Unity, Freedom and Tolerance

Jesus stated that a house divided against itself cannot stand [Matthew 12:25].  History abundantly reveals bloody, violent conflicts between people groups, within and between nations. We have a hard time getting along. We need something to unify us, and that is usually against a common enemy. If we don't recognize a common enemy, we tend to create one, sometimes within our own ranks. We use a phrase in our Democracy: E Pluribus Unum; out of many one. America has prided itself on bringing together people from many diverse cultures into a certain unity. And we have been blessed geographically with a vast land bordered by big oceans on the east and west and good neighbors on the north and south. Abraham Lincoln noted this fortunate phenomenon and warned against the true threat to our survival:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!-All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined ... could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

(Abraham Lincoln, "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," January 27, 1838.)

Of course Lincoln could never have anticipated the advent of nuclear weapons which would cause our great America to be concerned with appealing to such an insignificant and tyrannical nation as North Korea. But such is our state today since we have recently garnered from the earth the power to destroy it, and we do not have the ability to keep this power out of the hands of insane power mongers. Nevertheless, this recent historical development, as well as other insidious developments such as the threat of Islamic theocracy, has not eradicated the necessity of American unity; on the contrary, it has intensified the necessity of it to insure our survival and the survival of the unprecedented freedom provided by it.

But what is it that has unified us? What has been the essence of our unity? I submit that it has been the principles and spirit of Judeo-Christianity--the belief in a loving God who has created all people equally and who has commanded [but not forced] us to walk in the Spirit of Love exemplified by Jesus the Christ. I submit two quotes from respected and like-minded ancestors, George Washington and french philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville:

In 1783, after leading the American forces to victory, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission. In a circular letter to the governors of the American states, he offered his “earnest prayer” for the new nation that God “would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.” [emphasis added].

This humble "Divine Author" could be none other than Jesus Christ who washed his disciples' feet and called himself a "servant". [Jn 13;  Mt 20:28] And note that our Founding Father labeled this Christianity "our blessed religion"; the religion of our nation. Jesus himself prayed for unity among his followers and unity has ever been a theme of the Christian faith--unity in the Love of Christ. The fact that there has been division and other evils in the Church does not nullify the essence and reality of Christianity; it confirms the reality of the evil embedded in human nature to which the Scripture points and exposes---and eventually uproots, when followed to its rightful end. 

Alexis de Tocqueville was an astute observer of the policies of men. He turned his keen eye on American Democracy and summarized:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

de Tocqueville understood, as did my mother who never progressed beyond the sixth grade in formal education, that our American Democracy derives its "genius" "power" and "greatness" from the Christian faith; or more fundamentally, from Christ Himself. 

I believe, in the deepest fiber of my being, impassioned by a deep and sincere love for my nation and the freedoms and privileges we have enjoyed and made progressively more available to all classes of people, that if we detach ourselves from the Christian Faith, we will decline into a bottomless pit of division, polarization, enmity, self-righteousness, arrogance, greed, and entitlement bereft of a sense of responsibility. Our power to defend ourselves against Islamic theocracy and power mongers like Putin and Kim Jong-Un [whose nation's unity is fueled by fear] will be dissipated in useless internal strife. Edmund Burke stated: 

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

In this again we see the necessity of "moral chains" or restraints upon the "will and appetite" of the dark and prevalent aspects of human nature in order for freedom to prosper. Either religion does this internally or the law does it externally. [In the case of Islam, religion does it externally.] Jesus stated that he came not to destroy, but to fulfill the law. We understand that the law is fulfilled in the Divine Love that Christ brings into the heart of those who receive Him. The propagation of this Gospel--this Good News--must be encouraged by every freedom-loving person and institution in our nation and world. The suppression of this Gospel for any reason [tolerance, plurality, separation of church and state, freedom from religion, etc.] is counter-productive to the freedom enjoyed by all those people who propagate those anti-Gospel sentiments. And the search for ultimate unity and happiness in the human family will continue to be frustrated time and time again until we settle upon this Divine Reality.

America: A Christian Nation?

