anything different than how people in poverty live, and made it evil. No mention of the blessing or benefit or anything else about the middle class that could possibly be used to glorify God. It’s all bad to her. The biggest fallacy is (follow me here)... Biblical doctrine = her middle-class upbringing, and her middle class upbringing = The American Dream, so Biblical doctrine = The American Dream, which is evil... She somehow drew these unequal things into one entity, and banished it all. But that’s not how it works. The Bible sets the precedent and is the unchanging truth, not the culture. People misinterpret and become lazy and prideful, and cultures change in minute ways that lead to dramatic differences over time. She throws the baby out with the bath water, which is clearly very dangerous when it regards the Bible. Over and over and over again, cultural norms and misguided values are to blame, but not once does she mention sin as a cause for anything. But... sin is the reason these happen. The corrupt systems and selfish agendas and misconstrued beliefs she addresses aren’t the problem; the sin that built the systems and agendas and misconstrued the Truth is. She found part of an issue but didn’t look deep enough to find the root, and thereby completely missed the point.
Mayfield loves to use the “If Jesus we’re here today, He would...” line, and I think she gets it halfway right. He would be with the least of these, He would graciously show us the ways that shame affect our ability to give and receive. However, He would also share the hope we can receive through Him. There’s no mention of the gospel’s importance, and she makes multiple references to God and Allah being the same, which is deeply concerning. Non-Christians can show us kindness, but they cannot “show us Christ’s love” as she states, because they don’t know Christ. She also goes so far as to say her neighbors are the ones “who have the keys to truly liberating us all...” YIKES. Jesus is portrayed as just a good guy we should be like, but not the Savior. Honestly, she kind of writes herself as the savior. The entire book is about her, and there’s not an inkling of HOPE in Christ in it. It’s pretty clear that she wants to be sad at the world and angry at everyone for not doing anything to help.
She hits hard on Christian responsibility to fight unjust systems of oppression. I completely agree that that is PART of our job here. Christians have commands to obey, and it’s not gonna happen if we all seek comfort just to get by in this life. However, again, she missed the Biblical why behind that responsibility. Our first responsibility to those around us is not to feed them or clothe them or teach them English. Yes, we should sacrifice, be strategic, and carry one another’s through the hardships of difficult ministry. We should do these things and more, but in order to share the gospel. Learning about the neighborhood and meeting tangible needs are good, but not the point. Our #1 responsibility to our neighbors, as commanded in Scripture, is to tell them about Christ. With that we take care of tangible needs- we don’t say “Jesus” and move on- but we cannot neglect the Gospel in our care for others. Meeting needs of someone’s 70-80 year experience on earth at the expense of their eternal soul is completely irresponsible and the most unloving thing we could do. Yet that is Mayfield’s solution. She straight up says “God’s dream” is for “every single person in the world to [to be] safe, happy, and flourishing”... Nope, sorry. Happiness now is not the end goal. I don’t think she even mentioned eternity in the entire book... 100% of her solutions regard physical needs on earth. This book is a quintessential example of the social gospel, so in the end, it’s incomplete.
My brief review is: She gives a partial solution to a problem she partially addresses, and by omitting the most crucial part of the Biblical solution, failed to make a Biblical point. It’s a spiritual, mystic book that mentions Jesus, but not a Christian one.
My extensive review is... She has valid points about our tendency to believe in a passive Christ. He wasn’t passive or distant. He really did call out the elitist Pharisees. He really did care for the oppressed. He really did take tangible action and do miraculous ministry. He didn’t come just to get through those 30 years and die and resurrect so we could get through our 80 years and die and have eternal life. She’s right there. I also agree with her that many American Christians have sought affluence, autonomy, safety, and power over Christlikeness. Idolatry of the self is rampant in our culture, and we’d do well to evaluate Jesus’ life and teachings. He wasn’t teaching others to seek security and comfort. American ideals are not Christian ideals.
The problem is, disagreement with culture doesn’t mean you discount doctrine. Along with some offhand theological claims, somehow she has defined the “American Dream” as anything different than how people in poverty live, and made it evil. No mention of the blessing or benefit or anything else about the middle class that could possibly be used to glorify God. It’s all bad to her. The biggest fallacy is (follow me here)... Biblical doctrine = her middle-class upbringing, and her middle class upbringing = The American Dream, so Biblical doctrine = The American Dream, which is evil... She somehow drew these unequal things into one entity, and banished it all. But that’s not how it works. The Bible sets the precedent and is the unchanging truth, not the culture. People misinterpret and become lazy and prideful, and cultures change in minute ways that lead to dramatic differences over time. She throws the baby out with the bath water, which is clearly very dangerous when it regards the Bible. Over and over and over again, cultural norms and misguided values are to blame, but not once does she mention sin as a cause for anything. But... sin is the reason these happen. The corrupt systems and selfish agendas and misconstrued beliefs she addresses aren’t the problem; the sin that built the systems and agendas and misconstrued the Truth is. She found part of an issue but didn’t look deep enough to find the root, and thereby completely missed the point.
