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A review by marcy_kelleher
The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power by D.L. Mayfield
5.0
A lament. And a call for hope.
This book touches on the several ways that the ”American Dream” has failed many and the ways that our Christian communities have allowed the promises of that dream to supplant mutual care and human thriving that Jesus calls us to. The lament of this book is built upon the human dignity of every person and the many calls from Scripture to the Believer’s duty to care for the orphan, the widow, the poor, the stranger. This call has gone widely unheeded by American Christians. The “least of these” are pushed to the margins while our culture, even many of our Christian communities, chase the American dream of prosperity.
It is a call for Christians to enter into the suffering of our fellow men and women. It is a call to live out our faith in action, not hold it neatly on Sunday morning and pretend that the gospel makes no demands of us to live in sometimes radically sacrificial ways in order to care for our neighbor. That is not an easy message to bring to people who are happy with being comfortable. Even for one who is willing to challenge myself, it pinches, and I have to ask myself what is God asking of me?
The epilogue that discusses “how to live in empire” offers hope, & the idea of subsidiarity: that we work to see, hear, and love the marginalized in our own local communities and treat them with the dignity God created them.
This book touches on the several ways that the ”American Dream” has failed many and the ways that our Christian communities have allowed the promises of that dream to supplant mutual care and human thriving that Jesus calls us to. The lament of this book is built upon the human dignity of every person and the many calls from Scripture to the Believer’s duty to care for the orphan, the widow, the poor, the stranger. This call has gone widely unheeded by American Christians. The “least of these” are pushed to the margins while our culture, even many of our Christian communities, chase the American dream of prosperity.
It is a call for Christians to enter into the suffering of our fellow men and women. It is a call to live out our faith in action, not hold it neatly on Sunday morning and pretend that the gospel makes no demands of us to live in sometimes radically sacrificial ways in order to care for our neighbor. That is not an easy message to bring to people who are happy with being comfortable. Even for one who is willing to challenge myself, it pinches, and I have to ask myself what is God asking of me?
The epilogue that discusses “how to live in empire” offers hope, & the idea of subsidiarity: that we work to see, hear, and love the marginalized in our own local communities and treat them with the dignity God created them.