Jamming is the way to mature...

Tonight we had our first Jazz Ambassadors practice in anticipation of heading to Istanbul in the summer of 2010. We're playing this Thursday night at Patrick's Pub in Pittsfield starting at 6:30 pm (the proceeds will go into the flight fund.) It was intense, fun, a little intimidating and very, very satisfying. Each of these guys are brilliant and creative - and Di and I are the jazz novices - but we held our own through: "It Don't Mean a Thing," "Moon River," "Paper Moon," "Blue Skies" and "Moon Dance."

It reminded me of what Victor Wooten wrote in his Carlos Castenada-like book, The Music Lesson, a fascinating look into going deeper into playing the bass: How do babies learn to speak a language? By spending lots of time off by themselves practicing verb tense or sentence construction? Not at all... they "jam" with experts and pros - listening to riffs they like and then copying them - and getting corrected as everyone moves the conversation along. Same was true for me tonight: I've been studying and practicing scales and turn arounds but tonight was jamming with the pros - and learning from my mistakes as we went along - which was intense and fun and very educational all at the same time.

(NOTE: any of you folks in Pittsfield who read this, why not come out for supper or just a drink on Thursday at Patrick's?)

On another note, in an extended theological riff in today's Washington Post, the former Dean of the Chicago Theological Seminary, Susan Thistlethwaite, wrote an insight article calling into question a political/theological clunker that is having a renewal in some conservative circles in the US: the myth of American exceptionalism. You might find her insights helpful, I know I did.

(The Washington Post political reporter Karen Tumulty wrote Monday about the growing use of the idea of "American exceptionalism" by political conservatives as a "battle cry from a new front in the ongoing culture wars.")

Sarah Palin and many other prominent conservatives assert that "God has granted America a special role in human history." It is this belief about America's destiny that they say is "under attack" by liberals who downplay America's distinctiveness. Are these leaders saying that America has a special relationship with God?

How do you interpret this?

"I heart America" is a dangerous sentimentalism that does not do justice to the ways in which the United States is exceptional, nor to the ways in which loving your country means trying to make it better. At worst, these conservative views of American exceptionalism risk confusing God and county and veering off into idolatry. In sum, a knee-jerk exceptionalism is bad theology and it makes for very bad policy. You end up blinded by the light of your own presumed virtue, and ignorant about the real use of power in the world.

There are aspects of the American democratic experiment that are truly exceptional. It is remarkable that people from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds can come together enough to agree that they will form their political union on some "self-evident" truths like freedom, inalienable rights, the rule of law, human rights, and a Constitutional government whose authority stems only from the consent of the governed--no divine right of kings needed. This experiment has been an "exception to the rule" of tyranny.

But God's providence doesn't guarantee this exceptionalism--otherwise, people and nations could not sin and the Bible is full of God's judgment on people and nations when they fail to love God and neighbor. Instead, what God's providence really means is God's work in creation itself and the provision of a world. Thus we are blessed, as are all creatures, and all nations by the generous hand of God in creating and sustaining the world.

In the same way, the United States is exceptional when it and its people live up to the values of this democracy. That's our real strength. But when you claim, as does Sarah Palin, that "God has granted America a special role in human history" without being in any way specific about what that role might be, or when it's operative or not operative, you ignore what's real about American exceptionalism--we're exceptional WHEN we live up to our values. But even worse, in this vague view of God's providence, you risk identifying the aims of God with the practical policies of the United States. Taken to an extreme, that means you can end up worshipping the nation as God. That's idolatry.

A "God-given" exceptionalism is really kind of lazy. It doesn't really require any work on our part does it? In that view, God does all the work of guaranteeing our exceptionalism--it's the idea that divine providence equals an outside force controlling human affairs. It's self-deceptive and sentimental feel-good religion (and politics) that has nothing to do with the Bible, and especially nothing to do with the biblical prophets. It ignores the role that sin plays in human affairs. In fact, sin is why we need democracy. We need democracy not because people are so good, but because we are so tempted by power that we need to balance power among the people and through different branches of government.

When we run on a myth of American exceptionalism that (roughly translated) means God's in charge of this country and guiding our role in history, we become blinded by our own presumed light. We disguise our use of power in the world as virtue and mistake our assumed pure intentions with outcomes. We make all kinds of serious errors and alienate others around the world who can see that this kind of exceptionalism is far from exceptional--it's business as usual.

Power in human affairs is never pure. The exercise of power always involves some degree of compelling people to do as you wish, either through diplomacy, or through the use of force or the threat of force. In neither case is the use of power totally virtuous--at best it is exercised to bring people together enough to find solutions we can live with to address some of the most pressing problems we face as a world.

The idea that God is in charge of America's actions insults God as Creator of all, blinds us to our real motives in the use of power, and ironically enough, hides from us the true basis of American exceptionalism. The myth of American exceptionalism makes us weak and vulnerable as a nation because we don't know where our true strength lies. This myth of American exceptionalism is naive about power and that makes it downright dangerous. Instead, our true exceptionalism and our greatest security comes from living up to our democratic values.