Mayfield loves to use the “If Jesus we’re here today, He would...” line, and I think she gets it halfway right. He would be with the least of these, He would graciously show us the ways that shame affect our ability to give and receive. However, He would also share the hope we can receive through Him. There’s no mention of the gospel’s importance, and she makes multiple references to God and Allah being the same, which is deeply concerning. Non-Christians can show us kindness, but they cannot “show us Christ’s love” as she states, because they don’t know Christ. She also goes so far as to say her neighbors are the ones “who have the keys to truly liberating us all...” YIKES. Jesus is portrayed as just a good guy we should be like, but not the Savior. Honestly, she kind of writes herself as the savior. The entire book is about her, and there’s not an inkling of HOPE in Christ in it. It’s pretty clear that she wants to be sad at the world and angry at everyone for not doing anything to help.
She hits hard on Christian responsibility to fight unjust systems of oppression. I completely agree that that is PART of our job here. Christians have commands to obey, and it’s not gonna happen if we all seek comfort just to get by in this life. However, again, she missed the Biblical why behind that responsibility. Our first responsibility to those around us is not to feed them or clothe them or teach them English. Yes, we should sacrifice, be strategic, and carry one another’s through the hardships of difficult ministry. We should do these things and more, but in order to share the gospel. Learning about the neighborhood and meeting tangible needs are good, but not the point. Our #1 responsibility to our neighbors, as commanded in Scripture, is to tell them about Christ. With that we take care of tangible needs- we don’t say “Jesus” and move on- but we cannot neglect the Gospel in our care for others. Meeting needs of someone’s 70-80 year experience on earth at the expense of their eternal soul is completely irresponsible and the most unloving thing we could do. Yet that is Mayfield’s solution. She straight up says “God’s dream” is for “every single person in the world to [to be] safe, happy, and flourishing”... Nope, sorry. Happiness now is not the end goal. I don’t think she even mentioned eternity in the entire book... 100% of her solutions regard physical needs on earth. This book is a quintessential example of the social gospel, so in the end, it’s incomplete.
lukeaschumann's review
5.0
This book is, on the surface, reflections on how author D.L. Mayfield, a white woman of relative privilege, benefits from elements of the “American Dream” such as affluence, autonomy, safety, and power—and how others don’t benefit from these very things. But coinciding with this overarching narrative is one of her, as a committed Christian, trying to emulate what it means to love her neighbor(s) in her daily life. Though her temptation/occasional intention is to “save the world with her own two hands,” the true impact comes when she focuses on her immediate community. When she collaborates with her children’s underfunded school. When she shares meals with her literal neighbors. And it’s a story about her learning to release herself of previous assumptions and privileges, both with the larger political stories of today like #BLM, and the “smaller” ones concerning Muslim refugees—who she teaches and lives near. Maybe her role as a Christian, she posits, isn’t to “convert” everyone she encounters. Maybe it’s instead to love her neighbors where she and they are in the same way she believes that Christ loves her and all of us. Maybe it’s to help bring others to realize “imago dei” (being made in the image of God), whether that’s through telling a lonely friend that she is loved or by telling off someone who didn’t recognize someone else’s imago dei (in a loving way, of course).
For me, this book has helped put words to my own efforts of recognizing and releasing my privilege in recent years (to mixed success), and helped provide real stories and tangible practices I can look into myself. It is quick and accessible with short chapters, but it’s also packed, rich with wisdom and honesty. It breaks down the aforementioned categories (affluence, autonomy, safety, and power) in personal ways that can be understood by anyone. And I would recommend it for anyone, but particularly perhaps those who, like D.L. and I, grew up American, conservative, Christian, and privileged and who are wanting to learn how to dismantle our privilege in ways that advance the kingdom of God rather than the “kingdom” of the United States. Because Christians *should* believe that we are citizens of heaven before we pledge allegiance to any earthly nation, and being a citizen of heaven has much greater and more loving and equitable implications than any of us could ever imagine or create ourselves, try though we might.
