Faith in God, Faith in Man

This blog is a continuation of a series exploring why and how I believe we can achieve honest change in America.

It's interesting how quick we are to place blame on our "politicians" (myself included). The fact is that they are products of our voting and our lives as much as we are subject to their whims and errors. We have created the mess, and they have figured out how to thrive in it.

The Founding Fathers of this country were unmistakably religious. And, while I do NOT support a union of church and state, I do believe--if we truly want to understand America's identity--that we must examine what it was about religion that they felt was important enough to make "In God We Trust" the country's motto.

Please note that this is not a debate about religion. This is simply an examination of how religion is built into America's foundation. Fortunately, the founders left us some very telling clues.

The Great Seal of the United States has three Latin phrases on it. The first, "E pluribus unum," means, "Out of many, one." The second phrase reads, "Annuit coeptis," meaning, "He has smiled on our undertakings." And the third phrase, "Novus ordo seclorum," is translated, "A new order of the ages." Adding the motto, "In God We Trust" to this grouping we can start to examine some of the patterns of how religion wove its way into the creation of America. The first thing I notice is that three of the four phrases imply or directly denote the importance of unity: "In God We Trust," "He has smiled on our undertakings," and, of course, "Out of many, one." The Founding Fathers must have felt unity was an essential concept to our success. This would be a natural result of their unified faith in God, as well as a practical result of having just unified in order to win the Revolutionary War. But clearly, unity was an ingredient they felt defined and identified the America they knew and envisioned.

Combined with this concept of unity, there is a great sense of success. "He has smiled on our undertakings," and "A new order of the ages" are both phrases that infer the founders recognized achievement as an identifying characteristic of America.

The fact that these two concepts are both present on the Great Seal ties them together, forever linking America's success to her sense of unity. It was not just a great faith in God, but a great faith in man (specifically, fellow Americans) that inspired the founders to establish the United States of America. They believed each citizen's voice was valuable, and that collaboration and compromise would yield greater results than a single, dominant voice of a ruling establishment or ideology.

The Founding Fathers recognized that competing ideas, while difficult and sometimes unpleasant to deal with, can build on each other to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, when you combine the philosophies of Hobbes and Locke, you end up with a more practical and successful result than either of them could have achieved on their own. This involves an inherent faith in your fellow citizens to work for the greater good of the nation.

So how does this relate to America in 2007? Well, we are no longer a nation that is almost entirely Christian. This fact alone would tend to increase divisiveness, but it would also increase the possibility for reaching ever-greater heights through the fusion and refinement of competing ideas. But we must have faith in our fellow citizens--especially those with whom we disagree. The key to this achievement is a simple concept, though it can be difficult to practice: dialogue.

Only through unity and faith in one another will we be able to effect honest change. And I believe we, as a nation, are beginning to see that.