School House Rock and Worldview
We went last night to our 11-year-old son’s school musical. It was based on all those awesome Schoolhouse Rock ditties from the 70s. I used to enjoy those on Saturday mornings. Still remember so many of the lyrics from Conjunction Junction, I’m Only a Bill, Interplanet Janet, etc. It was great fun and the kids were beyond cute.
One thing struck me, however, when they sang the one on America being the great melting pot. I was reflecting on how politically incorrect that is today. You can tell that was written at least 30 years ago.
The favored notion today is multi-culturalism and NOT that we’re a melting pot. The melting pot image says that people come here from all different backgrounds and blend together to make something new and wonderful. That’s a cool image for America. But the politically correct view is not that our former cultural distinctives should be blurred to create a new and truly American culture. The newer view is that I am identified first by my native tribe and only secondly by being an American citizen.
A country that has no identity usually falls. If you think of this with Christian, if you aren’t a Christian first, there is no cohesion in the Church. If the Church as a whole is Christian first, I think some of the issues of proper worship, divisions, etc might drop out.
VirginiaLutherans
3 Mar 07 at 11:46 pm
In Canada it’s called the “Cultural Mosaic”, which to me seems to encourage division within the country, rather than cohesion.
Tim Kuehn
4 Mar 07 at 12:23 am
A few years back I was reading an article that stated the “melting pot” idea was now a thing of the past, the article stated that America was now more like a “bowl of salad.”
As for the School House Rock, I remember watching those on Saturday mornings and learning much about citizenship. The “I’m Just a Bill” was instrumental in my understand how government works, or doesn’t work, whatever the case may be.
disgruntled world citizen
5 Mar 07 at 4:40 pm