For me, this book has helped put words to my own efforts of recognizing and releasing my privilege in recent years (to mixed success), and helped provide real stories and tangible practices I can look into myself. It is quick and accessible with short chapters, but it’s also packed, rich with wisdom and honesty. It breaks down the aforementioned categories (affluence, autonomy, safety, and power) in personal ways that can be understood by anyone. And I would recommend it for anyone, but particularly perhaps those who, like D.L. and I, grew up American, conservative, Christian, and privileged and who are wanting to learn how to dismantle our privilege in ways that advance the kingdom of God rather than the “kingdom” of the United States. Because Christians *should* believe that we are citizens of heaven before we pledge allegiance to any earthly nation, and being a citizen of heaven has much greater and more loving and equitable implications than any of us could ever imagine or create ourselves, try though we might.
mflorerbixler's review
5.0
A personal and moving work that attends to life experiences that changes us as we grow nearer, and often times painfully, towards the life of Jesus.
toggle_fow's review
3.0
I picked up this book expecting to hear about the dangers of allowing American cultural values to draw Christians' focus away from the gospel and onto worldly controversies and concerns. Instead, this book is about how Christians need to focus more on worldly concerns.
After another look at the title and blurb, I'm not sure why I thought this was going to be a Christian book, except that I got it from the religion section on NetGalley. I suppose it is, technically, a Christian book, in that it is engaged in a brutal wrestling match with the author's religious upbringing and self-image, mentions the Holy Spirit quite a bit, and does use Biblical stories as metaphors.
However, I would say that it's more of a spiritual book rather than a Christian one. Though certainly very present among Christian communities, the cultural values with which Mayfield is fighting a battle to the death (several of them mentioned in the book title) will be familiar to any American of almost any background.
Her clarion call to lift up the weak, work alongside the marginalized, and weep with the oppressed is religiously indiscriminate, and a widely-recognized moral value among people who don't believe in any higher power at all. Her convictions are outwardly draped in the robes of Jesus, but activists of all stripes should be able to nod along with her zeal to dismantle power structures and radically engage with privilege.
If you can't tell, I'm deeply divided on how to rate this book.
On the one hand, Jesus didn't come to offer salvation to mankind, actually. Apparently, he came to change earthly economics to be more fair!
I don't want to simplify or distort Mayfield's argument in order to create a straw man to criticize, because it is far more complex than what I just said. But. After reading the book I think I can confidently state that she genuinely feels that the central message of Jesus and the Bible in general is that God wants all of us to fix as many earthly problems for as much of humanity as we possibly can. Here is a quote:
Here is another:
I am not sure what kind of pre- or post-Millennial theology Mayfield ascribes to, but it is clear that she believes in some kind of new creation where Jesus reigns on a physical earth renewed and restored to pre-Fall perfected bliss. However, she also seems convicted that true morality for a Christian (or anyone) is singlehandedly prying the fatally flawed and explicitly doomed earth back into pre-Fall bliss through sheer elbow grease, force of will, and moral anguish.
There seems to be a great tension in her heart, and two magnetic poles between which she wobbles in agony. She sees and acknowledges her own savior complex, her own perfectionism, control issues, and struggle with a works-based mentality in the book, yet she still seems trapped by them. She sees her constant sadness and outrage at the unjust state of the world as a virtue, and happiness as a failure, a sign of apathy and moral weakness. Yet she also talks about learning to take joy in every small moment from her multicultural refugee friends, and acknowledges that sorrow is only helpful when you come to the other side of the psalm and reaffirm hope in God's love and goodness.
While Jesus is mentioned a lot in this book, Mayfield recounts a memory of a vision/dream she had while drugged up in the hospital after almost dying: she feasted in heaven around a table with Rohingya refugees and heard a voice implied to be that of God saying, "In heaven, you will feast with those who have suffered the most on earth."
This message, in some ways, is directly from the Bible. In the sermon on the mount. In the first chapter of James. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."
Mayfield sees this with crystal clarity. However, the entire chapter before the part I quoted shows that Paul is talking not about the virtue of being poor, but the virtue of being humble enough to accept the message of Christ crucified when all the highly-esteemed parts of the world we live in see it as foolishness. Where is Jesus in Mayfield's vision? She mentions his name a lot, but where is He? To her, salvation seems to come not through Jesus, but through the moral righteousness of being poor, being oppressed, and being sad. All those looking for a messiah in the time of Jesus were also looking for him to "dismantle oppressive hierarchies," and they were mistaken.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He said, My kingdom is not of this world.
I can't affirm the soundness in any perspective that doesn't put Jesus at the center of salvation, of life, of everything we do.
