thoughts on a Fourth of July

[Karl Moyer]

Hi, Fellow AGO-ers,

My two daughters and I comment back and forth with some frequency about this or that.     Let me share with you one of my parts of such a backend-forth today with them, when I find celebration a bit difficult.     i fully understand that some of our number have theological reservations about a few implications I raise, and I respect and honor you fully for your convictions.    

Hi,   

Somber thoughts on a Fourth of July afternoon.   I’m not sure how much celebrating should be going on today, though we DO need to be thankful for the early patriots and the military forces and leaders who achieved our independence from an oppressive England.

We do have just cause to celebrate that history and, more especially, to be thankful for it.    Yet, I often wonder how many people understand that the Declaration …  and the Revolutionary War were, in fact, illegal statements and uprisings against established governmental authority  —  England —  in the face of what the American patriots considered to be undue oppression.   What’s more, those brave men who signed the Declaration officially represented no one.  They were not duly elected representatives to propose a revolution against England; they did it on their own “guts.”    Contrary to folks who pick out certain statements in the Declaration….  to prove that theDeclaration...was a sign that American is a Christian nation.    The Declaration did not establish the nation and is a statement of rebellion and only of those brave men in Philadelphia in 1776.  

Consider, then, that various "minority” groups in the USA today have the same sort of gripe and feel the same need for illegal protestation.    If we criticize Black Americans for illegal protests against restrictions that are based obviously and specifically on their race, then we fail to understand what we celebrate on Independence Day:  illegal rebellion. 

Many underlying understandings differ between the colonial era and our era, though there is a rather stunning similarity of thought and emotion.   Some, perhaps most of us, tend now to honor The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, complete with the marvelous monument on the Mall in Washington in his memory.   Yet, I suspect that he’d be preaching and railing as ever against some of our contemporary injustices based on racial factors that continue to go on in USA today, factors which black people cannot change.    It’s the same as women being paid less than men for precisely the same work and responsibility.   The data bear out these and other similar facts.    

Consider all of this in terms of the ill relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews, to whom Jesus spoke the Parable of the Good Samaritan.    Yet, Jesus chose a Samaritan to make the point in his parable.   We who are Christian have failed badly to haul out the deeper implications of Jesus' parable to all in our society.   We need a revival of more careful study and application of Jesus’ teaching. 

Alles gute,

    Der alte Orgelspieler Typ