Labeling people groups “good” or “bad” won’t take us very far. Muslims are varied. There are people who are Muslim who are good and people who are not. The same for Buddhists, Jews, Hindu’s, non believers and people who label themselves as Christians.
What can take us somewhere is remembering what pulls us together.
America is unique in that she was founded on covenant. The formation documents codify this covenant with the Creator with an eye toward securing the Blessings of Liberty.
When Alexis De Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s he saw a vibrant republic of middle class merchants who exercised restraint and who released great amounts of energy in the establishment of civilization across this great continent.
De Tocqueville was not a man who claimed to believe in God, but it was said that he was a man who cared what God thought about him. Upon hearing the sermons that were preached in the crowded churches across the land, he concluded that America was good because her people were good. He concluded that this land of free yet disciplined people would fell the forests all the way to the pacific and when they were finished they would turn around and tear down everything they had built and build anew. He saw something that aristocratic Europe (most nations east of Europe are still aristocratic) lacked. He saw an unprecedented release of energy. Nothing like it existed in his home of France and he wrote Democracy in America as a sort of warning to the French aristocracy.
History will ultimately judge what contributions Obama made. But the bigger story here is our root system is unchanged. We are a middle class republic of merchants. We are a people born free. We operate under a set of covenantal documents that have endured.
Others can and have built on different foundations, but the true foundation remains. Time will show us what was built on the solid Rock and what was built on sand. If this republic is to endure we must learn to remember and celebrate what made America great.
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