Changing of the guards..

The other day I watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama. I thought that the whole ordeal is an extremely interesting example of Empire and Kingdom values. It started off with several significant politicians entering and taking seats. The whole process actually reminded me of a wedding- which is typically a very religious event.

We talked about how lots of times empires will use religious language to entice people into their view and way of life. This was definitely evident in the inauguration. For example, both Biden and Obama were sworn in with Bibles, yet one of the first things Obama mentioned in his speech was how America was a land of multiple religions and faiths. We talked about this a little bit in class, but it was interesting that in doing so, he placed America above all of the faiths. Obama used America as the greater metanarrative that ties all of us together, and our faith is secondary. In this view, we would be American Christians, rather than Christian Americans. Unfortunately this subtle difference in language can really affect the way that people view America and how it interacts with different stories/metanarratives.

Obama’s inauguration address will most certainly go down in American history as a historic event. While I am not trying to take away from the significance of what transpired, I couldn’t help but notice how he contradicted himself so many times within the same speech as well as to reassert the power of the empire. For example, Obama said that he wanted America to work along side poor nations and try to relieve a lot of their major problems, and that other affluent nations should follow along. But in a few sentences later he talked about how the American lifestyle was essentially non-negotiable. And it is this way of life that is continuing the ever widening gap between affluence and poverty. This also has interesting implications when Obama moved onto talk about environmental issues. If the American lifestyle is not going to change, how are we going to progress beyond oil and develop any of the alternative energy sources that are thrown around in political circles?

I think that ultimately Obama addressed the empire in his inauguration address. While he did allude to Kingdom values, which are great things- I think that it is really important to examine different aspects of our lifestyles and find alternatives that are more socially and environmentally sustainable. But, he chose to use the empire as a means to carry this out, rather than faith. While I think that Christians can work with the government to attain Kingdom values and changes in the world, we need to not be afraid to go beyond the government. We cannot expect it to carry out our faith for us.