“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 prairies, and
it was not there; in her rich mines and vast world commerce, and it was not
there. Not until I went to 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, America
will cease to be great.” (Alexis de
Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
1835)
How often do
we arise in the morning and pray or say,
‘I really want to be good today—and not just good for myself, but good for something, good for my family, good
for the man or woman or girl or boy who crosses my path, good for America?’
What if this were a part of our family prayer?
What if we could persuade another person to do this, and they another,
and our political leaders to do the same—where would we be? Could America be great again? It is a truth that where there is no vision
the people perish and the greatness of a nation becomes just a memory. We seem to forget that nations, even cultures
have died.
James
Reston, a columnist for the New York Times over thirty years ago said, “We are
a nation with a conscience. Usually it
is a troubled conscience, because we are not living up to what we were taught
we were.” I wonder if we now even have a
“troubled conscience,” or if the pulpits once “aflame” in America’s mainline
churches have also become doused with the cold and dirty water of the moral
cesspool that has washed over our once great social institutions—government,
education, military, athletics, even entertainment (maybe never ‘great’ but
always influential).
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