Oliver Thomas in his USA Today article, Ungodly Hubris, examines how faith driven Americans are not living up to their God’s expectations. He cites our greed, our disproportionate consumption of the world’s resources, our violence in the way we kill each other, and our treatment of our more vulnerable citizens, as examples that are not consistent with the teachings of our respective faiths.
“The faith community has our work cut out for us if America is to become the "city upon a hill" envisioned by some of our greatest leaders. And if self-awareness is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps we should start by reading the Bible with different eyes. Let's lose the hubris. Maybe we're not ancient Israel. Maybe we're Rome.”
Americans of faith should read the article and reflect upon it.
Since everyone wants to look at the US for what we don't do right then we need to look at other nations who do absolutely nothing. The world as a whole has greed, murder, and wastefulness even in the 3rd world nations. There are people of this world that do absolutely live by the word of the lord and there are others that say they do and others who don't and others that just don't believe. The bible is just what it is, a book written by men and put together by a group of men from second hand stories. This book should never be read with a literal eye. People need to be more open-minded and free for new versions without criticism Our community has always had flaws but the faith community is that of the world not just the United States. Yes everyone needs to look and read the bible for themselves and not for what someone else has read to them. This is where the problems begin when the people of the world only believe in the beliefs of another and never believe in their own beliefs. You are right we might not be ancient Israel but even a vast magority of the Romans or Gentiles eventually turned to God. Look at Cornelius. He was a Gentile who was a devote, God fearing, praying Roman officer. God came to him in a vision and when confirmed by Peter the Apostle was baptized then became Christian. All the people of the world need to get it together and open their eyes, yes!