THE PROMISE OF AMERICA
The way some people talk one would get the notion that America is an idea whose time has gone. Our country is not the most favored nation in the world just now, all the way from immigration legislation at home to our image both in Europe and the Middle East. Here on this 4th of July week, some balance is required.
Back when I worked at the Interchurch Center on Riverside Drive in New York, I had the occasion to visit the New York headquarters of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The large waiting room had the aura and semblance of a marketplace. Crowds were so large that one had to take a ticket to get in. The ticket that I drew was numbered 721. The number being served was 483. It was a long wait. There were milling crowds from every conceivable background, wishing entrance into this country. America, an idea whose time has gone? Hardly.
Simon Weil, a capable interpreter of the human scene, said one time, “The State is a cold concern which cannot inspire love, but itself kills, suppresses everything that might be loved; so one is forced to love it, because there is nothing else. That is the moral torment to which all of us today are exposed.” But is the State necessarily a cold concern? Is there not a tribute to Caesar that is in order? Is not the State, the nation, at least a God intended reality, intended if Genesis is correct to be a blessing to the nations. While there are precious few in the world today that would call America a blessing to the world, is not the nation worthy of a Christian reflection, especially on this 4th of July week?
I hold that America is rich with promise, and I would like to tell you why, in two reasons.
First, and this may seem a bit absurd, because AMERICA IS HERE. That’s one reason why she is a land of promise. America is not a dream. It does not exist in vision only. It is here. Some years back, again my job out of New York brought me to several meetings of the World Council of Churches. At one such gathering, during the Viet Nam era, there were present many dissidents, political as well as ostensibly religious. As the crowd gathered, conversations broke out around me and I couldn’t help but hear a couple of men in adjoining seats, one of whom was indignant about America’s sins. His catalog of failures was imposing and unending. Finally his friend was driven to despair. To silence all further criticism, he said, “Why in blazes (he used another word there) don’t you go out and start your own country?” I’ve heard a lot of put-downs in my time, but that one ranks very near the top.
There’s an element of wisdom behind that put-down, however. How difficult it is to give birth to a nation! America is here. If you think it isn’t difficult, look at the new national states in Africa. To birth a nation requires a peculiar combination of circumstances; the right people arriving at the right time, a precise blending of personal and national events.
For us, let us remember that the formative work has been done. One of my favorite books in the last couple of years has been David McCullough’s 1776. Frankly, after reading it, I put it down and thought, “It’s a miracle that we are even here. That we made it.” Where there had been not much before, now there is something. The decisive freeing-up has already happened. King George is no longer around, at least the one from England. To bring a nation this far, granting all of its unresolved problems and international turmoil, is in truth a magnificent achievement. America is here.
Second, I believe America has promise because we are blessed with a concept of church and state that prohibits the establishment of any particular religion. I suspect that this is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of America life, because most of us have never known it any other way. Someone has said that if fish could talk, they probably would not have a word for water. Water is their natural ambience. They cannot conceive of “fishness” apart from water. For those of us who were born in this land, it is hard to conceive of a state in which there is an establishment of one particular religion. Nonetheless, the First Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of any particular religion in the land, is highly significant.
Others have paid a price for this achievement. Back in the 16th century, there was a Scottish Presbyterian minister by the name of Andrew Melville, who pastored a small wisp of a congregation much to the chagrin of King James VI of Scotland. Melville was brought before the king, literally, face-to-face. He was accused of staging seditious meetings in private homes. After speaking to the king with the usual respect and dignity, he warmed to his task and said, “Therefore, sir, as diverse times before I have told you, so now again I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland; there is King James, the head of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, or a lord, nor a head, but a member! We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again I say, you are not the head of the Church; you cannot give us that eternal life which we seek for, even in this world, and you cannot deprive us of it. Permit us then freely to meet in the name of Christ, and to attend to the interests of that church of which you are the chief member.”
That’s the negative side: To bless God for the fact that there is no establishment of religion in the land. The positive side is that this non-establishment principle gives America the privilege of a Free Church system, which can deliver from time to time the free standing word of God in which is salvation! The word of God can induce in the hearts of men and women change from what is to what ought to be, and because of the Free Church in this country, that can happen here.
I hold that America is rich in promise. Our future is not automatically before us. It will require care and commitment to achieve. But, after all, we're here! And we have a free church. And we have a political system that is the envy of millions around the world, and thousands who on any given day would love to live here. In spite of all that is wrong with our national and global policy just now, we must be doing something right.
Prayer
Gracious God, we thank you for this nation in which we dwell.
Help us to wisely honor what is good in our heritage, and earnestly to change that which stands in opposition to your will. Through the Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life, and in whose service is perfect freedom, we pray. Amen.