Pentecost and Propaganda

This post is a long time coming. It's been in the works for more than a week, but I've been prevented from getting more than one sentence in at a time by a busy schedule, but here is is.

Last year I read a book called Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. In the book he talks about how we are citizens of the Kingdom of God first and foremost. Yes, we may be citizens of the United States, but Jesus finds what we call borders no more than annoying lines in the sand. Meaning they hold no sway over where he will go, what he will do or who he will bless. Keeping our primary allegiance in mind, what are our most important "holidays" as followers of Christ? Obviously, the birth and Resurrection of Christ are first on the mind of many readers, I know they were first in my mind. Then we have Pentecost, the oft overlooked celebration of the birth of the church. 50 days after Easter we received the Holy Spirit from God as our advocate. Acts 2 and John 16 are both worthwhile if you want to know more.

All of this I was thinking 2 weeks ago on Memorial Day. I was on the street early in the morning with my American Flag in hand, thinking to myself, I wish this was a Pentecost Parade. I thought the memorial day service and parade were nice, honestly. The boy scouts and colonels and reservists who stood on stage and said this is one of the most important days for our country every year. Well, that was more than a stretch.

There is a great podcast called "stuff you should know" that recently covered the topic of propaganda. They went over the different ways it is spread and how effective each one is. For example, one way is called "Glittering Generalities". This involves taking a commonly accepted or liked theme and pairing it with one side of the argument. George Bush did this extremely well. The Patriot Act really has nothing to do with patriots, it's main focus is information security and domestic spying. Whoever is against it though can be easily characterized as anti-American. "What do you hate Patriots?" Or the "Pro-Family" movement, really nothing to do with helping American families in their struggles but seeks to broadly restrict the rights of homosexuals and marginalize them. Anyone bold enough to point this out must hate families. In an interesting side note I learned Pope Gregory (V?) established the congregation of propaganda to return people to the Catholic Church after Martin Luther nailed his list to the church's door. I digress back to Memorial Day. I felt like the Memorial day service was this propaganda piece to perpetuate the myth that America is a christian nation. It's this belief that we are "The city on the Hill" that justifies so much war. It's the Us/Them mentality. I won't even start on asking them to mention the thousands that died in Nagasaki and Hiroshima or hundreds of other wars. In the end that day wasn't remembering those that died. It was Glorifying those that died, as if the lives of Americans are worth anything more to God than those of others around the world. Myths, propaganda. I'm not deluded I know Christians have fought in many wars. I just believe the way of Jesus was non-violent.

I'm all about glorifying the one who died not just for me but for ALL of HUMANITY, Jesus Christ. I hope you had a blessed Pentecost, thanks for reading.