God Bless America?

Jan. 30, 2011

President Obama closed his speach last week with the words, “May God bless America”. I wish he had not done that. Here are my concerns.

1. I think that when politicians use the expression “God bless America” or “so help me God”, they do so mostly because they believe it to be (to use an over-used cliche) “politically correct”, i.e. they think that it will get more votes than it loses.

2. The expression sounds exclusive, audacious and arrogant.

--Does it imply that America deserves being blessed? If so, why? Is it because we have “In God we trust” on our money? or because we say “so help me God” at the end of our oaths?
--Does it imply that we want God to bless America but not the rest of the world?
--How does this come across to the rest of the world?
--What impact does this attitude have when we come to the bargaining table with other countries?

3. If we don’t mean it to be exclusive, then why don’t we start saying, like Tiny Tim, “God bless us all” ? If we stop and think about it, we really shouldn’t want for God to bless American without blessing the whole world. Such unequal treatment would arouse the wrath of the world against us even more than we have done by our arrogance up to now.