[+] A Christian Nation?

by Daniel J. Webster

I've had it with all these letters and commentaries about "under God" and the pledge of allegiance, and the founding fathers being Christian, and this being a Christian nation. Even a Utah sculptor revised history depicting three founding fathers kneeling at prayer -- a scene historians call unthinkable.

If folks are going to argue something they should get the facts right. If some want to claim that this should be a Christian nation or they believe God should be included in the pledge, the Star Spangled Banner, prayed to in all schools, then they should be up front and say that's what they're are trying to do.

They should not be invoking the memory of those who worked so hard to keep religion and government separate. They shouldn't claim that because the founders were [or may habe been] "Christian" that gives Christians today some sort of preferential status in the country.

When the [panic] broke out about the pledge I went back to my seminary textbook. Edwin Scott Gaustad in A Religious History of America, (HarperCollins,1990) tells a fascinating account of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry.

In 1777, then-Virginia Gov. Jefferson proposed a "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom." It would assure that no one religion would have government approval in the Commonwealth. Henry countered with his own "Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion" which would have acknowledged no one denomination but would recognize Christianity as the official state sanctioned religion.

With Jefferson's move to France as ambassador for the new nation, the cause was picked up by Madison. He argued that no religion should have any established position.

[Patrick] Henry made his case before the delegates. As word of this effort spread, Baptists and Presbyterians opposed it. Some thought it a ruse that would eventually favor the Anglicans who were a majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Madison said that not only should there be freedom of religion in the commonwealth, there should also be freedom from religion.

In 1786, Madison won. It set the stage a year later for the crafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. No religion would have a favored status as far as the government of this new nation would be concerned.

As for calling this a Christian nation, that puzzles me.

If this country were a Christian nation its citizens and government would be working tirelessly to make sure no one went to bed hungry tonight and that everyone would have a home. Universal health care would be a reality and not just a political debate. The 43 million people without health insurance would have basic medical care.

If this were a Christian nation, the minimum wage would be a living wage, not a poverty-level subsistence. Our criminal justice system would work to bring people back together in right relationship, not just lock up criminals.

If you are curious about such scriptural foundations for these points, start with the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. Then go to Matthew 22:37, where the lawyer tried to trick Jesus asking him which was the most important commandment. "Love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself," he retorted.

Jesus' response to that question is clearly Jewish. He quotes the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). He didn't make up anything new. What is often called the "Greatest Commandment" is not uniquely Christian.

What has been called the "Golden Rule" attributed to Jesus (Luke 6:31) can be found in some form in most major world religions. It is not found in much of what this country has been doing in domestic and foreign policy for too many years.

If we truly loved our neighbor as we love ourselves, the United States, with 6% of the world's population, would not be eating up 23% of the planet's natural resources. We would not be contributing to the atmosphere most of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. Our neighbors in island nations are losing coastal land because of melting glaciers and icecaps and rising sea levels. Our government would not be walking away from international agreements that most other nations are signing.

Call the United States of America a democratic nation. Call it a republic, if you like. Call it "the land of the free and home of the brave."

But please, don't call it a Christian nation.

[The Rev. Daniel J. Webster is director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. A media veteran and peace activist in the church, he writes a regular column for "A Globe of Witnesses." (See http://www.thewitness.org/agw/webster070904.html) Dan may be reached by email at
dwebster@episcopal-ut.org.]

Kicking the Dog

by William Blaine-Wallace

[The following article is adapted from a sermon delivered on June 27, 2004, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston, Mass., centered on the gospel reading of Luke 9:51-62. Thanks to Roy Birchard for sending it to us. It is taken from The Witness, Volume 87, Number 23, July 30, 2004.]

In a June 2004 letter to our diocesan bishop, Tom Shaw, about my decision to disobey the ban on priests solemnizing same-sex unions, I emphasized the pastoral basis of my defiance. I mentioned that the two marriages I solemnized involved couples that had been in the Emmanuel Episcopal Church community for many years. I stated that their relationships, prior to legal marriage, had been blessed in and by Emmanuel. Prior to their blessings, each couple had completed Emmanuel's intensive pre-marital counseling program. I wrote that the solemnization of their legal marriages was the natural completion of my long-standing priestly relation with them. I assured Tom that I was not interested in going on a prophetic marrying spree on behalf of gay and lesbian couples who want to tie the knot.