However, I said I was conflicted. On the OTHER hand, Mayfield makes a whole lot of very important and convicting points that I think a lot of the American Christian establishment could benefit from taking a long, hard look at. Here is a sampling:
After another look at the title and blurb, I'm not sure why I thought this was going to be a Christian book, except that I got it from the religion section on NetGalley. I suppose it is, technically, a Christian book, in that it is engaged in a brutal wrestling match with the author's religious upbringing and self-image, mentions the Holy Spirit quite a bit, and does use Biblical stories as metaphors.
However, I would say that it's more of a spiritual book rather than a Christian one. Though certainly very present among Christian communities, the cultural values with which Mayfield is fighting a battle to the death (several of them mentioned in the book title) will be familiar to any American of almost any background.
Her clarion call to lift up the weak, work alongside the marginalized, and weep with the oppressed is religiously indiscriminate, and a widely-recognized moral value among people who don't believe in any higher power at all. Her convictions are outwardly draped in the robes of Jesus, but activists of all stripes should be able to nod along with her zeal to dismantle power structures and radically engage with privilege.
If you can't tell, I'm deeply divided on how to rate this book.
On the one hand, Jesus didn't come to offer salvation to mankind, actually. Apparently, he came to change earthly economics to be more fair!
I don't want to simplify or distort Mayfield's argument in order to create a straw man to criticize, because it is far more complex than what I just said. But. After reading the book I think I can confidently state that she genuinely feels that the central message of Jesus and the Bible in general is that God wants all of us to fix as many earthly problems for as much of humanity as we possibly can. Here is a quote:
"What we want is the imagination to believe in heaven coming down to earth, in God's will being done to our neighbors, to shalom being experienced by those who have and are suffering the most. And this will not happen until we change the systems that actually created and uphold the way the United States works, the way America actually is, and until we own it as our own."
Here is another:
"I will never be happy until every single person in the world is safe, happy, and flourishing. I was both pleased and miserable at my core longing. I was pleased because it spoke to a spark of the divine in me because I do believe that this is God's dream for the world. I think this is what shalom is, what the Kingdom of God makes possible. But I was also miserable because until the kingdom comes in full, until we are in the new creation, this isn't a reality."
I am not sure what kind of pre- or post-Millennial theology Mayfield ascribes to, but it is clear that she believes in some kind of new creation where Jesus reigns on a physical earth renewed and restored to pre-Fall perfected bliss. However, she also seems convicted that true morality for a Christian (or anyone) is singlehandedly prying the fatally flawed and explicitly doomed earth back into pre-Fall bliss through sheer elbow grease, force of will, and moral anguish.
There seems to be a great tension in her heart, and two magnetic poles between which she wobbles in agony. She sees and acknowledges her own savior complex, her own perfectionism, control issues, and struggle with a works-based mentality in the book, yet she still seems trapped by them. She sees her constant sadness and outrage at the unjust state of the world as a virtue, and happiness as a failure, a sign of apathy and moral weakness. Yet she also talks about learning to take joy in every small moment from her multicultural refugee friends, and acknowledges that sorrow is only helpful when you come to the other side of the psalm and reaffirm hope in God's love and goodness.
While Jesus is mentioned a lot in this book, Mayfield recounts a memory of a vision/dream she had while drugged up in the hospital after almost dying: she feasted in heaven around a table with Rohingya refugees and heard a voice implied to be that of God saying, "In heaven, you will feast with those who have suffered the most on earth."
This message, in some ways, is directly from the Bible. In the sermon on the mount. In the first chapter of James. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."
Mayfield sees this with crystal clarity. However, the entire chapter before the part I quoted shows that Paul is talking not about the virtue of being poor, but the virtue of being humble enough to accept the message of Christ crucified when all the highly-esteemed parts of the world we live in see it as foolishness. Where is Jesus in Mayfield's vision? She mentions his name a lot, but where is He? To her, salvation seems to come not through Jesus, but through the moral righteousness of being poor, being oppressed, and being sad. All those looking for a messiah in the time of Jesus were also looking for him to "dismantle oppressive hierarchies," and they were mistaken.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He said, My kingdom is not of this world.
I can't affirm the soundness in any perspective that doesn't put Jesus at the center of salvation, of life, of everything we do.
However, I said I was conflicted. On the OTHER hand, Mayfield makes a whole lot of very important and convicting points that I think a lot of the American Christian establishment could benefit from taking a long, hard look at. Here is a sampling:
• The American virtue of autonomy. This is one that doesn't occur to me as often as some of the others, but was instantly convicting. I know that generally Western and especially American culture puts a lot of space between people. From how far away we stand when talking to people, to how far away our houses are from each other, to how close our family units tend to be, ours is a culture of individual over the group. I grew up knowing the names of one or two of my neighbors at the most and seeing them maybe once every five years during odd situations; this seems normal to me, but the majority of people in the world don't live this way.
