Can God Save America?

By George Anthony Pratt, Contributing Writer

A Facebook post from an African American and Methodist pastor read, “I really mean this. May God Bless America! We need God, BAD!” I paused at the declaration of God extending benevolence to America and the profession of the country in desperate need of God. With suspicion, I questioned if a just God would intervene in human affairs on behalf of America. Would a God of love, equity, and inclusion pour bounty into the “land of the free” or allow the “home of the brave” to implode? When considering the present historical moment characterized by the conflict of culture wars steeped in othering embodied by forms of anti-blackness, misogyny, queerphobia, and economic oppression relative to the nation’s past, an answer to my line of inquiry became clear. My question then shifted, probing if God can save America.

My answer? No. I do not think God can save America. My response is not concerned with the ability of God or a God to offer their cleansing salvation to the blood-stained banner of American sovereignty. Rather, I do not believe that a God of freedom and liberty would sully and soil themselves with the muck and mire of America and her many acts of injustices too lengthy and lasting to name. I would surmise America’s salvation rests upon her citizens. I would suggest that a God of opportunity, life, and happiness would prefer its human selves and counterparts to enact a bold agency and ethic of radical love to usher in God’s heavenly kingdom on Earth, which is a beloved community, on Earth in America where all of God’s children got shoes, a robe, and a crown. This Mt. Zion of America, a country under a liberating God, is where all of their children would have equal opportunity and protection under the law, bodily integrity, autonomy, access to public goods and resources, housing, healthcare, and healthy food.

While imagining a future America that lives up to its ideals marks a start to achieving a freer society, actualizing this end will require a reckoning that I am afraid America is not willing to undertake nor prepared to confront. Suppose America truly desires to transform into a civil society that values the sacredness of the human person and eliminates oppression. In that case, the country must assess the following questions: As a nation-state, will the United States dismantle its surveilling institutions of white supremacy and systemic racism? Will America radically redistribute the nation’s wealth, abandoning its oppressive and exploitative model of meritocracy? Will America interrogate its loyalty to global imperialism and quench its thirst for militaristic, media, and cultural domination with a sip of longing to foster peace and cooperation throughout the world? The questions America must address for transformation are endless.

I do not think God can save America. I wish a god could save America, but I lay aside such a fanciful prayer, for I do not believe that America can save itself. I pray I am in error. I pray that a better America is not relegated to my dreams. I pray that my posterity will, too, sing of a free America. To the God of the empty prayers, hear my heart. Make the impossible happen. Oh! What a miracle it will be to witness America saving itself. God of the fanciful, we need you BAD! Bless us. I really mean this. God Bless America!