Why God Bless America?
Posted: Saturday, January 23, 2010
by John Sammon
Sammonsays
I can't figure it out, and I've thought about it, but why is "God bless America" a popular saying? It seems somehow, elitist, exclusionary. I mean, if we go by inference, what's between the lines, or what remains unsaid, if God blesses America, what about the rest of the world?
Why would God bless America if he did bless it (assuming God is a he)?
Many people over the centuries have invoked God's name including soldiers when they conquered other countries by saying "God is with us."
But God bless America?
This seems to be a peculiarly American wish. First of all, if God only blesses America, and doesn't bother to bless Uruguay, then God only represents America. God is supposed to be the God of all people, believers and non.
This saying seems at odds with what every major religion on the face of the earth claims, the universality of God, in other words, my God is the God----of all people. I never hear the Pope say the Catholic God is only God over America. If God only blesses America, he must be mostly America's God, and not the God of Mongolia.
When you say God bless America, America only makes up about five percent of the world's population. What about the rest? They don't matter?
What if I made it even more exclusionary and said God bless Reno? Everybody else is left out. Now, I'm sure God could find something nice about Reno to want to bless it. It has gambling, and it has hills that turn golden in the sunset. But if you said Gold bless Reno, and reasonable people heard you say that, I'm certain most would say that sounds a little bit foolish.
They'd think you were a moron. God bless Reno?
Why should God bless America?
Why should God bless an artificial border created by men, as women had very little to do with both the Louisiana and Gadsden purchases of 1807 and 1853, that occupies a 3,000-mile swath of the North American Continent, and was created largely by purchase, or outright conquest, from its original native inhabitants, and Spaniards who had come before? A confederation of states ruled from the District of Columbia, a tiny piece of land stolen from Native American Indians, so named for the Italian explorer Columbus who mistakenly thought he was in India and thus called them Indians?
Why would God bless this area of land and the people in it? If we go back a short hundred years, it must be obvious he (God - assuming God is a man) didn't bless everybody. How could he? Native Americans were conquered, annihilated or placed on reservations where they were sometimes starved by the government. Women were as cattle to their husbands and didn't have the right to work or vote. Blacks were slaves. Mexicans were considered greasers by the ruling elite.
The drawn up Constitution which said "We the people," left everybody out except white, rich land-owning founders.
Would God in his infinite wisdom bless such a land?
Right wing haters and nuts will accuse me of being against God and America, and I'm really not. It just seems that way. It's my manner. I question things.
Maybe God blessing America is a more modern thing. He (God) has only done it since the 1930s. He ignored us before, but he blesses us now.
Originally, God Bless America was a song coined by composer Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin), a Jewish immigrant from Russia, as he languished at an army post in the U.S. during World War 1. Its opening stanza was copied from an old Yiddish tune called When Mose Leads his Nose, and later became a popular song in the 1930s sung by Kate Smith. The saying seemed to take on special importance during the Red Scare days of the 1950s when Americans thought they were going to be wiped out by Godless heathen Russia in a nuclear war. So paranoia, some founded in reality, some not, may be behind this statement's popularity.
But we haven't answered the question. Why would God bless America? Why would he want to? Is it because we are better than other people? Is it because we have a higher standard of living than many other impoverished countries?
Does God consider America his best creation, his finest achievement, the cream of the crop?
For God to bestow his special favor on Americans, there has to be a reason. I realize that God bless America is essentially a request. We're saying, God, please bless America. But why would God? And why don't we want him to bless the people of other countries?
We seem to have many of the same problems other countries do, a higher crime rate, poverty, pollution, drugs.
Isn't this a bit like a few of us forming an exclusive club? And to make ourselves feel better, saying to others "keep out?" This is only for us. It seems to imply ownership of God. Is it because we think better of ourselves than we do of others, many of whom are less fortunate?
Shouldn't it be instead, God bless all good people, wherever they can be found?
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Very thought provoking, Mr. Sammon. All along I thought that the slogan, "God Bless America" was coined by a politician looking for easy votes. Reminds me of that quote from 1935 by Sinclair Lewis, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.""I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, 'My country, right or wrong, my country!' How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country."- Mark Twain
God blesses America because our country was founded on the principals of God - check it out. I am not so sure how long that will continue to be and it just may be a way for God to check out where more crime will be prevalent, especially in schools and in the young born of drug addicts. For the most part, God is no longer the center of America's communities and now quite possibly abandoned by Him. For God to continue to bless America, we must put him back where he orginated - in the hearts of the American people.Dear Anony - Do the principles of God upon which you say the country was founded include wiping out Indians, enslaving blacks and treating women as second-class citizens? Also, which God? There is the God of the Pope, and the God of the Jews, among others.Jews were not allowed in certain exclusive gentile-only clubs in the US as late as the 1940s. Is this a principal of God?Mormonism didn't even exist at the time the country was founded.What is ironic is that some of the first English immigrants left to come here because of religious intolerance in their own country.America is specifically NOT built on the principals of God - Americans have the law-protected RIGHT to disobey the first few of the 10 Commandments."You shall have no other gods before me" contradicts American freedom of religion.
Interesting article! The phrase "God bless America" has always struck me as sounding a little rude and peremptory, as well as having a nationalistic bent.Surely "May God bless America" or "God bless America please" would be more polite.Blessing nations is a little beyond my powers alas, but if someone said "Ben make us coffee" I'd not feel very keen to do so after being ordered about so rudely. I'd imagine God would feel the same!God do this, God do that.... what's the magic word people? PLEASE :)
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