Almost all non-Western people, the vast majority of world population, live in communities where neighbors know each other, where different generations of families live in the same house, where your business is everyone's business and everyone's is yours. As someone who loves to use the self-checkout at the grocery store to avoid human interaction as much as possible, this sounds borderline terrifying, but this is the kind of culture to which Jesus came. These are the kind of cultures to which the gospel was first preached.
Christians know we are ambassadors for Christ's message, but what does it say that one of the anecdotes about sharing Christ that I most commonly hear is about a 3-minute passing conversation with a grocery clerk? We are not to be of the world, but how can we share Christ if we are not in the world. Withdrawing further and further from close community relationships can only hurt our ability to show God's love to the world, and about that Mayfield is absolutely right.
• America as Rome. "There is nothing in Scripture, nothing in Jesus, that says my proud and terrible and interesting country is particularly blessed, has some special favor, has some special reason for existence," Mayfield says. Most of us have probably run into a sermon or a curriculum in which the United States is presented as the modern Israel, the Chosen Nation of the Christian era. Mayfield argues that, instead, the US is more like Rome or Babylon -- the powerful empire of the era, casting a shadow of spiritual error and physical suffering in which the people of God must live.
"We were founded as a Christian nation!" so many people say. There's probably some sense in which that is true, but it doesn't matter for any one of us individually. "Be sure that it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham." (Gal 3:7) The new Israel is those of all nations who follow God, not those who were born within a specific political boundary drawn on a map.
• Generosity. As a dyed-in-the-wool skinflint from day one, this is a hard one for me, but I think this is one of the best and strongest points included in this book. Mayfield talks about how we as a culture pursue affluence, and even positive practices widely encouraged like living within our means, investing wisely, and good financial management can be spiritually destructive if we start relying on ourselves and thinking we are in control. She talks about a time when she didn't give to a panhandler, saying, "If I was listening to the Spirit I would have given... believing that I had a role in providing for others just as I trusted that my own needs would be provided for."
That kind of mindset, exemplified by Mayfield's stories of her refugee friends who think nothing of giving even when they have little, like the widow with her mite or the church in Macedonia, is utterly alien to me. I have plenty, and still shudder at the thought of giving any away just in case the worst happens and I need it later. As a Christian, that's not how I should think. Consider the lilies of the field, after all. But I don't. I like to rely on myself, and only rely on God when I have no other recourse. A completely backwards relationship.
I have rarely heard a sermon on the Rich Young Ruler that didn't spend half its time disclaiming that being rich is okay, God never says being rich is wrong, as long as your priorities are right. That's not at all anywhere near the point of the encounter, and I think it speaks to a tendency to hoard that is shared by more than myself. Christians are told to "labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need." I think this is something we don't talk about enough, and that I needed to hear.
• Worldly success as the reward of virtue, and worldly struggles as a punishment for some moral failure. Even those who speak with contempt of the prosperity gospel can get tricked into holding this assumption, because it is one of the base elements of American culture and almost impossible to escape. We are told that if you work hard, you will succeed. Therefore, what are we to think about people who don't succeed? Well, they must not have worked hard.
It's a simple, intuitive arithmetic that's reinforced by much of our culture. Especially upper middle class white culture. And it leaves out half the story, while completely ignoring what the Bible says. "For some, the good news of the American Dream feels like bad news," says Mayfield. "I live in neighborhoods where I see the evidence of it everywhere: payday loan companies and fast food joints abound, but there are no green parks or community centers or apartments that are affordable."
I think she makes a powerful point using "good news" and "American Dream" in the same sentence like that, because they are not at all the same, and we make a grave mistake with possibly far-reaching consequences when we conflate them. God does not promise that wealth follows righteousness, so judging those who don't achieve it as if they somehow proved unworthy should sound ridiculous to any Christian.
• American evangelical paranoia with losing the culture war. Mayfield says that white Evangelicals who panic at the thought of becoming a minority in their own country are thinking empire thoughts. The Church is meant to be a remnant, a people set apart, wanderers in a land not our own. Not an empire. I think the point she makes about those in power fearing to lose it is a poignant one, and for Christians a dangerous one, since the last shall be first and the first shall be last. If our peace of mind comes from our position of cultural dominance and can be shaken so easily, we can hardly be trusting in God.