|
Rev Dr Alan Billings |
 |
|
Rev Dr Alan Billings |
|
In July this year I taught on a theological summer school in Christ Church, Oxford. Many who came were from the United States - a microcosm of contemporary America: women and men from different ethnic backgrounds - African-American, white, Hispanic - and Christian denominations - Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal. They were republicans and democrats. We began by trying to explain to one another the paradox that while in the USA there is a constitutional separation of church and state, and in England and Scotland an established church, it is America that has a religious culture, while Britain is more secular. Americans will, therefore, make reference to God quite naturally, whatever they are talking about, in ways that sometimes make us Europeans feel uncomfortable and even nervous.
This use of religious language starts with one of their most important historical documents - the declaration of independence. It famously begins: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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'.
Something rather interesting follows from this use of religious language. Because they employ biblical ideas - which speak about the relationship of God to all people - that suggests that what the constitution calls 'the blessings of liberty' should be available not just to Americans but to everyone. The declaration of independence sets the American project in a much wider context: namely, God's ambition for the world.
Americans also understand from these documents - the declaration of independence and the constitution - that what guarantees liberties is not one possible political arrangement among many, but the one political arrangement among many that allows the possibility for change and choice, a form of government that is by consent - democracy.
Enabling women and men everywhere to live with the blessings of liberty is from the beginning the American dream. Julia Ward Howe summed it up at the time of the civil war in her call to arms, the battle hymn of the republic:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, while God is marching on.
We are often critical of the United States. But on a day when, whatever the final outcome this morning, we shall have had a most powerful demonstration of their commitment to government by consent - mid-term elections - perhaps we can be thankful that the world's most powerful nation is indeed a democracy, open to change, and, moreover, willing to make sacrifices so that the blessings of liberty might be enjoyed universally.
This is the hope implicit in their founding documents, audacious as it is religious.
Copyright 2006 BBC
Click here to see all Rev. Dr Billing's Thoughts for the Day