The American Dream Falsified

Nena Arias | December 2, 2019

Everything in this world has a beginning. The motivation of the early Mayflower settlers of 1620 said it all; how they formally expressed their desire of this new adventure that began with a journey from Europe to the shores of this part of the North American continent. This enterprise, in time, turned out to be the beginning of this country the United States of America. There is no doubt, this vision was birthed and directed by God. There can be no other explanation when we study the life and the writings of those who originated it in the early 1600s.

These folks were the English Pilgrims and Puritans that came to these shores to free themselves from human oppression and persecution of their faith. They had a desire that developed into a dream that gave them the vision for the start of a new colony (nation) in what became known as the New World. For all intents and purposes that was the original American dream.  Freedom to worship the God of the Bible and instruct their children in his ways for a true godly heritage.

But all that original emphasis of the true American dream has changed in modern America. The original American dream has been falsified into materialism.

For many years we have all too frequently heard people refer to an “American dream” like if they are talking about two magic words that are supposed to mean the same thing to all people. People illusively believe that if they arrive at possessing this modern-day version of the American dream that they will have arrived at the peak of a mountain to be able to feel like they have arrived at a kingly and privileged status that will solve all of their problems and give them the most care-free form of existence possible this side of heaven.

The internet is filled with many explanations and description of what this so-called “American dream” is supposed to look like or when you can consider you have arrived at this American dream by the amount of possessions you have accumulated around you.

In the 1920s, the American Dream notion started forming from the idea to create a better life and the desire to acquire material things. This change was described in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby.

The term began to circulate in 1931 after a best-seller book titled “Epic of America” by James Truslow Adams and began to circulate. He described it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

So people begin to strive beyond the limits and sacrifice their families, health, spirituality, quality time with their children to work hard and as smart as they can, get an education that is supposed to open the “windows of heaven” of opportunities for them, they over-extend on their credit, buy property and try to have it all in order to achieve the illusive “never enough” American dream, only to end up making a mess of their lives yet they pretend that they have arrived. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet many people in the world want to come to America to achieve this illusion of “happiness” all the while missing the most important factor. Mark 8:36-37 says: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?

People fail to see that material prosperity in America was a byproduct of the biblically principled spiritual foundation that gave it this greatness. For America to be great again, we must restore the original American dream.