David Lane

What is it Americans pour all of their efforts and time in to?  What is this dream Americans see as the ultimate fulfillment of life?  Wikipedia defines the American Dream as “the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity.”  This dream so many Americans embrace as a faith is quite contrary to the Christian’s ultimate purpose and goal.  What is the dream we as Christians should be striving for?  I would like to argue the dream we are to pursue is one that will ruin our lives; a dream that will change the very essence and definition of success.

The American Dream is an idea that has been integral to the very basis of our country and culture.  Its main source originated from the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  America was, and has always been, seen as a place of opportunity and a place where one can succeed.  In early America land was cheap and in great quantity.  This allowed almost anyone to purchase land, which in turn would lead to prosperity and wealth.  This idea of gaining wealth from working and participating in a society’s economic system is the foundation of American work ethics.  Whatever we can do to get ahead, within the parameters of the law, is seen as success.  Why and how has this dream been twisted to be an enemy of Biblical principles?

America’s forefathers wanted America to be a place where all people had equal opportunities to become wealthy and successful.  They did not, however, want this wealth to be the driving force of our culture.  This is made clear in the Declaration when they specifically say it is not this country that has given people these rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but they have been bestowed upon us by a Creator.  There is no doubt our forefathers built this country on Biblical principles.  John Adams, a key figure in the founding and establishing of America, said, “Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited!  Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God … What a Eutopia [sic], what a Paradise would this region be.”  Our forefathers had a desire to see a country born where men would be driven toward success through Christian principles, not through the motivation of wealth.  Thus, the original American Dream was one in conjunction with Christianity but has, over time, been distorted into a completely separate ideology based on the lust for wealth.  The answer for why this has happened is simple.  Sin exists in every culture, and, with a country where all men are given equal rights toward freedom of religion and freedom to work as they please, this sin will inevitably take root among us.

The main problem with our culture is the idol of desire.  Rather than focusing on things we need, we focus on things we want.  You generally won’t hear someone say, “I am excited to make money so I can eat tomorrow.”  It is usually more like, “I am excited to make money so I can buy a boat, live in a big house, and drive a nice car.”  This idea of wanting more is the driving force of our culture in America.  We live in order to live better.  This is where we have gone wrong and have distorted what it means to be successful.  What does it mean to be successful?  It is ingrained in our culture success is the gain of material possessions.  So much so success is defined by the dictionary as the attainment of wealth, position, honors and the like.  I would like to argue not only have we distorted the idea of the American Dream, but also we have distorted the idea of success as a whole.

Biblically speaking, success is the effectiveness of displaying and revealing God’s glory and love through our lives, actions, language, etc.  King David gives a good summary of what it means to be successful upon his death bed when charging Solomon with the responsibility of his Kingdom.  He says, “Do what the Lord your God commands and follow his teachings.  Obey everything written in the Law of Moses.  Then you will be a success, no matter what you do or where you go” (1 Kings 2:2-4).  Notice King David does not tell Solomon to pursue wealth, riches, and growth for his kingdom, but rather he tells Solomon to put God as his primary goal in all things.  Following God’s commands reveals God’s glory and love.  The American Dream, in its original form, was to pursue success in that we would rely on God, our creator, to bring us joy, prosperity, and overall wealth in Him.  It was a success based on Biblical principles and putting God in the forefront of all we do.  It is important to address that God does not look down upon those who are rich but rather he looks down upon those who are rich because they have relied upon themselves and put the glory of their wealth in their own being and not upon the glory of God.  This is exemplified by the rest of Solomon’s story.  Because Solomon listened to his father and asked for wisdom from God rather than material possessions, God blessed him with wisdom and material possessions.  It is the process by which we get wealth that makes wealth right or wrong.  God does not see wealth as a sin but rather having wealth has the potential to increase the opportunities to sin and decrease the necessity of dependence upon God rather than upon our material possessions.  Success is revealing God’s glory and his perfect love.

This pursuit of the American Dream is so prevalent in our culture today we have become immune to its negative effects on us as Christians.  We generally do not intentionally neglect God’s version of success, but rather we slip into an ideology that tells us to think about our own wants and desires before our Creator’s purpose for us.  God’s purpose for us has become more of an afterthought rather than what drives us to live and work.  As Christians, our success should ruin our lives.  Although this sounds like a drastic and perplexing statement, it is quite simple.  The lives most Christians in America live today are built upon the American Dream and have God as a second-hand attachment to that dream.  Our lives should be ruined by Christ in that we surrender to His will, which in turn should lead to the demise of our current lives in a culture that puts material possessions over God’s glory.  This does not mean our lives will be ruined in the sense we will lose all hope for success in all areas of life, but rather our definition of success will be radically changed from our culture’s, which will give us a new notion that puts God ahead of all other things.

The American Dream now is a dream that ends with death.  You grow up, go to school, get a degree, marry a beautiful wife/husband, have a great family with a big house and nice car, retire with money and the overall goal of bringing pleasure to yourself, and then you die.  This is a hopeless ideology that cannot exist in conjunction with Christianity.  We, as Christians, grow up in Christ, go to school in order to understand increasingly well Christ’s character, marry a wife/husband in order to understand more perfectly God’s relationship with His church, work in order to reveal God’s glory, and die in order to transition to a new life that will bring us ultimate pleasure and joy for all eternity.  Go ahead; ruin your lives in this culture in order to achieve God’s higher purpose and ultimate goal for us as humans.  Re-evaluate the definition of success.  Take back the American Dream to what our forefathers desired it to be.  Live in the prosperity of God not of men.

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