American Optimism is a Strange God

Nov 8, 2011
Elizabeth Scalia

Excerpt:
There are probably ten thousand articles to be found on the Internet all fleshing out their theories of what is behind America’s swift collapse. Curiously, most of them will touch—all without realizing it—on the seven deadly sins; Capitalist Greed; Spiritual Sloth; Physical Lust; Nationalist/Military Pride; Consumer Gluttony; Partisan Wrath; Class Envy. Good arguments can be made blaming some are all of these sins for our current dire straits and for the sense that we are standing upon a precipice.

But I wonder if it is not the first and greatest sin named by Yahweh and given to Moses, that is most at fault: the sin of idolatry. We have loved ourselves so well; we have denied ourselves nothing and placed too much of what we love between ourselves and God; we have cherished mere things or other people; over-identified with ideas or ideologies and made an afterthought of God, who will not be mocked.

Make no mistake, America is not only on a precipice, she is watching the supporting ground below as it shifts and cracks and bits of edging break loose and fall—and a nation tumbles quickly once the foundations are fragmented. Nations fall all the time, of course, but America was supposed to be special—the “exceptional nation” or, as Madeleine Albright called it, “the indispensable nation”—the “last best hope” for the world.

But the last best hope for the world was always the Triune God of Creation. And even some religiously minded Americans seem to have forgotten that. the rest  image