What Made America Great

My entire life I believed that America was founded on Christian values. I always believed in the idea that all people were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

I grew up with the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. I was surprised when I discovered these were the words of Jesus.

I always understood that to “love your neighbor as yourself” was the bedrock of American freedom and democracy. 

When I pledged my allegiance to the flag, I believed that “liberty and justice for all” were rooted in these Christian values and that’s what made America great.

I grew up believing that American values and Christian values were synonymous. I always understood that it was a work in progress, and 

I was taught that church and state were separate, so that the church could act as a moral compass, uncorrupted by the pursuit of state power, to push us toward holiness.

I believed it was that striving toward holiness in the hearts of Americans that caused them to promote freedom and equality, so that slavery was abolished and liberty was continually expanded.

I believed that it was our Christian values that drove us to fight against fascism and Communism.

I believed it was our Christian values that led us to oppose authoritarian regimes around the world and made America the city shining brightly on a hill.

I believed that’s what made America great.

I believed it was our values, rooted in the compassion of Christ, that led some to push for public education and better working conditions. It was Christian values that sought some to ensure that children and the elderly didn’t starve.

I believed that’s what made America great.

When I was a child, I understood that it was our Christian values that led us to welcome the refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, from Cuba and Ethiopia.

I believed it was those values that we celebrated when people defected from the Soviet states.

And that’s what made America great.

I believed that it was the belief that all people were created in the image of God, the imago dei, that drove the civil rights movement at home and the quest for human rights abroad.

I believed it was our Christian values that sent Americans around the world to fight hunger and disease, so that the “least of these” would have life and have it abundantly.

What made America great was her heart. 

What made America great was empathy. 

But that heart and those values have always faced opposition, as greed and fear lurked in the shadows and were preached from street corners and from pulpits.

Today, America’s heart has been hardened by fear and greed.

We are no longer the city on a hill. 

I know there are many who have hearts of love, but have not seen the stories I have seen, as some in the press have made the deliberate choice to censor what they share with the American people.

They have hidden the harm being afflicted on Americans and the most vulnerable in the world who depend on American generosity and our Christian values.

They don’t want you to know that we are no longer the beacon of freedom that we once strived to be and that the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments are under assault. 

Perhaps worse, there are churches that preach that the teachings of Jesus are leftist propaganda. The Christian values that once inspired freedom have been abandoned and replaced by so-called biblical values that inspire superiority and division.

We do not need the Bible taught in schools, we need Jesus taught in the churches.

Empathy is now condemned as the “fundamental weakness of western civilization.”

Without empathy, there is no liberty and justice for all.

Without empathy there will be no liberty or justice for anyone.

Without empathy, there is tyranny.

It is dusk in America.