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At first blush, Frank A. Thomas\u2019s new book, American Dream 2.0: A Christian Way Out of the Great Recession<\/em><\/a>, is reminiscent of an article I wrote nearly two decades ago.\u00a0 Writing for Religion News Service<\/em> (RNS) in 1996, I was reflecting on the recession of the early 1990s and its effect on my family.\u00a0 In the wake of the then-recent demise of the Soviet Union, I thought of the ironic similarities between communism and capitalism:<\/p>\nNearly 50 years ago, a book titled The God That Failed\u00a0described how communism fell short of its egalitarian ideals.\u00a0 As seen through the eyes of six former communist intellectuals [including the African American novelist Richard Wright], communism represented \u201ca vision of the\u00a0Kingdom of God on earth,\u201d a vision at odds with the sinfulness of those who controlled the Communist Party.<\/p>\n
What was true of communism can also be said of the American dream. Though we are still a prosperous nation, that dream is proving to be as unreliable a deity as communism.<\/p>\n
I know.\u00a0I once worshipped at its altar\u2026[My wife and I]\u00a0accepted as gospel the notion that if we lived right, got a good education, and worked hard, our financial future would\u00a0be limitless.<\/p>\n
Nothing could have been further from the truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As is reflected in American Dream 2.0<\/em>, Thomas agrees\u00a0with my basic premise: Embracing the Protestant work ethic, playing by the rules and demonstrating Yankee ingenuity has failed to produce \u201cthe good life\u201d for many Americans.<\/p>\n
Thomas, however, goes far beyond my navel gazing.\u00a0 Whereas my musings are seen through the lens of my family\u2019s \u201cre-education about the myths and realities of the American Dream,\u201d Thomas paints with a much broader brush.\u00a0 He seeks nothing less than a re-visioning of the American Dream, in which \u201ctrue and humane values\u201d are established which recognize \u201cthe dignity and worth of human personality\u201d and benefit the entire body politic.\u00a0 Such values, he believes, can best be developed within the prophetic tradition of the Christian social gospel.<\/p>\n
While Thomas draws inspiration from a variety of sources, his principal muse for this re-visioning is Martin Luther King, Jr., whose moral and intellectual thought gave shape to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and helped change the course of the nation\u2019s history.\u00a0 With respect to the creation of a new American Dream, it is Thomas\u2019s hope that history will repeat itself.<\/p>\n
Yet, as he correctly argues, the task of the prophet is a daunting one.\u00a0 At times a prophet must speak on behalf of his or her constituency, challenging the larger society and the powers that be to embrace \u201cthe better angels of their nature\u201d.\u00a0 As Thomas notes, for King this meant prodding the nation and its leaders to live up to the values inherent in the nation\u2019s creed.<\/p>\n
As an example he cites King\u2019s March 1965 speech in Montgomery, Alabama, titled \u201cOur God Is Marching On\u201d.\u00a0 Speaking at the conclusion of the fateful march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the lack of voting rights for blacks in the South, \u201cKing challenges the nation to rise to the democratic ideals it professes.\u00a0 By giving the Negro the right to vote, America put teeth into democratic ideals.\u00a0 It moved beyond the talk of freedom to walking the walk of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus in Montgomery and throughout most of his prophetic ministry, King functions as a radical reformer \u2013 decrying the evils within the American system but affirming the system as a whole.\u00a0 The same, however, cannot be said of the last year of his life.\u00a0 As Thomas and other scholars have pointed out, King\u2019s criticism of the Vietnam War \u201cmarked a fundamental line of demarcation in Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s public ministry and positioned him on the fringe of American political discourse.\u201d\u00a0 For here, he doesn\u2019t just decry evil within the system; rather, he decries the system itself.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t seek to reform the system, he seeks to transform it.<\/p>\n
Thus does King illustrate yet another task of the prophet.\u00a0 While at times he or she must walk with and speak for the people, at other times the prophet must walk in front of the people \u2013 and thus alone.\u00a0 In either case, he or she speaks with the voice of God, to whom all are ultimately accountable.<\/p>\n
For Thomas this presents a quandary, which he seeks to resolve through embrace of a salvific renewal resulting in the \u201ccreation of a loving and moral society, the Beloved Community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cModeled after Jesus\u2019 inauguration of the reign of God\u201d and christened by King, Thomas\u2019s Beloved Community envisions \u201ccitizen-activists\u201d who are \u201cordinary American citizens, particularly pastors and their congregations, and all people of goodwill, who will nonviolently resist the exclusive economic domination of American life.\u00a0 I mean the identification and mobilization of the ordinary person, a moral and political leader willing to sacrifice and to pay the cost and suffer the difficulties necessary to reclaim the American Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a pastor who is a student of King, pursues social justice in daily ministry, and has personally wrestled with the myth of the American Dream, I \u201cget\u201d Thomas.\u00a0 Yet even as I followed his discourse I was besieged by troubling and competing thoughts.<\/p>\n
For one thing, as the late pollster George Gallup, Jr., used to say, \u201cAmerica\u2019s faith is broad but not deep.\u201d\u00a0 He argued that while 60 percent of the public attend church or another faith community at least once a month \u2013 with 80 percent attending at least once per year \u2013 most people have little knowledge of even the basic rudiments of their faith. \u00a0Biblical literacy, Gallup reported in 2003, \u201chas not improved over the last half century. In fact, it has not kept pace with increasing literacy on the whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another thing to consider is that, while most Americans continue to self-identify as Christians, as many as one person in seven claims no religious identity or affiliation. \u00a0Moreover, among the domestic outcomes of globalization has been the migration of well-educated Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to the U.S.<\/p>\n
As I wrote in a 2001 RNS article, \u201cTechnological innovation and expansion have produced high paying jobs attracting the best and brightest from around the world.\u00a0 Unlike the penniless European immigrants of a century ago, today\u2019s Asian and African immigrants are well-educated, highly skilled and much sought-after in a global economy.\u00a0 They tend to live close together in middle class enclaves and their impact on the nation\u2019s social, political and religious landscape has been immediate.\u201d<\/p>\n
These and other factors suggest that creating the moral consensus and activist commitment that Thomas seeks \u2013 from such a spiritually and ethically diverse population of people \u2013 will be difficult at best.\u00a0 In the meantime, I suspect the American Dream will remain elusive for many.<\/p>\n
Visit the Patheos Book Club<\/a> for more conversation on the American Dream 2.0.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
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Rev. Samuel K. Atchison has served as a welfare policy analyst, social services administrator, social policy consultant, and prison chaplain. He is the president of the Trenton Ecumenical Area Ministry (