Monday, June 14, 2010

Lessons from History

Hindsight is 20/20. Seeing the failure of event after event is brutal.

This is what my Vietnam class has been like. The United States will do something in the name of defending freedom of all people, and it will be no better than the alternative evil (communism). Today I got angry. Many of the officials seem to be pursuing Vietnam for pride and pride only. However, it goes deeper than that....

1834 a Journalist claimed that it was our "Manifest Destiny" to become the largest, best nation in the world. God had ordained us to accumulate as much land as we can and to share our freedom and ideals with them.

Without using the term Manifest Destiny this is what we do even today. We did it with Vietnam, we did it with South America, we did it with the Middle East.

The Puritans desired America to be a "City on a Hill" for all to look at and use as an example.

It sounds great. It sounds legit, but humans are corrupt. We gravitate towards chaos. Knowing the depravity of myself and those around me, the thing I should be looking up to is Jesus Christ. My pure motivation and example of what "freedom" and "liberty", "grace" and "mercy" looks like is Jesus.

The Soviet Union and China aided Vietnam in the belief that communism would free the people.

So which was right at the moment? Now we have hindsight to determine that obviously the communist triumphed in Vietnam, but overall capitalist outlasted.

Being a citizen is a hard job. You have to constantly sift structures and bureaucracy to see what is true and in line with the gospel and what is not. Then chase after those things that give glimpse into the life Christ desires for us. With the grace and mercy of Christ one day his kingdom will come and it will be restored. In that is my patriotism and conviction.

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