Thursday, March 01, 2007

Yankee Doodle Jesus - pt. 7

This is a real poster. I did not make this one up. In fact, this is one of many posters about belief in God and being American. What do you think? Does American = belief in God?

To see more Yankee Doodle Jesus click here.

8 comments:

jonny5 said...

the answer is "yes!" belief in god is foundational to americanism. and this is precisely the problem. belief in what god? the god of the idealistic puritan ushering in the kingdom with his "city on a hill"? or is it the clock-maker god of the deists? or is it the one true god of the unitarian? or is it the god of the scottish common sense realist? or is it the god of Locke and the social contract theorists?

Anonymous said...

I'm most concerned about the fact that the woman on the poster appears to me doing some sort of breast exam.

Unknown said...

johnny5 - what?

lyndsay - i hadn't noticed that, but you are right. that's odd. you can't take god out of the schools but you can do that in public schools? what's the matter with our country?

jonny5 said...

while working on my thesis, i'm prone to occassional theological brain farts. sometimes i even have to check my underpants.

ricki said...

America = Belief in God? Probably not the right wording but if we take away our Judeo-Christian values or the God that underpins that, we fail. This is why (and I'm not an anti-war guy) our many wars in countries that do not have this ultimately fail to make a long-term difference.

Bryan C. McWhite said...

Okay, maybe we have to be believe in God to be American, but do we also have to dress like this? I mean that kid must get his theistic American ass kicked all the time!

Unknown said...

how do we defend believing the idea that we must believe in God to be American? maybe some of you are joking but how do we defend that argument?

jonny5 said...

i think it's indefensible--especially if one interprets belief in god according to modern evangelical standards. the point of my first comment is that, taken as a whole, the god of our fathers ends up being no god at all (at least at a federal level; there's more explicitely christian jargon at the state level in early american documents). about all you can say is that, in its beginnings, americanism presupposed a belief in a higher power. and that higher power--though often ripped of its orthodox trinitarianism--is rooted in christianity.