Opinion

In American Christianity the broken bones of individual and collective division desperately need resetting.

The biblical stories remind us that our lies, cover-ups, excuses and foot-dragging do not make the national blight of sexual misconduct go away.

It simply is not true that America is a Christian nation. We are a nation of Christians (and Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and people of no faith at all), but we are not a Christian nation.

As often as we Baptists seek the approval of “kings” and power brokers, we show disdain for our own heritage, including forebears who were locked up, beaten and even killed for daring to dissent.

Jesus offers us a model of how we might struggle with our sacred texts and bring our own personal, intuitive, common-sense experience of God to bear on our interpretation and application of scripture.

The gastronomic gamesmanship at the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest every July Fourth is for many a celebration of what makes America great. But I have a few questions.

Let our spirits not grow deaf to the screams of “Mommy! Daddy!” that are pulsating in fear from children who have been forcibly separated from their migrant parents. May we leap into action as we would if each voice we heard was coming from the crib across the hall.

From the very beginning, we’ve had trouble incorporating the “other” into our quests for freedom. We did not suddenly figure this out in my lifetime. It’s simply not true that minorities, the poor and women have experienced this country in the same way that I have.

I don’t recognize the America in which I live now. Maybe we can become again who we were. It’s just a matter of deciding who we are going to be.

What might it look like if we were to become genuinely open to the idea of changing our mind?

Now is the time to pray the kinds of difficult prayers that might re-establish a common moral narrative around caring for the poor, making healthcare accessible, pursuing peace rather than war and building a just and inclusive economy.