Can there be a better time than the days surrounding July 4th to contemplate the values and mysteries of being American? I realize that some object to the commandeering of the term “America” to apply only to the United States. They are correct in pointing out that the term is applied to two continents and is bigger than the United States. But the truth is, go to any other country in the world and they will have done the commandeering for us. It is the world rather than the USA that applies the term “America” to a singular nation—ours.
Jim White
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The timing has put me in a patriotic frame of mind and I cannot help but express my feelings on the subject of my country. In this, perhaps I may give voice to what is in many of your hearts, too.
I know that my country was not established only to provide religious freedoms to suppressed minorities, but there is no escaping in history the place and value of religious beliefs among many of the earliest settlers. It is an historical irony that many of those seeking religious freedoms were among the slowest to grant the same to others. This is a way of acknowledging that from the very beginning we have seen in our country the higher aspirations of mankind coexisting with its lower nature. We worship the Lord most high while seeking to maintain control over our own destinies.
In more recent days, we see these same ironies at work in the immigration issue. On the one hand we point proudly to the Statue of Liberty, called Mother of Exiles in Emma Lazarus’ famous poem, New Colossus. Many of us can quote: “Send these the homeless tempest-tossed to me.” Many more of us have reason to point to ancestors who were among these homeless huddled masses when they arrived at America’s golden shore. Our higher selves wish to extend to others the same welcome our parents or grandparents received when they arrived.
Our lower natures, however, strive to protect our own interests and resist societal shifts caused by cultural practices immigrants bring with them. Our higher selves acknowledge that our own culture is enriched by meshing it with others while our lower natures want immigrants to become like us or go back where they came from—as long as they leave their pizza, eggrolls, tacos and falafels to compliment our hot dogs and apple pie.
Our higher selves champion religious freedom while our lower natures cringe at the sight of a new mosque or of a circle of yellow-robed holy men. Like the pilgrims who came to get for themselves what they refused to pass on to others, we are people of mixed values. Theoretically we value diversity while on a practical level we want our diversity to all look alike.
But from the very beginning America has been diverse. To the earliest native population, was added individuals who represented many European cultures. And to that was added Africans and later Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indians, Latinos, Arabs and more Europeans. And others.
The point is America is a constantly changing mass of humanity arriving at different times from different places. What we have in common is a belief that no one of us is innately worth more or less than any of the rest of us. What a country! At least our higher selves think that. Our lower selves still attempt to set up limitations and roadblocks to the freedoms of other, different people.
When newcomers join a church, the old timers rejoice. To a degree, simply by joining the newcomers validate the long-time members. But if too many newcomers join, the old timers begin to worry that things will change too radically. If too many join, the new folks can outvote the old folks and who knows what they might do?
Just so, some worry about the country. We welcome newcomers. That other people want to come to America validates who we are and the freedoms we have. But if too many come, who knows what might happen?
If history is a reliable teacher, we can predict that we will never be without these conflicts between our higher selves and our lower natures. Being human, perhaps the best we can hope for is to make steady progress in the continuum toward the higher-self end of the spectrum.
We can also hope that for Christian citizens, and particularly for magnanimous Baptists who have a long and commendable history of championing the freedoms of those with whom we disagree, this progress would be particularly pronounced.
Of course, at this point I must observe that Baptists, too, are diverse.
Higher-self Baptists have always been in the front ranks in the march to freedom though at times it cost them dearly. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of early Baptist leader Thomas Helwys’s A Short Declaration of the Mistery [sic] of Iniquity, in which he described freedoms of conscience not even a king could curtail. He inscribed a copy to King James I and sent it to him personally. The king took issue with Helwys’s assertion and commanded that he be thrown into Newgate Prison where he died sometime before 1616 at about 40 years of age.
But I don’t want to venture too far from my patriotic theme. All this is to say that from its very inception America has been a work in progress and that conflicting ideals often reside even within the same breasts. We should not be surprised then, in an election year especially, when those ideals seem somewhat obscure. We Christians and—if I may say so without arrogance—we Baptists can be among the best hope for America’s future as we continue to contend for everyone’s freedoms and as we continue to try to influence the process of government to insure that every person is equal to every other person.
This is what makes America great. Other indicators of greatness flow from this central truth, and any real threats to America’s greatness come not from forces without but from our lower natures within.
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.