Still, there is a prophetic dimension to my pastoral acts. The prophetic dimension of my insubordination is a repudiation of the discrimination against a visible and vital community within the Episcopal Church. Our diocese's genuinely heart-wrenching decision not to offer the sacrament of marriage to gays and lesbians in Massachusetts after May 16, 2004 is like the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia's pallid, ingenuous invitation to blacks to sit in the back of their sanctuaries after July 1, 1964. It is about first and second-class membership in the church.

Yet, the prophetic dimension of my decision is more than a protest against religious discrimination. It is a small voice of religious dissent against the religious support for war. What, you may ask, does the solemnization of same-sex marriage have to do with the war in Iraq? The church comfortably, routinely, calmly tolerates an ill-conceived war and is fitfully, constantly, fanatically intolerant of homosexuals. Our tolerance of war and intolerance of homosexuality are chips off the same old cultural block.

What, you may ask, does the solemnization of same-sex marriage have to do with the war in Iraq? The church comfortably, routinely, calmly tolerates an ill-conceived war and is fitfully, constantly, fanatically intolerant of homosexuals.

America loves war as much or more than other first world nations. According to James Hillman, in his new and significant book, The Terrible Love of War, Americans, in a little more than 200 years, have fought the American Indians, the English, the
Mexicans, the Spanish, the Germans, the Germans again, the Japanese, Italians, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Salvadorians, Nicaraguans, Granadans, Iraqis, and Iraqis again. We fought ourselves in one of the bloodiest civil wars ever enacted. We are the 'gunsmith of the world,' the largest manufacturer and exporter of weaponry. Our soldiers are fired upon by American-made killing instruments (see Allen Bisbor, "Our Terrible War," Fairfield Country Weekly, June 10, 2004).

America hates homosexuals as much or more than other first world nations. We dispassionately suggested and sometimes passionately proclaimed that one of history's worst epidemics was an act of God against queers. We are getting ready to try to edit one of history's greatest documents of equality for all people by including an amendment that will bar the rights of some people. A friend of mine, when he was 14, was repeatedly kicked, for sport, under the bleachers of a local high school football field in Tennessee because he was a 'sissy.' Those southerners!Another friend, when he was 30, while walking around the progressive Fenway [neighborhood] in liberal Boston, had his brains beat out for being gay.

There is a fundamental connection between our nation's love of war and hatred of homosexuality. War, over the course of history, has accentuated and ensured dominance of the strong over the weak. Peace, at best, has been something like sleeping with one eye open and both hands on the rifle.

Heterosexual marriage originally was established to solemnize a contract of the presumed stronger male over the presumed weaker woman. The institutionalizing of homosexuality through same-sex marriage takes lordship out of the original, many millenniums long legal arrangement.

War and heterosexual marriage are icons of the same power imbalance. Peace, homosexuality, and, by extension, same-sex marriage, shake the foundations of patriarchy. Fear reigns. Fear is seized upon and capitalized on by those sentinels of tradition who have the most to lose.

America's war is not working at the same time that America rants that her most beloved institution, marriage, is endangered. Not a coincidence. In both cases, the power base of the privileged race, gender and sexual orientation is at stake. Two long established, interdependent traditions at the epicenter of our frontier nation are unraveling. In a military industrial state, it is much easier to fret and fume over what is happening at the marriage altar than dismantle and redirect a violence-based economy.

America has been having a particularly bad day on the battlefield. Our response is, as they say, to kick the dog.

In a world brought much closer together through technology, dominance of one nation over other nations by means of might is proving to be a weak and reckless strategy. Mutuality between and cooperation among nations are proving to be the real pillars of strength. The growing exposure of the crippling ineptness of our way-too-phallic reliance leaves America in a panic.

I wonder if America's pre-emptive ejaculations of violence in the globe's most volatile neighborhood interwoven with America's obsessive insistence that boy meets girl are the unison gasps of a dying national identity. I hope so. If so, I hope the death rattle stops soon. In the meantime, we must protect those ravaged by it. The church's solemnizing of same-sex marriage is one, small means of protection.

