On Earth as It Is in Heaven

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Eric Atcheson. On Earth as It Is in Heaven

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ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

and impossible sense.

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According to the United States Department of Agriculture, nearly one in four residents of the United States lives in a food desert, which is defined as being at least a mile away from a grocery store or supermarket in urban areas, and at least ten miles away in rural areas.12 The primary options for people who live in food deserts are convenience stores and dollar stores, which generally devote their limited shelf space to highly processed, shelf-stable foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt, rather than healthier staples like fresh fruits and vegetables. Dining options in food deserts similarly include fast food outlets that offer fat-, sugar-, and salt-laden food, but at rock-bottom prices. Inexpensiveness and ubiquity are critical elements to fast food’s appeal when one in four Americans do not have convenient access to a grocery store. Towns such as Baldwin, Florida, have taken the radical step of introducing government-owned grocery stores at city hall, where citizens of the town can purchase nutritious food in the absence of traditional supermarkets.13 For others who live in food deserts across the nation, though the calories are plentiful, the nutrition is scarce. Despite the ability of a relatively small number of American farmers and ranchers to feed literally hundreds of millions of people, the United States is experiencing a very real famine.

The spiritual metaphors here are potentially endless. White American Christianity has glutted itself on the unhealthy calories of religious nationalism and prosperity theology; we will get to those in due course. We will likewise address the scriptural implications of a church and a self-styled “Christian nation” who ignore the provisions of food that Jesus made in the Gospels. For the moment, let us acknowledge that the wealthiest country in the world is not adequately feeding its own people.

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