November 4th 2008 was perhaps our defining moment as a nation.
Whether one is liberal or conservative; Republican or Democrat, one thing that we can all celebrate in this election is the beginning of the end of racism: the finale of the American Civil War. From the abolition of slavery, Brown versus the Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, now, seemingly against all odds, a majority of white voters have elected a man of African American descent. In just over one hundred and fifty years a people have been elevated from slavery to equality and dignity. The white supremacist paradigm is now shattered, and we now have the opportunity to live into the fecund multiculturalism that is America. We will be the better for it. Jokes about race won’t be told much any more….can’t be. Possibilities and empowerment are now realities for the heretofore dispossessed of our culture. This is a renaissance for America; and what we have been saying about ourselves for three and a half centuries is now becoming true, that all people…all people are created equal…and that is the Gospel truth.
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Jim, this is a great victory indeed, but it is also just the start, a start that is still in danger of being undermined on many fronts. We now need all churches, all people of faith, to come together in an effort to start healing the deep divisions in this country, not only old racial divisions, but also the more recent political ones that have been fueled by ludicrous lies and, even worse, desperate fear and hate mongering, all for worldly political gain, and often in sinister invocations of the name of Jesus.
We have finally reached a place where hope can prevail, but it must prevail against a great deal of fear and hatred that is further upset by a nonsensical fear that this "defining moment" signals a defeat of faith. It is an unfortunate and frightening barrier that must be overcome.
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