The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power

by D.L. Mayfield

try to lean into in the gift of being a witness to the good and the bad of the world,

thought God rewarded those who obeyed the rules. I thought my good news was accessible to everyone if only they had the ears to listen.

did not have a worldview or an ethical framework that accounted for realities different from my own.

White evangelicals like myself are uniquely unprepared to engage in issues from an institutional or systemic perspective.

Systemic interpretation is diametrically opposed to white evangelical belief

few years ago I realized something: that is not actually how Jesus defined his own life and work.

Jesus speaking for himself nd wht he actually came to do. And he calls out ghe religious leadwrs first as the egregious "sinners."

the opposite of poor? Of captivity, blindness, oppression? As I meditated on this question, the answers surprised me. The answers, it turned out, were the defining values of my life,

Striving to be the opposite of who jesus says he came for

Affluence, autonomy, safety, and power. Four concrete values that bled into each other and seeped into my bones, affecting the decisions I made every day, from the tiniest to the monumental. I

When people of means pursue what is best for them and their own in an unequal society, their actions inevitably harm the common good.

People in privilege working for their own individual benefit inevitably harm others

If the systems and structures that shape your world have worked for you, then you will believe this idea; it will strengthen your worldview and give you confidence that you’ve done something right,

Affirming

The more I try to follow Jesus, the more I realize that if the gospel isn’t good news for the poor, the imprisoned, the brokenhearted, and the oppressed, then it isn’t good news for me either.

True good news

“Teacher,” she told me, “teacher, we cannot read, we never know who is calling.”

started with me believing myself to have something to offer to the poor and needy because I was born with more.

“the sustained struggle between the insatiable acquisitiveness of Pharaoh and ‘neighborliness’ in commitment to sharing the common good.”1

The God of the Old Testament is radical in that he didn’t create humanity only to serve him—but this God of the Israelites cares about the very least in the community flourishing.

God creates US to flourish - not just to praise or serve him

Americans seem to idolize these powerful entities.

held that peace comes through victory—through military might and the affluence of the empire.

What they need are good neighbors. They need people to live next door

to them, to send their kids to school with theirs, to vote for policies that protect instead of harm them. They need people whose lives are intricately bound up with their flourishing.

“All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought until you are what you ought to be.”2

“amnesia of affluence” that theologians point out in the Bible, and in our modern-day context.

especially if you had resources or thought that you had earned the right to hoard due to correct beliefs and actions.

Oregon had the distinction of being the only free state admitted to the union with an exclusion clause—an

Oregon Excluded blacks from residence

tragic attempt to give moral sanction to an economically profitable system gave birth to the doctrine of White supremacy.”

Justifying their unjust economic system

living in a city where people of difference actually had to learn to live and grapple with each other every day—Minnesota

Like so many well-meaning White people, Portland is puzzled that its good intentions aren’t enough in the face of strategic policies and practices designed to further inequality.

Good intentions aren't enough

looked at the faces all around me and noticed how happy everyone looked. I noticed how no one seemed to mind that only a certain kind of person could afford to live there.

Those benefiting are HAPPY with the result of excluding others

She pointed out how ashamed we were to talk about money. How most of us didn’t grow up poor and were trying to explain that to her.

Ashamed Of wealth

The deep and dark tragedy of affluence is how it takes away curiosity, how it accepts the world as it is,

Affluence Soothes abd sedates us removing our curiosity

In the Scriptures the ultimate check on the relentless desire for more is the reality of our neighbor.

Living and being in community with vulnerable neighbors will change us. And, as always, the opposite is true. The farther we are away from those in need,

Proximity or distance frm the vulnerable impacts our hearts

know how affluence works, how different it is from a God who provides manna,

How affluence needs segregation and amnesia to thrive, how it convinces us to forget God and instead take pride in our own choices and abilities.

I am forever trying very hard not to notice a world as unkind as the one I actually live in.

This quote! Trying to ignore how unkind the world really is

We talk about the immorality of the poor but never the wealthy,

Immorality Of the wealthy

desire in a consumeristic society keeps us distracted from the desires of those who are truly hungry.

how anyone can become a millionaire (this wasn’t an outlier either—this company regularly hosts conferences and events revolving around the idea of “everyday millionaires”).

Dave Ramsey and "everyday millionaire"

The only problem is, being financially safe and secure isn’t a major theme of Scripture—but unjust economic practices are.

But I need and want a bigger dream than the idea of becoming a millionaire.

that everyone would have what they need to thrive as the image bearers they

convened a group of people from our church to talk about money: our money, their money, and what we were supposed to do about it in the light of global and local poverty.

Theology of Work. Lzarus at the gate

when well-meaning, well-intentioned privileged people hear only the financial success stories, they are being discipled in how to judge and belittle all of those who fail in the landscape of the American Dream.

Yrue for racial justice stories as well

give the privileged more ammunition to judge those who aren’t making it while at the same time it makes no moral demands on those who make more than enough.

gives those with wealth permission to spend without constraint.

We’ve been trained to be angry at the “excess” of using government aid to feed people, instead of working to end a system that pays people poverty wages.

Angry at the wrong things

But in her private journals she often took the time not to write about the great injustices but instead the simple pleasures that delighted her: a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.

we might be called to give up what we have hoarded and learn how to be open and generous.

confess to being fools and wish that we were more so,”

We confess to being fools

“What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe and shelter themselves as God intended them to do.”

our neighbors who teach us how costly wealth can be to our souls.

What does wealth cost our souls

But I hardly see any actual Black lives in that neighborhood.