There is another, more costly measure of protection, such as that practiced by the one we profess as Lord.

In the Gospel of Luke (chapter 9) we read: When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?" But [Jesus] turned and rebuked them.

James and John, those whom the writer of Mark's gospel called 'the sons of thunder,' drew the axis of evil down the center of a foreign village because they did not receive the Middle East hospitality they needed and expected. Jesus would have none if it, either then or later when another disciple cut off the ear of Rome in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus was always and expressly against war. Jesus was, at best, lukewarm regarding heterosexual marriage, never against homosexuals, not concerned that they might marry. Because Jesus was against dominance and for mutuality, we are precluded from prospering Jesus as one for war and against same-sex marriage.

Could we please get over and beyond this marriage issue? There is a much larger and closely related fish to fry: WAR.

The cost of frying the much bigger fish is high. The work is sacrificial. In today's gospel, three times the disciples flinched, asking if they might take care of their unfinished business before heading to the seats of power imbalance in Jerusalem. Each time, Jesus said that the time was at hand . . . now.

Support the church's solemnization of same-sex marriage and you are considered by many to be un-Anglican, whatever that means, and by more to be un-Christian, for what it's worth. Stand up against war and you are denigrated as un-American,
unpatriotic. Those to the right of the NASCAR dads will hate you more than the enemies our sons and daughters are fighting.

Let us continue our struggle for the right of gays and lesbians to partake of the sacrament of marriage. And, let us understand the struggle as a reflection, a manifestation of the larger, more consequential struggle against war and for peace.

The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace is rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston, Mass. He may be reached by email at bb-w@emmanuel-boston.org.

[+] St. Paul saw resurrection as a metaphor

by Tom Harpur

Some [people] seem to have a limited view of who or what constitutes "a real Christian." Consequently, they [speak] caustically stating why they believe [some other Christians] belong "outside the camp."

Fortunately, few things could matter less — as long as these exclusivists keep reading and thinking. But, sometimes there's an irony. This is the case when, as often happens lately, they write saying that I cannot be a genuine Christian unless I believe literally — among other things — that Jesus was raised "physically" from the dead. In other words, unless you commit to the "physical resurrection" of a historical Jesus, you are beyond the pale of Christianity.

This judgment puts so many of us in such early and renowned Christian company — that of those who had minds well beyond the learning or brilliance theologians today would dare to claim. Take, for example, St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215 C.E.) and his mightier pupil, Origen (185-254). Both took the allegorical/spiritual approach to scripture and would have been really shocked to see the way today's "Christianism" so often distorts the original spiritual reality.

Interestingly, however, there is another being tried with us on this issue, one weightier still than any church father or other biblical exegete. I refer to that great "lion" of the faith, St. Paul himself.

Paul couldn't be clearer, in his oft-quoted peroration in 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection of the dead, that Jesus' resurrection — and hence our own one day — was categorically and supremely a spiritual "event." He's so insistent on this, goes to such great lengths to expatiate upon it, and thunders it home with such eloquence that it's truly astounding how would-be Bible champions can read it and not comprehend its meaning. The entire passage is pure Platonism throughout.

Don't take my word alone. Let's look at it. As the chapter opens, Paul quotes the tradition handed on to him how various people "saw" the risen Lord and says that lastly the Christ was seen by him "as of one born out of due time" (a reference to his later, unusual Damascus road experience). Significantly, the Greek verb he uses to describe his own "seeing," opthe, is the one he uses to describe the sightings by the others. But, it's a technical term, widely used in the popular Mystery Religions of the day, to denote a paranormal, psychic vision. Paul is decidedly not talking here about ordinary physical sight at all.

Move on then to verse 35 and following where he actually discusses and answers the legitimate, pressing question: "How are the dead raised up?" His argument is a little tortured, but if you stick with it he makes the same point repeatedly: What goes into the ground at death is definitely not what moves on to the dimension of eternal life or the life of "the age to come." What goes into the grave is corporeal, physical, eminently corruptible. What comes out is immortal, spiritual through and through. As the old Egyptians said: The body to earth; the soul to heaven.

