Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:9).
Jonathan Swift once remarked, "Most of us have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love." (From A Year with Jesus by Eugene Peterson, page 119).
America has two related bedrock anchors – belief in God ("in God we trust") and belief in brotherhood (equality encapsulated within the Bill of Rights and the Golden rule). No one can fully understand the formation and evolution of America without understanding these underlying anchors. There has always been contrapuntal voices of cynicism – but these voices have always been proven wrong in the end as faith and brotherhood prevailed.
We are now in a time of severe testing as the next great dawning in understanding envelops us. This relates directly to social and economic justice on an ever broadening scale. We do not and will not give up our reliance on capitalism and its many benefits; but, even so, our present calling is to calibrate it more fully to align with our bedrock ethical values. Intense pressures will escalate in the days ahead and present many challenges and, sometimes, periods of doubt. But we must ask the fundamental question – will these pressures cause us to let go of the anchors that have held us through war and peace and given us hope through the stresses of rending storms?
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