America's Daddy Issues by Brady

Do you remember the first time you realized your parents were not in complete control of life and they could not protect you from every harmful thing that comes your way? This happened to me on December 4, 1986 when I was 4 years old. My family landed upon some hard times financially, and I remember sitting outside of the family business as the FDIC came in and shut it down. I remember my mom crying and the next months being filled with many changes. We were forced to sell our house and move into a new one. There was not the level of extreme luxury and comfort that our family was used to. There were many tense conversations between my parents on how we would make it financially with four kids. This experience is one of the earliest memories I can recollect.

Incidents such as these shape us dramatically as humans. They cause us to build up walls for security measures and to look for a place to put the blame for having been hurt so badly. I am sure almost everyone has something similar to this experience that has dominated their past and shaped their future.
Culturally we work through these incidents as well. There are times when corporately we feel disillusioned by our government, church, or any other authority which has let us down. The government has particularly failed us numerous times as Americans, but rather than being open and honest about its limitations, we have created a world of unrealistic expectations for our leaders. This in turn causes candidates to create false images of their capabilities. To put it quite simply: America has daddy issues.

Our collective society experienced this frightening realization in the 1960’s and 70’s. Even though I was not alive during this era, my generation continues to feel the aftershocks from these decades even today. It was particularly the Vietnam War and Watergate which caused us to doubt how smart we are to place full trust in our government, especially the office of the president. This era has dominated our country’s past and is continually shaping our society’s future. Now the climate is railing against any authority at all, including God, because we have built up a wall in order to protect ourselves from being hurt again. You don’t believe me? Why is this war with Iraq constantly compared to the Vietnam War? Why have the last two presidents, one democrat and one republican who were both reelected, come under so much fire that impeachment has been the word of the day? The only reason people don’t want to impeach the current president as they did the former one is because we are more frightened of the vice president running the show than anything else.

So what am I getting at by talking about all of this? I think Scott Peck has hit the nail on the head about our country in a book called The Different Drum. He says, “The macho image of the president as a kind of superman has been created and maintained because the people have wanted it. We have wanted a Big Daddy who has all the answers, who will take care of the bully down the block, who will not only give us a safe and secure home but one that is luxurious and where we will be protected from all hard knocks. The American presidency is the reflection of the task-avoidance assumption of dependency, a creation of our own childish fantasies.” (p. 314-315)

We are the same way with God as well. Why does the culture today generally not believe in absolute truth or a supreme God? It is because we have been burned, and this is our natural defense. We see too much heartache and have felt too much loneliness to believe that there could possibly be a God who is both all-powerful and good. Somewhere the true gospel has been lost in our churches which dawn the American flag in an attempt to synchronize The American Dream and the Good News of Christ. One of the earliest Christians pushed back against this mentality in 1 Peter. He says, “Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.” (1 Peter 4:12-13 MSG)

God’s job is not to be the “Big Daddy” who gives you all of the answers you want to hear at the exact time you want to hear them. His job is not to give you a safe, secure, and luxurious home. He is not interested in protecting you from all hard knocks. If He were, I think He would have protected Himself from the cross. Rather, we should start working through some of our Daddy issues and “consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2 NIV) Maybe life is not all about living a safe and lavish life. We should not expect our government or our God to be the blame for everything that goes wrong. After all, “This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.”