Paul uses the old metaphor of sowing a seed. Those who have planted seed potatoes and then encountered the rotting remains afterwards while harvesting new potatoes can identify with his point. You don't "sow" that which comes up. "God giveth it a (new) body."

Paul says plainly that this describes the resurrection of the dead, Jesus' and ours, for they are identical: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown a natural, (or physical), body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body ... and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."

In case this is not completely transparent, he then lays it down as emphatically as possible: "Now this I say ... flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption ... we shall all be changed!"

Our decay-prone bodies —"this corruptible"— shall put on "incorruption," and that which is so clearly mortal "will put on" immortality. This leads him to that classic cry so often repeated at funerals: "Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

Paul, whose genuine epistles date much earlier than the Gospels, never mentions an empty tomb. Why not? He knew nothing of it. For him, the resurrection was an entirely spiritual matter. He knew nothing of the later resurrection stories in the Gospels about Jesus eating fish or walking about talking to fishermen. All of that was added as the demand for a more literalistic, made-for-the-lowest-common-denominator version imposed itself upon the original story.

[From the blog site, "Liberal Christians," (http://liberalchristians.blogspot.com/).]

Jesus and Jihad

by Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times

If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of
evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will
return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left
and toss them into everlasting fire:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a
yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and
wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in,
howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon
quashed and all was silent when the earth closed
itself again."

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the
United States, and they have sold more than 60 million
copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing,"
which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all
non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to
find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of
piety.

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of
"Glorious Appearing" and publish it in Saudi Arabia,
jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of
non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite
properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of
Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it's time
to remove the motes from our own eyes.

In "Glorious Appearing," Jesus merely speaks and the
bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have
to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and
filleted bodies of men and women and horses."

"The riders not thrown," the novel continues, "leaped
from their horses and tried to control them with the
reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh
dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues
disintegrated. . . . Seconds later the same plague
afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues
melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing,
before they, too, rattled to the pavement."

One might have thought that Jesus would be more of
an animal lover.

These scenes also raise an eschatological problem:
Could devout fundamentalists really enjoy paradise
as their friends, relatives and neighbors were heaved
into hell?

As my Times colleague David Kirkpatrick noted in an
article, this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming
reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from
a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah
presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity
rises to confront Militant Islam.

This matters in the real world, in the same way that
fundamentalist Islamic tracts in Saudi Arabia do. Each
form of fundamentalism creates a stark moral division
between decent, pious types like oneself - and
infidels headed for hell.

No, I don't think the readers of "Glorious Appearing"
will ram planes into buildings. But we did imprison
thousands of Muslims here and abroad after 9/11, and
ordinary Americans joined in the torture of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib in part because of a lack of empathy for
the prisoners. It's harder to feel empathy for such
people if we regard them as infidels and expect Jesus
to dissolve their tongues and eyes any day now.

I had reservations about writing this column because
I don't want to mock anyone's religious beliefs, and
millions of Americans think "Glorious Appearing"
describes God's will. Yet ultimately I think it's a
mistake to treat religion as a taboo, either in this
country or in Saudi Arabia.

I often write about religion precisely because faith
has a vast impact on society. Since I've praised the
work that evangelicals do in the third world
(Christian aid groups are being particularly helpful
in Sudan, at a time when most of the world has done
nothing about the genocide there), I also feel a
responsibility to protest intolerance at home.

Should we really give intolerance a pass if it is
rooted in religious faith?

Many American Christians once read the Bible to mean
that African-Americans were cursed as descendants of
Noah's son Ham, and were intended by God to be
enslaved. In the 19th century, millions of Americans
sincerely accepted this Biblical justification for
slavery as God's word - but surely it would have
been wrong to defer to such racist nonsense simply
because speaking out could have been perceived as
denigrating some people's religious faith.

People have the right to believe in a racist God, or
a God who throws millions of nonevangelicals into
hell. I don't think we should ban books that say that.
But we should be embarrassed when our best-selling
books gleefully celebrate religious intolerance and
violence against infidels.