In 1783, after leading the American forces to victory, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission. In a circular letter to the governors of the American states, he offered his “earnest prayer” for the new nation that God “would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”
Without doubt, the "Divine Author of our blessed religion," whose example we were to follow was none other than Jesus Christ, Who washed His disciples' feet {John 13} and asserted that He did not "come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" {Matthew 20:28}.  He commanded His followers to love, even their enemies {Matthew 5:44} and He prayed earnestly for unity in the human family {John 17}. Their is no other person in any religion that Washington could have been referring to. His admonishment to "do justice, love mercy and to demean ourselves with ...humility..." is an almost direct quote from the Bible: Micah 6:8.  And note that he labeled this Christianity as "our blessed religion". 
Despite the fact that then president Obama notoriously stated that America was not a Christian nation, the fact that America was founded by men who were overwhelmingly either devout Christians or had a deep respect for the principles of Christianity is abundantly established by any objective study of the men's' lives, personal letters, and religious habits. To obscure this fact in efforts to accommodate "pluralism" is not to move the nation ahead, but to open the door, as is already evident, to competing factions without a unifying underpinning, and, more ominously, without mature motivation. We have seen in history the devastating division and violence that has resulted from such de-spirited factioning. Those who hold forth for a government that makes ample space for and actually encourages Christianity are not vying for a theocracy; indeed, Christianity, rightly understood and deriving from the actual teachings of its central Personage, does not lend itself to authoritarianism or tyranny. We were founded by men who were escaping such tyranny; and they full well knew that such tyranny was not in accordance with the Christian faith that they devoutly adhered to--the faith from which derived the understanding that "all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights." To this day the Bible is illegal in nations run by tyrants and theocrats. The secular world has much more to fear from the suppression of Christianity, which leaves the innately religious national soul open to all manner of misguided zealotry fueled by hatred or the desire for power. Christianity is a protection against this, akin to the body's immune system.
The body's immune system is an apt example: It does not "tolerate" every organism; only those that benefit the body as a whole. Invading organisms [certain viruses and bacteria] are recognized by the wisdom God placed in the body as detrimental to the higher good--the ongoing survival of consciousness. These invading organisms are destroyed--not tolerated. In our nation, we have the unprecedented opportunity, and obligation, to non-violently "destroy" invading religions or philosophies that do not foster freedom and democracy. We do this by properly acknowledging the Love and supreme maturity of Christ as the life-giving Spirit and unifying fabric of our nation--by encouraging it and being very careful to foster Biblical understanding in upcoming generations. Otherwise we have repeatedly seen what the untethered ego, as well as theocratic religions and atheistic governments can wreak in the world. It's important to remember that the concept of separation of church and state was instituted to protect  religion [specifically Christianity} from the state; not to protect the state or its populace from religion. This would have been an absurd notion to our Founders who knew full well that government of, by and for the people could only prosper if those people were informed and motivated by the principles of love, justice and humility exemplified by the "Divine Author of our blessed religion."

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

-Patrick Henry

The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests

-Andrew Jackson

Political Division: The Solution

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Founding Fathers got heatedly entrenched on the issue of State’s representation—an issue so controversial that it endangered the whole process.  At some point, Dr. Ben Franklin made the wise suggestion that the members seek guidance from God.  Below is an excerpt from his speech taken from a letter written by James Madison to Jared Sparks in 1831, containing Franklin’s written speech:

The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other, our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding….In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?... I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?... I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of the City be requested to officiate in that service.

This act, spurred by Dr. Franklin's wise advice, broke the logjam and made way for the completion of our wonderful Constitution. Let us hope that the wisdom of Ben Franklin has not been left behind in the onward evolution of our Republic.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Jesus, Mt 5:9].  

For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end [Eph 2:14-16].

The Child Asks

The child asks “What have you done? What have you brought me into? Is it good that I am here? Am I OK? Are you glad that I am here? Am I a bother to you? A distraction from something you'd rather be doing? Am I an accident? Is it safe for me to be me? I hear you say 'No! Don't! You can't touch/ play with/ explore there!' Can I trust the world? Some of what we do seems meaningless—watching programs on TV, playing games, being silly. What is the meaning underneath all this? Is there an underlying meaning?

Make every effort to supplement faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Pet 1:5-8

Truth

The Truth is always fresh, enlivening and new, like a "fountain of living water".  It is never a rehash of old understandings; though it may be a transformation of old understandings into a new level of consciousness. It is a deliverance from the egoistic state of mind: me, mine, my problems, my fears, etc. It is profoundly liberating in a way unmatched by anything else in the world. It is within and beyond all of us, though some seem so far away from it that none of its Light seems to be getting to them or shining within them. These are those who do the most evil in the world, thinking that they are right. Jesus prayed for them, and all of us in our unawakened state, when He prayed "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." How could we describe the acts of incredible violence, war, genocide, torture, greedy deception and abuse that we have enacted against our own human brothers as anything but "insane"?  Think, if you don't mind feeling some profound sadness, of all the earth's resources and precious mind-energy and young human lives that have been wasted in warfare and the preparation for war. When and how does this insanity end? By awakening to the Truth of Jesus the Christ. We can deny, ignore, numb ourselves with material pursuits, entertainment, trying to have fun, sex, drugs, etc. But when we come up out of all those distractions and look hard for Truth, we find it in the One Who said "I am the Truth.." And if we have enough enlightenment in us, we will submit to the "Light of the world" and become one with It, thereby discovering our true place in the universe. This is, as previously stated, a profound liberation.

