What Do You Want America to Be?

The stock market is on a roller coaster ride as investors wonder what is happening, our Washington politicians cannot produce a budget that is reasonable, and our President (as of this writing) promises people in Illinois that he “has a plan” to be unveiled after Labor Day.

The debt ceiling was raised recently, but do people really understand what this means? It means we may now legally acquire more debt. That is not more income, mind you, just more debt. If you keep acquiring debt and do not increase income, what happens?

Is the America you want for the future one where everyone works for the government? Where the citizenry considers itself entitled to government payments? Where the government obviously keeps everyone on a short leash? Or is it an America that maintains its heritage, with certain truths being self-evident: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (from The Declaration of Independence)?

One remedy that would help America’s debt crisis is the teaching of (unrevised) history. So says Niall Ferguson, a professor of history and business at Harvard University. “It’s impossible, I think, to understand the rise of the United States separately, as a story on its own of American exceptionalism. You have to understand it as part of the extraordinary explosion of dynamism from Western Europe, not just across the Atlantic, but all around the world” (Ferguson).

Okay, so when does he place the start of such dynamism, having begun in Western Europe and eventually contributing to the founding of America - the greatest nation in history? If you guessed after 1411, you are correct. You might have even guessed October 31, 1517 – the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral as a precise date, although Reformation thinking and discussions had begun prior.

It is impossible to understand America apart from understanding its history. And its history includes Christian people coming to these shores in search of religious freedom, and the right to follow their individual consciences. This is a direct result of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation made a major contribution to our understanding of personal responsibility, individual freedom, and treatment of others. The Protestant work ethic offered dignity to work of any kind and frowned upon laziness; the command to love your neighbor as yourself led to a compassionate society where advances in science and medicine occurred, and where honesty and trust were most highly valued in business dealings. Easy credit was discouraged and avoided. It was feared that too much debt would not just lead to financial ruin, but make it impossible to repay your neighbor. “Dirt, debt and the devil” were dreaded.

What is clear is this: to really know America we must understand its religious history, and the values that history represents. The values represented by Judaism and Christianity differ greatly from those of other faiths or from those of no faith. It is this knowledge that enables us to understand the country’s religious, political, and economic liberty.

The lessons of our Christian religious history will help us solve our debt problem and determine what we want America to be.