That's not what America stands for, and I doubt that
it's what God stands for.

Spider Man: Power and Responsibility Go Hand-in-Hand

by Jeffrey Weiss
The Dallas Morning News

At the emotional heart of the new "Spider-Man 2" movie
is the most famous line ever written for a comic book.

It was the center of the first "Spider-Man" movie,
too, pretty much the way Stan Lee wrote it 42 years
ago:

"With great power there must also come -- great
responsibility."

For more than four decades, Spidey (and his alter ego,
Peter Parker) has struggled to be responsible in the
face of personal sacrifice. And sometimes he comes up
with what he later decides was the wrong choice. The
theme that responsibility and power are webbed
together also is found in many religious and ethical
traditions. In fact, it's such a universal human
conflict that even theologians are inclined to nod
respectfully at this particular comic-book hero.

"I would suggest that's because the line expresses a
great truth, a truth that's applicable to all men and
all times," said Doug Blount, a philosophy professor
at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort
Worth, Texas.

The story of Spider-Man was created during a time of
great national tumult. More than just an iconic
battle between good and evil, it's a tale that
includes realistic uncertainty. What is the best way
to do good?

Since the first story, Spider-Man has been one of the
most popular characters in modern fiction. The first
movie, which was all about why Peter becomes a hero,
was the top-grossing film for 2002, drawing $403.7
million in domestic sales.

In India, a reworked version of Spider-Man (civilian
name: Pavitr Prabhakar) will battle a traditional
Hindu demon in a comic book later this year.

Rabbis recognize something essentially Jewish in
Spider-Man, pastors find a Christian message and imams
identify the tenets of Islam.

"The whole Hebrew Bible is one long story about the
just use of power," said Rabbi David Stern of Temple
Emanu-El in Dallas.

"From Adam and Eve onward, there is the idea that we
are endowed with unique power by being created in
God's image and that the power automatically entails
responsibility."

Christian examples
Christians hear an echo of Stan Lee's line in the book
of Luke: "From everyone to whom much has been given,
much will be required, and from the one to whom much
has been entrusted, even more will be demanded."

The ultimate Christian example of the responsible use
of power is Jesus on the cross (there's a faux-
crucifixion scene in "Spider-Man 2"). But there's also
Jesus as servant, washing the feet of his disciples.
And the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Spider-Man reflects other aspects of Jesus' example,
said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, an Episcopalian
theologian from South Carolina.

"You don't see Spider-Man interacting with the
powerful because he has power," he said. "Jesus was
never seen courting the powerful."

As with the Bible, the Quran is about power and its
uses, said Imam Yusuf Kavakci of the Dallas Central
Mosque in Richardson, Texas.

More is expected from the prophets than other people,
he said. And Islam teaches that people are to be given
jobs that fit their abilities.

Present-day real heroes often recognize that the power
to do the right thing entails responsibility to act,
said Samuel Oliner, author of "Do Unto Others:
Extraordinary Acts of Ordinary People."

"This inner conversation is actually real: 'What will
I tell my children?

What will I tell myself if I don't act?' " he said.
"You aren't allowed to be a bystander."

Power and responsibility
So what makes this comic-book good guy different from
other famous, popular comic book characters?

The early Superman was a powerful alien with a
satisfyingly simple soul, filled with small-town
altruism. Batman was an unimaginably rich guy, driven
by an intriguing, slightly creepy obsession to get
revenge on all criminals for the murder of his
parents.

The X-Men? Persecuted but powerful, they fight in
self- defense and partly to demonstrate their
essential humanity to a world that's inclined to
reject anyone different. Harry Potter? Wizard by
inheritance, he's all about loyalty and friendship.

Peter Parker, on the other hand, starts out as a
nebbishy every-geek decades before Bill Gates made
geekdom potentially cool.

In the original telling of the tale by Lee and artist
Steve Ditko, Peter gains his powers and decides to
make a buck -- and nothing more. He lets a robber run
by and discovers a few comic panels later that the
same criminal has subsequently murdered his beloved
Uncle Ben.

