The pursuit and achievement of the American dream is one of, if not the most,
pervasive world making myths in the United States. From the birth and settlement of the
nation,1 to the book of our currently elected president, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts
on Reclaiming the American Dream,2 this myth has arguably shaped the country’s very
foundations.
Similar to the ways some interpreters understand the function of biblical myth, the
American dream orients individuals and communities to the way they view the world and
their place in it. According to this societal hermeneutic, “myth works, from the
sociological perspective, only as it is enacted in ritual, transmitted by political and
educational institutions, explained by the community’s priests and scribes, and revised by
the community’s poets and prophets.”3 In the case of the American dream, determined
immigrants who moved to the U.S. in search of prosperity and fulfillment, perhaps, first
enacted the ritual. If these families worked hard enough, they might, against all odds,
make a name for themselves. The glorification of these success stories was then used to
write inspiring political literature, which was passed down through educational
institutions, inherited by religious leaders, and picked up by the media. The dream
manifests itself in many ways beyond this brief description, but is usually couched in the
attainment of success4 through individual work ethic. Virtually all analysis of the
American dream credits James Truslow Adams for coining the term in his book, The epic
1
David Mogen et al., eds., The Frontier Experience and the American Dream
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1989), 3-30.
2
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American
Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006)
3
Richard Walsh, Mapping Myths of Biblical Interpretation (Sheffield, England:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 74.
4
Jennifer Hochschild, Facing up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the
Soul of the Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 15.
of America in 1931; he called it “that dream of a land in which life should be better and
richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or
achievement” (emphasis added).5 Even if Americans do not have the ability to
accomplish any desired outcome, given they work hard enough, nothing may prevent
them from believing they do. In his attempts to articulate the dream, Fredric Carpenter
said, “Weather Americans have believed that their new world would progressively
achieve a more perfect democracy, [a hope Obama seemed to be promoting during his
presidential campaign6] or whether they have attacked this dream as delusion, it has
determined the patters of our thinking.”7 The purpose of this work will gravitate towards
the delusion of which Carpenter speaks – not to prove the dream itself a fallacy, but to
show the dream’s futility in regard to the its function within the church. When applied to
church growth and ministerial achievement, the American dream is what the author of
Ecclesiastes calls, “a chasing after the wind.” In the case study, “Northside at the
Crossroads,”8 John has allowed the American dream myth to influence his theology of
mission, causing him to favor his specialized ambition above the individual and
cooperate needs of the church, and to ignore Northside’s purpose in the community in
light of God’s mission in the world.
5
James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (Garden City, NY: Garden City
Books, 1931), 317. Even with some admission of uncertainly, all sources in my
bibliography credit Adams for first defining the American dream.
6
Obama, The Audacity of Hope.
7
Frederic Carpenter, American Literature and the Dream (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1955), 5.
8
Tim Sensing, “Northside at the crossroads,” n.p. [cited 17 March 2012]. Online:
http://blogs.acu.edu/gstpathways/cases/northside-at-the-crossroads.
“Because of John’s specialized ambition and belief that ‘the Lord has been
faithful to honor his hard work’9 (emphasis added), catering to perspective members
becomes his soul focus, in a quest to build his ideal church.”10
9
Sensing, “Northside,” n.p.
Matthew Fredrickson, “Case Brief,” 2 [cited 17 March 2012]. Online:
http://blogs.acu.edu/mcf09a/files/2011/12/Case-Brief1.pdf.
10