During my sixty years or so of following politics in America, I have seen several distressing trends. One has to do with the increased viciousness between people of opposite political parties. If someone did not agree with your policy choices in 1965, you were characterized as “wrong-headed” or “mistaken.” Today, people with this same ideology would be called “traitors” or “scum.” During the George H.W. Bush election campaign of 1988, I noticed the first use of the “L-word.” This was an attempt to paint people who were of liberal persuasion in pejorative terms, and today we have a President that says in his Christmas messages (2023 and 2024) that liberals and people who vote democrat can “Go to Hell.”
In the eighties, talk radio took off and the favorite whipping boy for society’s ills were the dedicated public servants in Washington (along with public school teachers across the U.S.) Like a ceaseless, pounding drum, men who never served their country in uniform were able to snatch a megaphone or con a microphone in order to pour out a litany of venom across the AM and FM airwaves as they demonized their opponents. These people were not encumbered by the truth once they discovered that their followers never botherd to check. They alse proved the point that a negative and hateful message could often trump a positive and caring message, especially if it struck chords of fear in their followers. Thus, the unfounded rumor that illegal, Chinese immingrants were eating pet dogs worked so well in the late nineteenth century that it was dusted off and repurposed to use against Haitians in the early twenty-first century.
Yet another step into the darkness came from aficionados of television documentaries who saw themselves as historians and who rewrote American history for the masses to suit their beliefs, religious or otherwise. They saw America as a chosen nation. They saw the framers of the Constitution as dedicated men of God with a common purpose in mind. Fueled by false prophets, they saw God’s wrath and condemnation about to fall on this country unless Republicans could control government. Many of these people believe Americans must be coaxed back to church (forced if necessary.) The belief that the U.S. was and is a Christian nation means to many MAGA evangelicals that Jews cannot hold elective office because they are not Christian. And if Jews can’t, then Muslims, Hindus, atheists and agnostics certainly cannot, either. As just one example, this very week, Congresswomen Mary Miller (R, IL) has been complaining about a Sikh who was invited to lead the U.S. House of Representatives in an opening prayer. At first, she appeared to confuse Giani Singh with a Muslim because of his dastaar (turban), but she corrected herself (though she never quite righted herself) over the incident, which could not have taken place, incidentially, without the blessings of the Republican majority of the House. Said Miller in her original remarks:
“It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim [sic] was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning. This should never have been allowed to happen . . .America was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth, not drift further from it. May God have mercy!”
Ironically, today is the 333rd anniversary of the execution of Briget Bishop, the first person executed (bu hanging) for witchcraft in the U.S. Credit: Matrioshka (Shutterstock.)
Were we to adopt this sort of civil intolerance, we would not only be in violation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, we would also be only a “stone’s throw” away from putting witches, gays, women who commit adultery (and others) to death according to Mosaic law. This is not to say that America is not a sinful nation. Our individual and collective sins are undoubtedly a stench in the nostrils of God and we should understand the peril we are in, as Johnathan Edwards did in his day. I’m only saying that I would rather personally let God judge me for my sins than some posse of self-appointed spiritual vigilantes who believe they have a divine right to do anything they damn well please in the name of Jesus. If the grace of God were ever forced on people as law, our problems would only get worse, and there would certainly be a bloodbath. Only God can know what lies in the hearts of men and women.
My conclusion after spending much more time than I ever thought I needed to was that while there was never a common prayer during the four plus months of 1787 while the Constitution was written, and even though the framers deliberately left out any mention of God in the most important document of American history still, at least some of them were Christians as we understand Christians today. Some, but far from all.
Currently, the battle in the U.S, is over diversity, equity and inclusion. Again, after having a black American President elected (for two terms no less), I never thought we’d be facing white supremacy again, or at least in my lifetime. We may loudly proclaim that in America, “All men are created equal.” However, the unvarnished truth is that some are created more equal than others. Today, we have the best president that money can buy.
THE PRICE WE PAID
What we’ve learned as a nation has not come cheap, or painless. Almost 400,000 black people from Africa were taken to our shores in chains, with many more headed to South America. This was not the land of milk and honey for them and their children. And, since the ratification (1865) of the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery, at least 4,400 people of color who were legally free were indifferently lynched. Another 4,000 Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears, driven across their own land. Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin Roosevelt (February 1942) forcibly incarcerated 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent for the duration of the war. Many of these people had never been anywhere outside the U.S. And there were other massacres in American history which I have not mentioned.
