First Reflection on Exiles – The Church in the Shadow of Empire by Preston Sprinkle
A key question was asked about how we/I feel as an American about this election cycle from a fellow student from outside the US – What do you think of the election in light of the first chapter of this book?
Just by way of background, I’m the son of a lawyer. He loved to observe politics, talk politics, argue political positions. In college, I went to a school where political figures would regularly visit. My field of study was at first law, then I shifted to business. But the socio-political was ever-present. My life has been full of politics, and as an adult I have continued to be enmeshed in the world of politics. I have worked in and led parts of global organizations in the business consulting/technology, and software industries.
But I have not participated directly in what America, like so many other social endeavors, has turned into the industry of politics. I have spoken/written in a few forums, and voted, but not been in government. Rather, I know how analyze and recommend – to assess social situations, research the facts, look at the bigger picture, then analyze the implications through the lenses of social demographics, economic impacts, equity concerns, environmental effects, historical context, etc., and then predict the policy’s potential long-term consequences.
I give you this background to give you a sense of “where I come from” in this world.
On the morning after the election, I got a text from one of the three foreign exchange students my wife and I have hosted. Lena, is from Germany. She has been the one who has stayed in closest touch with us. She visits about every other year, and we know each other quite well. She is the daughter I never had – I have two sons. Having worked in Europe and especially Germany over parts of three decades, I know, she also reflects the views and mood of Germans towards our country. And her view has always been very much like my friends from Germany and across Europe – although from a young person’s point of view.
Her Text:
Hey Pete! When exactly are you moving out of the US?
I am so sorry … couldn’t sleep all night.
How are you doing?
Sending hugs from Kiel!
Lena
Just to clarify politically, I am officially registered as an “Independent” in my community. But I have spanned the ideological perspective from conservative (I used to call myself a fiscal conservative) to what now most people who know me would describe as a “progressive/liberal” perspective.
I grew up with my father “the lawyer”. Guess what our main topics were in our conversations around the dinner table? He was a Nixon Republican. Reagan was okay, but not quite serious enough for him, given Reagan was an “actor”. Politics and government were serious business, not frivolous, “not the domain for actors, or clowns” as he’d often say. My dad had high regard for education and expertise. So, given my upbringing and my conservative education in business at a Catholic College, I too, became a proud “Republican” for much of my adult life.
In the early 2000’s, I was really staring to work more regularly globally, my perspectives started to change. My German colleagues would mercilessly tease me about America. And especially about our “Baseball President” (George W. Bush had been the owner of the Texas Rangers professional baseball team prior to running for office). On the other hand, their Chancellors, had been in succession a respected lawyer, and a doctor in Quantum Chemistry. Serious people of deep education and expertise. And I had to admit, Bush didn’t seem the brightest bulb. I used to cringe as I listened to him speak. Nor was I as “all-in” on the economic, social, military and foreign policies his administration were pursuing.
I completely fell off the bandwagon when shortly before the end of Bush’s first term in office, I was at a future of economy seminar. The speaker put up a graph of an upward hyperbolic curve, without any labels, and asked, “what’s this?” No one knew. He said, “This Is the yearly budget deficit of the US for the last four years”. I was shocked. He further elaborated, “This is the most pronounced rise in spending and the budget deficit since the Great Depression. This has happened with a Republican President and Republican majorities in both the House and Senate. Further, more new spending has been introduced in the last four years, than at any time in our nation’s history. And every bill introduced has passed, and not one was vetoed. So much fiscal conservatism.””
My fiscally conservative, Republican self almost fell out of my chair. If these people could not be counted on to steward our national finances, then how were they different from the other party? Who was minding the store? Plus their other policies were starting to seem overly expansionist, militaristic, self-righteous, cruel, with a fiscal focus of enabling upper class wealth building and ownership.
I filed for political divorce from the Republican Party.
By the 2008 Election the divorce was finalizing. I had a severe health issue around that time. And looking back now, I am certain I had a premonition, dream or voice from God. Something of a divine encounter. The context was in the form of questions:
- Why do we have to be so conservative with our spending on people?
- Why is our focus on reducing taxes for the wealthy?
- What if this country just took care of its downtrodden?
- Instead of giving sparse, highly meted handouts, using our “trickle down” economy, leaving groups of people forever destitute, what if we just provided what was needed – food, shelter, education, healthcare – basics for life?
- Regardless of cost. Why don’t we spend what it takes?
It flipped my personal economy and my thinking about the economy on its head. I started looking into it. What I found astounded me, in a bad way. There could be much more to that part of the story. But suffice to say, the US deliberately chooses to have the poor – and it is very class and race specific. The US is the wealthiest nation in the world, in the world’s history – nearly twice the next wealthiest nation, China – almost a third of total world wealth. According to estimates, it would take $175B to eliminate poverty in the US, 1% of the Federal Budget as of now. The country could easily afford to take care of our poor, eliminate poverty. We choose poverty for 60 million of our 330 million people.
This finalized my divorce from my own “politics as usual”. I changed my voter designation from “Republican” to “Independent”, and used my analysis and planning skills to further assess our social condition and policies to help humans “thrive”. Again, what I found and keep finding, is appalling.
As time has gone on, I have developed an extensive, fact-based policy perspective of what I try to believe is a “What would God do?” “How can we improve human thriving”?
This is a policy-based political ideology, not a party-based ideology. I would like to believe I can now support my positions from a God-centered viewpoint.
And these policy positions now seem to more and more not align with any of platform and policy positions of the Republican Party of the US. And given the personality of the party, as reflected by Trump and the MAGA movement, their divisive basis, their “othering”, their need for superiority, their cruelty amongst many other characteristics, I doubt I will support them again in my lifetime.
But this change, has caused extreme division in my home. I have been accused of “changing sides”. And continued to be told, I’m now, on the other side, as if I did something like chose to cheer for the Packers instead of the Vikings (an intense regional American Football sport rivalry). This has caused “politics” and/or policy to become a banned subject in my immediate household.
And I have become dogmatic. I can state facts and illustrate the suffering caused by specific policies versus the good of other policies. I can specifically define who benefits, has benefited. I can predict the implications of policy on society and economy. I can trace the impacts of policies and other factors on current issues. And along with the turn away from the Republican party, my views have become more precise and dogmatic. But less kind. I recently got secondhand feedback that from someone who said, “I think he’s right, but he’s an arrogant know-it-all. I’ll never agree with him.”
We have a saying for this “dead right”.
So, with all of this, this election was a shock to my core. Don’t people know the difference between good and bad? Don’t they see they’re voting against their best interests? Don’t they see the implications of what’s been promised? Don’t they see the cruelty being unleashed? Don’t they see the change in world order? The slide into authoritarianism? Don’t they see? Who are these people? How can I possibly relate to people like this?
Hence my thoughts about “not belonging” here. And this book seems to be putting language to many of my thoughts. I’m hoping it keeps doing so. But I hope it can also help me with my dogmatism, or should it? Are these thoughts “prophetic?” And I also hope it helps give insight into “how to live as an exile”. Because right now, I’m saddened, fearful and confused. I’m in Babylon.
What’s to come?
SeePhas 