This country has always been a place of great compassion and terrible behavior. We have led in commerce and defending democracy while also bringing economic hardship to developing nations and becoming the arm’s dealer to the world. Like any organization, we have our best angels and our worst demons; the constant struggle is to work towards the first while minimizing the second. That isn’t an easy thing to do; often, our worst behavior comes out of our belief in our own moral goodness. For example, the attempted genocide of Native People was deeply connected to the idea that we had some kind of Manifest Destiny from God to conquer this continent from sea to shining sea. This was a holdover from the Doctrine of Discovery of the 15th century, in which the pope and European kings gave entrepreneurs permission to take lands from any non-Christians they discovered along the way. This set the evil path of colonialism that still haunts us today.
Along the way, we decided that enslaving people was fine, and since the Bible gave tacit permission, we felt that God justified it as well. The Civil War was fought over this issue; hatred for people of color was deeply ingrained into the American psyche, even though many of the founders disagreed with the practice, and that disagreement grew into the Abolitionist movement. That hatred is based on the idea that white Christian men are inherently superior to people of color, other religions, and women, and it continues, to this day, to move through different aspects of our politics. The motivation to get rid of birthright citizenship or to move towards one vote per household are just two examples of this hateful ideology playing itself out in our time. Another target of their hatred is the LGBTQ community. Who is next on their hit list is yet to be seen.
Christian Nationalism – Anti-Semitism – Demonization of Muslims – Misogyny – White Supremacy – Racism; all cousins in an inbred family of hateful ideologies, infections that, untreated, will kill this American experiment. There is no place for hate in any form of democracy or in any republic that believes in fairness and equality. Freedom is saying that I disagree with you – tyranny is saying that my opinion matters more than yours. If we believe in the best of what this nation can be, we must gather together against those who would use one group or another as a sacrifice. We need to protect transpeople and religious minorities and immigrants from unfair and unjust treatment. We need to confront language and laws that demonize the vulnerable. If we allow the mob to attack the least among us, we give into hate. There should be no place for hate in this country, but the only way to do that is to stand against the tide and say no to any person who accepts or promotes any of these hateful ideas. First, do no harm – second, do good always.
Prayer – Holy God, may our better angels win, with your help. Amen.