Lee's line about power and responsibility is almost a
throwaway, squeezed into the last panel of the story.
In addition to religious traditions, the idea for the
line could have emerged from the current events of the
day. Questions about power and responsibility filled
the headlines of the early 1960s even as they fill the
headlines of the current millennium:

President Kennedy recently had told the nation to "ask
not what your country can do for you ... " The civil
rights movement was leaping into the headlines. The
space race was sending Americans and Soviets into
orbit. Lee was just starting his revolution at Marvel
Comics, co-creating a bullpen of unusually conflicted
characters. So did world events or religious themes
inspire the famous line?

"I'd love to say that I was inspired by things
happening in the world such as the civil rights
movement or an impending war, or even a previous war,
or politics or whatever," said Lee, now 81. "But I
really think it was just a phrase that came to me and
it sounded good, and I wrote it down and continued
writing without giving it much more thought."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

Loving kindness is the sole practice of every religion
because in giving love that is what we become! ...
= Sky

[Thanks to David Enroth ("Sky") for forwarding.]

[+] Of, By, and For the People -- Reflections on Independence Day, 2004

by Larry Schulz

["There has not been such urgency about what is
happening in American society since July 4, 1776...
(H)ere is my take on the current crises we face and
what we need to remember and do if we are to preserve
the wonderful heritage we celebrate on July 4." LS]

Several years ago the Yale historian, Paul Kennedy
created a stir when he wrote that the United States is
the latest of a number of world empires that has risen
and then gone into a state of decline. He stated that
this Country, having reached a zenith in the 1950's,
is now in decline. I won’t pursue Professor Kennedy's
premise, except to say that there is something
terribly amiss in our Country as we prepare for the
228th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence. Each morning the newspaper reminds me
that something is not as it should be. My daily mantra
is, "we are going to hell in a hand basket." What I am
talking about is far more than politics. What I'm
talking about is the spiritual and ethical decline of
society. I'm talking about things that are of critical
importance to the future of our society -
relationships, moral virtues, and spiritual values.

I think it was Alexis de Tocqueville who said, "When
America ceases to be good, it will cease to be great."
I agree. His words express a fundamental truth that
our nation's greatness does not lie in military might,
wealth, technology or cultural accomplishments. Its
greatness rests in a commitment, articulated by the
founders of this Country, to the ideals of freedom and
justice for all persons and the determination to
oppose evil whenever and wherever it may arise. The
governing documents of this Country declare that this
is a society that will seek to address issues with
justice and compassion.

Benjamin Franklin, the patriarch of the Constitutional
Convention at 81 years of age, hobbled to a small
table on September 17, 1787. He said that he consented
to the Constitution "because I expect no better, and
because I am not sure that it is not the best."
Franklin and his colleagues felt called by divine
destiny. Their best was laid on the table. They could
not do better.

What they did has served us well for over two hundred
years. However, at this time something is coming
apart. It is my hunch that the reason things seem to
be coming apart has to do with the same kind of
struggle the founders faced as they attempted to
develop the foundation upon which the governance of
the United States would evolve. George Washington,
writing to the president of the Continental Congress
on the day that the Constitution was signed said, "It
is obviously impracticable in the federal government
of these states, to secure all rights to each, and yet
provide for the interest and safety of all.
Individuals living in this society must give up a
share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude
of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and
circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is
at all time difficult to draw with precision the line
between those rights which must be surrendered, and
those which may be reserved."

Washington understood, as did Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe and others that surrendering personal ambition
for the greater good is the price we pay to preserve
freedom, whether it be in personal or public life.

Freedom is a gift. Freedom comes through divine grace;
it is not something we earn. Freedom is what happens
when we are willing to give up what must be given up
for the greater good of the community. Freedom has a
price and we can be free only when we are willing to
pay the price. It costs. It costs dearly. The cost is
giving ourselves to others, as we would hope others
would give themselves to us.

