Ten-year-old Bobby Thompson is an atheist. He thinks he’s been an atheist for a while and just didn’t have the word to describe how he thinks about God. Once he figured out he was an atheist, he wasn’t expecting all the revelations that came afterward. First, he discovered most people at church are atheists. Second, he totally penetrated the mysteries around Easter. Third, that new movie coming out? Alien: Covenant? It’s all about God. The newest insight is most interesting one of them all! Real Christians can’t be real Americans.

Bobby isn’t a teacher. He’s a kid. But even a kid can tell you there’s a big difference between Jesus saying* Don’t resist evil. If someone strikes your coat, give it to them and tell them to hit your face and the US Army commercial saying that if you’re smart enough you too can kill terrorists with drones. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but the army makes piloting a drone and blowing stuff up sound AWESOME.

The thing the ten-year-old can’t figure out is picturing Jesus as the wheel and shooting hellfire missiles. How does that work? On the one hand, you have Jesus telling people to be a punching bag for bad guys, and at the same time, Christians are out there dropping bombs. Those two things don’t mix. It’s kinda like the time his science teacher, Mr. Johnson, put vegetable oil into water. Water and oil don’t mix. They separate. Bobby thinks trying to be a Christian and an American at the same time is like pouring oil into water and praying they combine.

But they don’t.

There’s a lot of people who think oil and water mix nicely, Bobby thinks to himself. It’s probably because they don’t think a whole lot about Jesus or what it means **to American.

And then something Mr. Johnson echoes in his mind. “Evolution doesn’t try to make anything perfect. Evolution makes things good enough to get by.” Maybe that’s how brains work, too. Sure, stuff in people’s heads doesn’t make sense. Brains are there just to be good enough to get by.

And that’s why people think you can be a real American and a real Christian at the same time.

*Bobby’s a smart kid. However, he may not have Mathew 5: 39-40 100% correct.

** to American – Bobby likes making verbs out of nouns.

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