Pastor Zach's Blog

A Nation Divided

November 12, 2012 at 5:15 am Leave a comment

The headline I saw the day after last Tuesday’s election says it all:  “The Divided States of America.”  It’s true.  We are a nation deeply divided.  For evidence of this, I simply had to peruse my Facebook news feed.  Wednesday morning, some people were ecstatic and even gloating.  Other people were somber and even angry.  What made the difference as to how these people felt?  Two letters:  “R” and “D.”  The “D’s” won.  And they were happy.  The “R’s” lost.  And they were, well, you get the picture.

The division in our nation unsettles me.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  Remember e pluribus unum?  Before 1956, when “In God we trust” was adopted, this was the de facto motto of our country.  If only the Latin rang true.  But it doesn’t.  Partisanship prevails.  When I survey our country’s political landscape, I see not e pluribus unum, but e pluribus plures.  “Out of many, many.”  We are many.  And we act like it.  We can’t seem to agree on much of anything.

I suppose it was bound to happen.  Trying to unify disparate constituencies with such dissimilar ideologies is no small feat.  And even if such a conglomerate of communities is unified for a time, such unity never lasts.  For humans, thanks to sin, have a proclivity to fracture from each other rather than to walk with each other.

There is an old story about a man who is marooned on a desert island for nearly a decade. One day, mercifully, some rescuers finally come along.  Upon arriving, the rescuers find two shacks.  Thinking there is another castaway on the island, they ask the man, “Why are there two shacks?  Is someone else with you?”  “No,” replies the man.  “I sleep under the stars.  The shack is where I go to church.”  “What about the other shack?” inquire the rescuers.  “What’s that for?”  “Oh,” replies the man with an edge of indignation, “That’s where I used to go to church.”  E pluribus plures.  It seems humans will always find a way to fracture from each other – even when there’s only one human.

Our nation wants unity.  Our unofficial motto preaches it.  But it continually eludes us.  So what do we do?  Where do we go from here?

As Christians, we go to Scripture.  For like our nation, the authors of Scripture held unity in high regard.  Consider the apostle Paul’s admonition:  “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).  Paul wants us to have unity.  The difference between Scripture’s call to unity and our nation’s motto of unity, however, is that whereas our nation takes the many and in vain tries to make them one, Scripture begins with One – God – and looks to Him to unify many.  Paul continues in Ephesians:

There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

Paul uses the word “one” seven times in these verses.  For Paul knows that God’s dream and desire for us is that we would be “one” – that we would be unified.  But rather than taking disparate, dissident factions and striving to unify them by human effort, Paul knows that God unifies people by beginning with Himself – the perfectly unified Godhead who can bring even the most dis-unified people together.  True unity is found not in politics, but in our Lord.

Rally around Him.

Entry filed under: Current Trends. Tags: Barack Obama, Christianity, Democrat, Division, Mitt Romney, Politics, Religion, Republican, Spirituality, Theology.