The winner of the Nobel Prize for peace, Elie Wiesel,
has written an essay on what really makes us free.
Wiesel writes that human beings, created in God's
image, want to be free, even as God is free. We want
to be free to choose between good and evil, life and
death. He explains that the first Jewish law after the
Ten Commandments had to do with the issue of slavery.
"It prohibited not only owning slaves, but also
entering into slavery voluntarily. One who gives up
freedom is to be punished. To put it another way:
every one is free, but no one is free to give up
freedom." Wiesel is saying that we have been created
by God to be free. We are expected by God to maintain
that freedom at all costs.

The problem is that freedom is not just being free to
do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it.
Being free means living responsibly. Being free means
remembering that God has set before us life and death
and we are called to choose life by acting responsibly
and lovingly toward others.

Those of us who call ourselves Christian, find
ourselves caught in a dual allegiance. We hold dual
citizenship. We are citizens of the realm of God and
citizens of the United States. I believe that our
citizenship in God’s realm must influence our
citizenship in the United States. The authority of the
governments of this world and the pre-eminence of the
realm of God interact in the life of individual
Christians. These two realms are not synonymous.
National policy is not always to be interpreted as the
civil expression of God's will. Yet the two realms are
not completely divorced from each other. God can be
served and good can be done through participation in
the political process. The Christian must maintain
identity as both an authentic child of God and a loyal
citizen of the nation. A Christian is to render to
Caesar only what is Caesar's. It is wrong to render to
Caesar the things that properly belong to God alone.
For example, violating the First Commandment by making
judgments about persons relative to nationality,
religious preference, gender, race, language, sexual
orientation, age, etc., is clearly an attempt to play
God, which for me is what sin is. Sin is always in the
singular and occurs whenever we attempt to put
ourselves higher than God.

When Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Battlefield in
Gettysburg he said, "We are engaged in a great civil
war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." I submit
that these words speak to the condition of our Country
today as relevantly as they did then. We are engaged
in a great civil debate that is testing us. It is a
test about whether "this nation shall have a new birth
of freedom and a government of the people, by the
people, for the people, that shall not perish" but be
strengthened and endure.

I tend to be a pessimist, but I'm not in charge. God
is. That's my hope. As we prepare to observe the
anniversary of our independence from, as Thomas
Jefferson put it, "the repeated injuries, usurpations,
and absolute tyranny" of George the III, we need to
gird ourselves to withstand the recurrent injuries,
usurpations and tyranny of another George who is
making an effort to undercut the principles, stated so
well by President Lincoln, of a society governed of
the people, by the people, for the people.

My hope is not unlike that of Thomas Wolfe who said:
"I think the true discovery of America is before us. I
think the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our
people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to
come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy
is still before us. And I think that all these things
are certain as the morning, as inevitable as noon. Our
dream is before us and this is our living hope."

QUOTATIONS TO REMEMBER AND PONDER

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are
created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The care
of life and happiness, and not their destruction, is
the first and only legitimate object of good
government. When government becomes destructive, it is
the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to
institute a new government, laying its foundation on
such principles, and organizing its powers in such
form, as to seem most likely to effect their safety
and happiness. (Thomas Jefferson)

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement
of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent
encroachment of those in power than by violent and
sudden usurpations. (James Madison)

The government of the United States of America is not
in any sense founded on the Christian religion.
(George Washington)

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more
than anywhere else. (Clarence Darrow)

The real patriot is the person who is not afraid to
criticize the defective policies of the country one
loves. (Joseph J. Fahey)

Christian faith makes uncritical patriotism
impossible. (Peter Monkres)

Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so
few and powerlessness in the hands of so many. (Maggie
Kuhn)

These are times for real choices and not false ones.
We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on
the line if our nation is to survive its own folly
Each one of humane convictions must decide on the
protest that best suits ones convictions, but we all
must protest. We are faced with the fact that tomorrow
is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of
now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history
there is such a thing as being too late.
Procrastination is still the thief of time. (Martin
Luther King, Jr.)

I believe that people in the long run are going to do
more to promote peace than are governments. Indeed, I
think that people want peace so much that one of these
days governments had better get out of their way and
let them have it. (Dwight Eisenhower)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to
the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we
provide enough for those who have too little.
(Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free. (Emma Lazarus)

[ The Rev. Larold Shulz, retired, is the former
pastor of the First Congregational Church in Alameda,
CA.]