Deer Hunting With Jesus - Dispatches From America's Class War by Joe Bageant

An eye-catching title with a message, Bageant’s book claims that many liberals, especially those on the east and west coasts, do not understand “beer-loving, Nascar-loving, church-going, gun-owning” Americans. Urban America: meet your working-class heartland neighbors.

While my intent in this article is not to be political, we must be aware of the terrain. Whatever our affiliation, Practical Spirituality includes the need to be a good citizen with enough accurate information to make intelligent decisions. This book shows another side of the political scene, and Bageant succeeds with humor and clarity. He wants us to listen to those the rural conservative citizens whose strong voice influences elections and with whom we have much in common.

Bageant wants us to be less judgmental and more inclusive in our views. The problems of the world, and there are significant ones, can only be solved with some consensus, not with judgmental exclusion. There is a need to compromise with others in order to work together. That is part of Bageant’s message as well.

Bageant provides a view of “America’s class war.” The American “redneck” is part of us. Perhaps it is time to embrace that part. There is a class conflict, one we often ignore. A better future depends on our understanding that. We have something to learn from one another.

There is another side to this author, however. In the three years since his work was published, I have continued to read his material. Recently, in one of his blogs, he reminisces about how he feels something is missing in the failure of the reasonable Americans to win, following his beliefs in the book that we need consensus not judgment and that we all have much in common. What has happened? His answer, and one I agree with, is we have lost our spiritual direction and have let the materialistic rule. Bageant is not usually a spiritual writer, but his conclusion reflects his realization of what he feels is lacking in our society.

He talks about the “thing inside us…the consciousness that ebbs and flows between all external events;” this is spiritual, not religious. He describes that feeling when we sit silently and listen. This is a common and shared understanding. He recognizes that when we are quiet, we know. And the oppressors, whoever they may be in our society, are the ones who want to keep us busy, keep us worrying, otherwise we will have time to figure it all out. Meanwhile, he claims, we are left with our inner selves to keep us sane and going forward. That is our inner strength, not something we can buy or get from others.

Isn’t it promising that many people are recognizing that it is our spiritual selves that can save the day and that the material world has taken us too far from ourselves? Bageant is one more voice of reason in the wilderness. Are we beginning to listen?

Deer Hunting With Jesus - Dispatches From America's Class War by Joe Bageant