On a personal note, I recall quite vividly when my wife of forty-six years was buried in the rural cemetery of our town, on a cold, wet day in February 2018. Not more than twenty or thirty feet from her grave was a grave of a male with a Hispanic surname and an age of about twenty-five according to the epitaph. There was almost always someone there visiting. You could spot this particular grave site from a distance, because the headstone was decorated with bright, colorful garland or oversized artificial flowers I personally found inappropriate and tasteless. There was even a small solar powered light that came on at night as I recall. Plaster or plastic statues of the Virgin Mary and other saints were fastened to the ground around the stone, as were pinwheels that were always in motion. My first impression of their cemetery plot was of a used car lot on the Fourth of July, or a ticket booth you might see at a carnival. Whenever I was at my wife’s grave and someone was “there,” I always avoided eye contact. It was just so alien to me. At that point, however, my wife had passed only a few months earlier, and my emotions were still raw around the edges.
One day I made note of the name of the deceased on the headstone. I took the time to look the name up in the local obituaries. The young man was single, Mexican and he died in a car wreck. I wondered back then if I would be as devoted as his family was if one of my sons died thusly? In this part of Texas where I lived, there was a good chance that the deceased young man and his family were undocumented. Most Hispanics in these parts were. What, I wondered, if they were arrested and deported to Mexico? They could no longer visit their son’s grave? By then, I had conceded that while I could not appreciate the many trinkets and accoutrements they added to their son’s plot, I could and did appreciate their love for him. Somehow, this sadness made possible by mutual heartache and loss banished all of my arguments and talking points about why they should leave my state, my country. Who would care for their son’s grave in that case? I know many people including Christians who might respond “Not my problem,” but now it was in some small sense my problem. Perhaps this is what the Creed means when it speaks of the “communion of saints”; them and me, their late son and my late wife.
CONTINUING. . .
Silhouette of Mohegan worker. Credit: 1971/yes (iStock.)
The hands that built the many edifices and attractions in our cities that until only recently would draw visitors to our shores were built by hands that were red, black, yellow, brown and white. The frame of the famous and original World Trade Center towers and other midtown Manhattan sky scrapers were built largely by Mohegan steelworkers who risked their lives daily to hang floor-after-floor. The White House and Capital in Washington DC. were raised by and largely using slaves who were forced to provide manual labor and likely beaten if they refused. The major east/west rail lines (especially west of the Rockies) were built by Chinese peasants while the very hearts of such American cities as Santa Fe, Los Angeles and San Antonio were constructed by workers with Hispanic surnames. Anglos, of course, also provided innumerable accomplishments designing living spaces, cultural monuments, interstate systems to link the nation as well as the vehicles that use them and so on.
Yet, our country would not be so interesting if we were all basically the same race. Take Russia for instance. Their architecture is dreary if not dreadful. If you’ve seen one concrete khrushchyovka (apartment building) you’ve seen them all. In some countries that do not welcome strangers, there is no “cross pollination” of ideas, and their literature, fashion, and culture is essentially stiffened and sterile. In the U.S., with its historical freedom and acceptance of different ideas, much more is possible. And this is a good reason why we should want to welcome diversity.
And then, what if women were not valued outside of the home? We’ve seen instances in twentieth century history where in Europe, women were encouraged (strongly so) to have babies and stay home. Even today in some Muslim countries women cannot be out in public alone. Isn’t a woman’s input as valuable as that of a man’s?
Because I am fundamentally a liberal, I see America’s greatness to lie in our yet top be determined future, not in our checkered past. That’s not to say that I am onboard with every innovation, especially in the area of society and culture. Nor is liberalism the answer for every possible problem. Given my temperament, education, life experiences and religious orientation, liberal ideals resonate in me more than conservative ideals do. However, there are many conservative principles that I do care about and support (assuming they exist anymore in the U.S.). Either way, we are all patriots. Nancy Pelosi is a patriot, but then so is Mike Johnson. We all love our country, and how dare anyone claim that we do not?!
