The Hard-Knock Life of an American Evangelical

As if there weren’t enough things about evangelical Christians that make it look like they’re living on a different planet than the rest of America, there’s this, a description of what Salon reporter Mike Madden experienced–and heard in conversation with congregants–after attending Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church on Sunday, the day after the nationally televised Civil Forum held there:

The church is in Orange County, still a pretty conservative place, and conversations with members this weekend left no doubt that McCain would win most of the congregants’ votes. Warren’s flock doesn’t seem particularly preoccupied with abortion or gay marriage, unlike the far-right Baptist churches of the South and the Midwest. But they like McCain, mostly because of secular concerns like taxes.

“We are one of those people that make over $250,000 a year, and I don’t agree that that makes us rich,” said Melinda Sacks, who runs her husband’s law office in San Clemente, referring to Obama’s answer at the forum that put her in the “wealthy” category. “Even with that kind of income, we struggle to pay everything we have gotten ourselves into.”

What a great statement by Sacks. That Christian humility just shines right on through. Sacks helps her husband run a law office in California and they make $250,000 a year, yet that doesn’t make them “rich” because even at that income level they still “struggle to pay everything” that they’ve gotten themselves into.

It seems beyond words that someone making $250,000 a year–and particularly an evangelical, who should (in theory) know better after reading those red-letter sections of their New Testament–would, with a straight face, try to claim they are not part of the financially well-off (or, one might say, “elite”) in America. A quick breakdown in graph form by Ezra Klein of The American Prospect, put together particularly in response to McCain’s incomprehensible statement at the Forum that “rich” in America is having $5 million or more, helps to illustrate this:

As one can see, Obama’s definition of who is “rich” in America is quite, well, logical and reasonable.  McCain’s, clearly, is beyond absurd, and a cover for what he really wants to do as President, which is make sure his big business and oil company friends continue to get Bush’s lucrative tax breaks that they’ve had for for the past few years (and, one could say, since at least the 1970s and the global emergence of multinational corporations). Mrs. Sacks and her husband, making $250,000 a year, fall squarely in the top five percent–and really, more like top three percent–of Americans in terms of how much bacon they’re bringing home each twelve months. In light of this, Mrs. Sacks’ comment reveals, at the least, an ignorance of and cultural disconnect from what the rest of (middle income) America is living like.

But it’s not only Sacks’ seeming ignorance that most stands out. It’s her frank admission that she and her husband “struggle to pay everything [they've] gotten themselves into.” Now, granted, living in California–and particularly Orange County–isn’t a walk in the park financially. But Mrs. Sacks and her husband run a law practice. Last time I checked, lawyers are some of the best paid professionals in America, and most have the ability to live very secure lives financially. No matter what state they live in, if they play their cards right, they aren’t going to be “struggling to get by” like the majority of individuals or families whose total income falls below the $100,000 mark might be. Even at firms in small towns, they’re some of the wealthiest people around.

Now, this isn’t meant as a hit-job on the profession of law. But clearly, Mrs. Sacks has some issues to deal with here. The fact that she and her husband “struggle” at the income level they’re at reveals a lot about what kind of people they are. If you “struggle” to pay bills and reach financial sustainability at $250 grand, then it’s time you stop paying that $600 a month bill to the local Mercedes dealership and that other $500 for the Lexus, and that $350 every time you get the urge to buy another pair of Coco Chanel’s shoes. Put simply, there is no logical reason that Mrs. Sacks and her husband, at $250,000 a year, should not be able to live sustainably, and even end up with money to spare. The fact that they can’t do so highlights what has become typical of many Americans: living lives beyond one’s means while lacking the financial intelligence that would otherwise alert you to your folly or–as it seems in the case of the Sacks household–doing so even while knowing (and thus, not giving up or cutting back on) all that you’ve “gotten yourself into.”

What tops all this audacity off, sadly, is that Mrs. Sacks is an evangelical Christian. If it were a random person on the street, one might dismiss their commentary as coming from just another self-centered jerk. But a random person Sacks is not. Evangelical Christians in America already have enough of a stereotype–though it’s a well-deserved one–to overcome: biblicist, anti-intellectual, illogical, uninformed about current events (which, granted, mirrors many Americans in general) and, most importantly, spiritually individualistic and self-centered, which can be traced back to the Puritan and revivalistic heritage of Protestant Christianity in American life. They’re the kind of people who illustrate more than any other what it means to consume–gas to take their five-kid families in Suburbans to soccer and ballet, processed food for their church BBQ missions fundraisers, building materials for their super-size sanctuary additions–in inordinately large quantities, while their time to “give back” is a week of their youth building houses during the summer in Mexico that’s topped off by a post-building trip to Cancun. Their sermons deal with how they as individuals can have a more intimate relationship with God, as the relationship is seemingly always on the rocks because of their inability to control their innate infidelity. Their songs talk about what God means to/does for/is/will always be for them.

And once again, according to Mrs. Sacks, it’s about her (with the irony being that her own pastor wrote a book about five years ago whose first statement proclaimed that it wasn’t all about her) and her inability to pay for a life which, seemingly, God had blessed her with more than enough ability to pay for–if it hadn’t been for probably getting a little greedy for the top-dollar goods along the way. That line from an evangelical worship tune about how all of God is “more than enough” (minus, again, the self-referential response “for all of me”) somehow seems suddenly appropriate.