Friday, April 25, 2008

Can America Face Its Faults? Can You? Can I?

In the mailstrom of American political life these days, one senses both a profound weariness and deep frustration. Political rhetoric is part of that, the planting and corrupting of images to serve private ambition and gain public support. So also is 24/7 media coverage, ostensibly aimed at uncovering every bit of minutia along the way to serve the public interest, yet often bound itself, one feels, by an almost consuming need to gain personal advantage over competing media in search of ratings.

While there is justifyable reason to be weary of it all, it would be presumptive to lay the blame entirely on politicians and the media. There is enough to blame in the body politic as well, which includes all of us. How often do you and I, in hurling epithets at others, do so to gain personal advantage and score points for our own benefit and point of view? And why are the politicians and the media acting as they are if not to find a way to serve our self-interest and thus promote their own?

One wonders, in fact, if the greatest issue before us as Americans is one of political persuasion or who wins and who loses. In the deepening American fascination over image-making we are, all of us, whether we recognize it or not, prostituting our character as a nation.

Can America face its own faults? Only if you do, and I do, privately and publically. Scripture makes no promise that a nation in many ways favored by God will continue in his favor if it squanders its inheritance in selfish living. We need to repent, all of us, of every stubborn prejudice that feeds our present political malaise. Christians, especially, must lead in this, lest we be untrue to the character God has shown us in Jesus Christ.