Americans believe in God's plan despite tough times

Ray Waddle: Americans believe in God's plan despite tough times
Written by Ray Waddle The Tennessean

Commentary
“God only knows … God makes his plan,” Paul Simon sang in 1975. “We’re working our jobs, collect our pay,” he crooned, yet still “we’re slip-slidin’ away.”

Nearly four decades later, the slip-slidin’ has taken us to a place of stagnant wages; wealth inequality; mediocre educational gains; epidemics of debt, obesity and addictions. Even so, Americans still find God in the picture, according to a fascinating new survey.

But is 9 percent unemployment really in God’s plan?

The latest Baylor Religion Survey from Baylor University says most Americans firmly believe God has a plan for their lives, despite economic gloom.

And this personal faith comes with strong economic opinions. Americans who stoutly believe in God’s plan are more likely to say government is too intrusive, and hard work makes anything possible, and healthy people shouldn’t receive unemployment benefits, the study says.

Belief in God’s plan is strongest among people who have less income. Those who make more than $100,000 a year give less thought to the divine fingerprints in their lives.

As I read it, the survey nicely identifies the religious instincts behind hoping and coping in this economy. In short: Many Americans believe the nation ought to be regulated by God, not by the government.

Current conditions are modifying an old Protestant idea. Previously, wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Today, a widespread lack of wealth intensifies the hope that someday the blessed sign will come, and with it a flow of riches.

Such hopes fuel the prosperity gospel, with its promise of financial abundance if a person trusts God deeply enough and donates to ministries generously enough.

Such hopes feed the lottery: Millions of people daily buy tickets in the belief that the elusive jackpot is God’s plan for them. (Remember when churches opposed legal gambling because it corrupts the work ethic and increases addiction? That resistance is gone. Christian voters apparently believe the lottery’s tax-revenue benefit to themselves outweighs gambling’s moral corruption of others.)

Such surveys make it clear that theological ideas have political consequences. What is remarkable about the American belief in God’s plan is how individualistic — how privatized — it is.

But personal destiny is never divorced from community dreams and standards. Isn’t it reasonable to believe God wants us to fight for political reforms that improve education; make tax rates simpler and fairer; and punish financial behavior that ruins the economy and causes a shattering loss of jobs, homes and self-respect?

The American way of beholding God’s plan seldom raises such challenges. And that’s just fine with our financial and political masters. The keepers of the status quo think there’s nothing to fear from the keepers of the gospel.

Is that really how God planned it?

Columnist Ray Waddle, a former Tennessean religion editor, lives in Connecticut.