Guest Post: The dependence of the independent
The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.
Unless there’s an onion involved, I don’t cry easily. But there I was, driving down the Beltway on the 4th in the family minivan, tears streaming down my cheeks as I told my kids about Independence Day.
You might attribute the tears to the frustrations involved in getting a couple of toddlers to understand anything about Independence Day beyond fireworks. Certainly I was wrapped up emotionally in the recent departure of one of our congregants for his first of two tours with the Marines in Iraq.
But I must have drunk the Kool-Aid back in civics class, because when I think about freedom, liberty, just government and all that good stuff, my thoughts fly to the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” Jefferson wrote, “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I still get a chill when I read those words.
Later on, studying theology in seminary, I came to realize that this notion has much deeper roots than the American founding and the Enlightenment that gave birth to it. In Genesis, we read that God created humanity in his own image; as image-bearers, we have agency, responsibility, will, choice — the things Jefferson (and Madison, and Locke, and so on) knew we have whether any particular government respects the fact or not. I realized that our word dignity, which encompasses so much of what’s at stake, ultimately traces back to the Greek theos: our dignity is our quality of bearing God’s image.
And so, Jefferson goes on to note, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men.” It is the role of government, Jefferson notes, to ensure that these natural rights — these rights that are ours simply by virtue of being human — are protected. (Again, nothing new here; Augustine had much to say about these matters in his City of God, as I learned later on in seminary when I studied church history.)
But even before these soaring words, Jefferson notes that it is right and necessary for nations “to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” Thus, as he concludes, “as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” Much as individual people have natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of property, so nations have natural rights to do the things that nations do.
Yet again, it’s a familiar tune: beyond establishing regulations in Torah for how biblical Israel was to operate as a unique theocratic nation-state, God declared through his prophets that he would hold all peoples accountable for their conduct, that he would not overlook injustice or oppression or violence even when cloaked in the garb of national interest.
My younger daughter inherited her father’s clumsiness, and will carry forever a tiny scar next to her left eye in memory of an unpleasant encounter with the edge of a toy chest. That scar would scarcely be noticeable on me but on her beautiful face it can’t be missed. In the same way, evils that would scarcely raise an eyebrow across much of the world appear starkly against the backdrop of our national ideals.
Ours is a flawed nation, an imperfect creation of imperfect people sustained by the imperfect work of generations of their imperfect descendants, both born and naturalized. In our nation’s history we find plenty of examples of grave injustice, from slavery to the treatment of Native Americans to the internment of Japanese-Americans to Abu Ghraib.
So when we get rotten tomatoes thrown at us as we stand on the world stage, we would do well to remember that the bulk of our own Declaration of Independence consists of our complaints against the Crown, and our lament that our “Brittish brethren … have been deaf to the voice of justice.” It’s not easy to have our flaws pointed out to us, especially by other nations. Yet as the writer of Proverbs reminds us, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Every independent nation is ultimately dependent on others to tell the truths we might prefer to avoid. The work of mature citizenship is to recognize our errors, to rectify them as we’re able to, and to continue holding ourselves up to the standards we still know to be self-evident.
Comments
"Every independent nation is ultimately dependent on others to tell the truths we might prefer to avoid. The work of mature citizenship is to recognize our errors, to rectify them as we’re able to, and to continue holding ourselves up to the standards we still know to be self-evident."
Well said. Bitter though the taste may be of the concerned words of a friend, how important those words are to be accepted, recognized, and owned. I think that we in the church, in our professions, in our homes, in our relationships need to hear "the truths we might prefer to avoid." The respect gained for one another, even if through the challenge of swallowing the bitter pill, is a unifying strength that should not be made light of. It's in God's truth, after all, that we see one another as one body, one message. My prayers will be for myself, my family, and all those in our community to hear the words of truth and know the strength we have in our togetherness.
Posted by: Matthew | July 4, 2009 3:04 PM
We are a nation of flawed individuals; no one denies that. But beyond the individual we find communities of citizens that have a choice. Either we can deny the scars our flaws have brought us or we can learn from them. Just as our neighbors on the world's stage can throw "rotten tomatoes"; we as citizens of a free and independent state should feel it is not only our right, but our duty to hold a mirror to each other in refinement and continue the passion of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin. Those men cried for their country, its great to hear that others do the same. Great article!
Posted by: Joe | July 5, 2009 8:09 AM