America, Jesus, Freedom

"America, Jesus, Freedom."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. But people like it when I say it."

Those are the opening lines of the new movie, The Campaign. The interchange between the character played by Will Ferrell and one of his campaign workers highlights a cultural trend in America: we use words without really thinking about what they mean.

Those three lines, though, do more than that. These words also highlight a trend that is particularly scary, in my opinion. As a society, especially the spheres impacted by politics, we throw around religion however we want to, to do whatever we want with it.

In the short dialogue between Ferrell and his worker, Ferrell gives one of his catchphrases: "America, Jesus, Freedom." It's something he says a lot. And when he says it, his constituents and people all across the country like it. The underlying idea here is that when a political candidate mixes together Christianity and the American experiment, people like it . . . because it makes them feel good. They don't stop to think about what the words actually mean. They just know they like it.

When we stop and think about mixing religion and politics, we see that it's not good because it's scary. History has taught us for thousands of years that mixing the two are never a good idea. It's not that religion does not have an impact upon one's politics and the way government works. True religion absolutely does that. But when a particular brand of religion becomes too closely identified with one particular type of government, or one particular political party, the results are always detrimental, both for religion and for politics.

Ferrell's character shows us that we need to stop and think about the words we use. I would add to his example words like: "pro-choice" and "pro-life." Again, when we stop and think about it, these words do not make sense. Someone who supports the rights of women to choose things like abortion are not against life itself . . . and someone who supports legislation that puts greater limits upon things like abortion is not necessarily against a woman's right to choose various things. We don't always think about the words we use, like these. And when we do that, we allow labels like this to characterize and stereotype others. That's not good.

So let's think about the words we use and use them with real meaning and with purpose.

Along those lines, I am going to make-up a new word to use: proaction. Webster might have already coined that term. But I don't hear it being used. So I am going to make it up. We use the word reaction to describe how we react to something. Occasionally, we describe something that is the opposite of being re-active as being pro-active, taking a step or an action before something that would have otherwise triggered or caused us to act.

So I am going to take that idea; and put a twist on the word: proaction, more of a noun, I guess. "Through proaction, the officer discovered the bomb and detonated it before it went off." Or "the sun uses proaction as a solar eclipse is the sun's attempt to hide Chuck Norris." Or "that man exhibited proaction as he broke every bone in his body to avoid Chuck Norris doing it for him." See what I mean? :)

What's your new word . . . or what's a word you are going to stop using, because it is used incorrectly, to characterize or to stereotype? This is a small thing. But by taking a second and thinking about the words we use, we can really have an impact upon the world around us.