Awakening and Sowing Seeds

Those who are awakening feel this inner compulsion to be agents of awakening. This is the inner drive that motivates all people of integrity and love. It's what motivated Jesus--the very Source of it. It motivated the likes of  people as diverse as George Washington, Abe Lincoln,  Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh,  Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Eckhart Tolle, and John McCain, to name a few.  In the awakened state, we see that our survival depends on awakened human beings. So we are mindful of how we might sow the seeds of awakening--the seeds of Truth--in our sphere of influence. In Christianity, this is called "evangelizing", and it is despised by some of the unawakened. And when it is conducted without agape Love, it deserves the world's indignation. And it becomes an excuse for the unawakened to continue in darkness, since they take the easy road of defining all Christian endeavor as similarly hypocritical, something that could not be farther from the truth gained by any objective evaluation. The power that man can now draw from the earth enables him to destroy it--like a virus that, when successful, eventually destroys its own host.  In his awakened state, he can nurture, celebrate and enjoy the earth, and, more wonderfully, facilitate its healing from the damage already enacted by greed and spiritual blindness. The process of sowing seeds of awakening must be done peacefully, for the awakened can only awaken the unawakened, and the awakened state is a state of peaceful acceptance and trust in the eternal God of creation Who is Love. Only when we abide in the Spirit are we able to be true agents of awakening. This is our ongoing work--abiding in Christ Who has promised to be with us always, abide within us, and Who has "overcome the world".  It is in Him that we live and move and have our being, thus being the "Light of the world" that He has ordained and commanded[but never forced] us to be.
We pray for our world--for the human family. We pray for the exposure--to ourselves-- of the darkness within us, and for the courage to draw near to God, the only true God of this universe, Who is Love, and Who gladly drives out the darkness with Light and restores us to sanity and atonement.

Honor: From Kissinger's eulogy of John McCain

Henry Kissinger's speech in eulogy of John McCain was deeply insightful and inspirational. He is an aged and wise diplomat; a warrior for  the American Democracy. His words are worth our meditation. I post them here in their corrected form. [The transcription I read online had significant errors that I corrected from a recording of the actual televised speech.] I highlighted his words describing "honor" because I believe them to be profound.

 Our country has had the good fortune that at times of national trial a few great personalities have emerged to remind us of our essential unity and inspire us our sustaining values. John McCain was one of those gifts of destiny.

I met John for the first time in April, 1973 at a White House reception for prisoners returned from captivity in Vietnam. He had been much on my mind during the negotiation to end the Vietnam War, oddly also because his father, then commander in chief of the Pacific command, when briefing the president answered references to his son by saying only "I pray for him."

In the McCain family national service was its own reward that did not allow for special treatment. I thought of that when his Vietnamese captors during the final phase of negotiations offered to release John so that he could return with me on the official plane that had brought me to Hanoi. Against all my instincts, I thanked them for the offer but refused it. I wondered what John would say when we finally met. His greeting was both self effacing and moving. "Thank you for saving my honor." He did not tell me then or ever that he had had an opportunity to be freed years earlier but had refused, a decision for which he had to endure additional periods of isolation and hardship. nor did he ever speak of his captivity again during the near half century of close friendship.

John's focus was on creating a better future. As a senator, he supported the restoration of relations with Vietnam, helped bring it about on a bipartisan basis in the Clinton administration and became one of the advocates of reconciliation with his erstwhile enemy. Honor was John's loadstar. It is an intangible quality, It is not obligatory. It has no written code. It reflects an inward compulsion, free of self interest. It fulfills a cause, not a personal ambition. It represents what a society lives for beyond the necessities of the moment. Law makes life possible; honor ennobles it. For John it was a way of life.

John returned to America divided over its presidency, divided over the war. Amidst all of the turmoil and civic unrest, divided over the best way to protect our country and over whether it should be respected for its power or its ideals. John came back from the war and declared this is a false choice. America owed it to itself to embrace both strengths and ideals. In decades of congressional service, ultimately as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John was an exponent of an America strong enough to vindicate its purpose.

But John believed also in a compassionate America, guided by core principles for which American foreign policy must always stand. "With liberty and justice for all" is not an empty sentiment he argued, it is the foundation of our national consciousness. To John, American advantages had universal applicability. "I do not believe", he said, "that there is an Arab exception any more than there is a black exception or an Asian or Latin exception." He warned against the temptation of withdrawal from the world. “We will not thrive in the world”, he warned, “when our leadership and ideals are absent. We would not deserve it.” In this manner John McCain 's name became synonymous with an America that reached out to oblige the powerful to be lawful and give hope to the oppressed.

John was in the front lines of all these battles for decency and freedom. He was an engaged warrior fighting for his causes with ebullience, with courage, and with humility. John was all about hope. In a commencement speech at Ohio's Wesleyan University John summed up the essence of his engagement of a lifetime. "No one of us, if they have character, leaves behind a wasted life."
Like most people of my age I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. If the happy and casual beauty of youth prove ephemeral, something better can endure and endure until our last moment on Earth and that is the moment in our lives when we sacrifice for something greater than ourselves. Heroes inspire us by the matter-of-factness of their sacrifice and the elevation of the root vision.

The world will be lonelier without John McCain, his ebullience, his faith in America and his instinctive sense of moral duty. None of us will ever forget how even in his parting John has bestowed on us a much needed moment of unity and renewed faith in the possibilities of America. Henceforth, the country's honor is ours to sustain.