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Jesus' announcement of a better kingdom puts any and every Babylon on notice, and woe unto any nation that would presume itself above the call to repentance, refusing to call into question its sacred symbols and assuming a posture of militant ignorance. Does the biblical witness disturb the mental furniture of the average American? Do we have the ears to hear a prophetic word? When we pray, "Deliver us from evil," are we thinking mostly of other people from other countries or different party affiliations, or are we at least occasionally noting the axis of evil within our own hearts and at work in the lives of whomever we think of as "our kind of people"?

At our best, Americans are intensely awake to the contradictions we live and redemptively troubled by them. Norman Mailer has suggested that to be a mainstream American is to live the life of a walking oxymoron, to be a heart in conflict with itself, with a psyche featuring Evel Knievel on one shoulder and Jesus of Nazareth on the other.1 Or consider Flannery O'Connor's characterization of a Godblessed, Christ-haunted American South. Many Americans seem reasonably certain that God is blessing them, one way or another, most of the time, but we're often honest enough to stop short of dragging Jesus into our rationalizations. We do what we do, for better or worse, giving thanks to God and praying for God's guidance. But I can't imagine an American politician, celebrity, or radio personality getting away with saying directly that Jesus is as America does. "Light to the Nations," "City on a Hill," and even "Freedom Itself," but push the matter too far in claiming Christ-likeness or "Operation: Infinite Justice" and somebody (hopefully not just some Muslim clerics) will complain. A folk wisdom that is inextricably a part of American culture maintains that, in Jesus, something greater than America is here.

Whatever the mythologies we use to explain ourselves to ourselves—in business decisions, ethical lapses, legal wranglings, or military interventions—there is still the WWJD-haunting, demythologizing gospel that recognizes the corruption that comes with the illusion of self-sufficiency, total power, and the suggestion (rarely spoken aloud, but often implied) that one culture might own the copyright on righteousness. Whenever the Jewish Christian tradition begins to take root in any meaningful way, interpenetrating the imagination of a people who often speak their country's name as if they were praying to it, the psychological power of patriotism is lessened or at least checked by an ancient wisdom reminding us that a nation might gain a strong economy, everyday low prices, and all the homeland security in the world and still forfeit its soul.

In this sense, the better part of American valor might be a prudential, well-learned skepticism concerning our well-laid plans. American ambition is at its best when it goes to the trouble of daring to doubt itself. We have to be at least occasionally receptive to the notion that we ourselves might sometimes be the prospering wicked of whom the Hebrew prophets speak. If we're not, we only appropriate biblical phrases (usually taken out of context) to somehow christen our already made-up minds and surround ourselves (and our listeners) with a biblical-sounding aura.

There is a tale, possibly apocryphal, of a bemused Elvis Presley sitting in front of his televisions reading the Bible. On completing 1 Corinthians 13, it is reported that Elvis had a moment of clarity, reached for a gun and began shooting the bright, electrical images making their way into his home. There's something very compelling about this scene. It's as if the man whom many would call King stepped past all that had been and would be made of his personality and all the dark stratagems of Colonel Tom Parker to render a decision. Though it has a sadness and frailty to it, the seemingly powerless gesture nevertheless delivers a bold, authoritative judgement, not without a certain dignity. With Bible in hand, Elvis compares the love that has overcome death to the brain ray that is television and all the mass hypnosis of the entertainment industry it represents (inseparable as it is from the phenomenon called Elvis) and finds it wanting, deserving of, in fact, immediate execution. The King has spoken.

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