Maggie's Farm

My children, tho Christian, have enough exposure to the pc pablum fed them thru the public school system to be fun to tease. So I tell them approvingly about Spanish conquistador conversions at the point of a sword, or that Chinese nationalist general baptising his troops in WWII with a hose. They were appalled to discover that my husband and I had engraved "Deus Vult" (the Crusader battle cry, God wills it), inside our wedding bands as they have been taught at school to consider the Crusaders murderous villains.

In more serious moments we have cheered and cried over every schmaltzy Biblical epic and tale of Christian martyrs and noble missionaries to China and Africa, watch films like "The Mission" and discuss people dying for their faith, the ways missionaries sometimes are used for other people's geopolitical ambitions, sometimes sacrifice themselves in the service of the people they preach the Good News to.

Sobering conversation the other day about Langdon Gilkey's study "Shantung Compound" about a bunch of Europeans and Americans interned in China by the invading Japs during WWII, and how the community they had to create for themselves under guard showed the best and worst of people. The American missionaries and business types didn't behave very well. The heroes of the story were the celibate Dutch Roman Catholic brothers who dug the latrines and sang and performed acts of charity for all. Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Shantung-Compound-Story-Under-Pressure/dp/0060631120

At the risk of many a teenaged "Whatever" I will remind my kids whenever they are in the car with me that God cares more about us building His kingdom here on earth than about our being popular, how their Puritan ancestors were hated and misunderstood, that all the world loves to revile us Americans but longs to be here, that we are still a city on a hill and have to set a good example. I tell them about the six foot high blood red letters that greeted me as an eight year old moving to Argentina "Yankee Go Home" and about their grandfather (an immigrant who gave up his inheritance to become a citizen over familial objections)and his lifelong dream and work to share American technology, management techniques,business knowhow and democratic way of life with the uncivilized Third World he had grown up in.

They know that they are being raised in God's country and that their responsibilities as Americans are inseparable from their Christian heritage, called to be salt and light in a world sorely in need of it.

I lived years abroad amongst more sophisticated and better educated foreigners whose brains and civilization I admired and envied, and whose contempt for our American sense of mission at first embarassed me--was I just a cultural imperialist, an ugly American, the capitalist pig they called us? Eventually I realized that they might have more beautiful buildings, superior art and literature, a richer history, but that that was no substitute for the new and better world we barbarian colonials have built for ourselves. We are barbarians, uncouth, clumsy, ignorant, and would all do well to study the ways of the Old World and the circumstances of the Third World better. But my years abroad were years in exile, and every single day of the last 30 years that I have been back here I have appreciated the freedoms, the opportunities, the energies, the communities, the spirit of this home of mine. People want in. It's true that I criticise my country as I criticise family members and friends who fall short of the great things I see them capable of. But God help those outsiders who attack them.

As for the self-hatred of the American Left and the chi-chi academic and NY intelligentsia? I lived and studied amongst them and still don't understand their biting the hand that fed them. It is perfectly possible to call for reform and improvement of this beloved country of ours without hating it. If my kid sloughs off and gets a B on a test, I chew them out. If my country tolerates insider traders and corrupt politicians, I will holler about it. But I will not ever stop loving and revering our history, our freedoms, our traditions, the light we are to the rest of the world. And all that is best about our country comes from the faith of our fathers.

To take the faith out of this nation is to rip its heart out.

I'm a crank and verbose, but I still teach Sunday school every week and know that it is (after caring for my family) the most important work I do. I am a boring and conservative Christian mommy, a fervent patriot. But I am not a fascist or an abortion clinic bomber or book burner or totalitarian monster.

Actually, on a related topic, I am just off to go look up some more stuff on the Knights Templar, particular heroes of mine. Perhaps you have already posted some stuff on them, but they are my idea of cool Christian soldiers! Used to daydream as a kid about being one of them or in the French Foreign Legion...Wrong gender...but my Sunday school kids get to reenact a lot of cool Biblical battles with great sound effects!

Preparing them to do battle with the principalities and powers...DUDAH! DUDAH! Atheists beware!