JIM GLEESON...........Science, God and You

The Melting Pot and the Liberty Bell
Jim Gleeson, AIA 2009

Seven Score and six years ago Abraham Lincoln spoke of “…our forefathers, (having)
brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”.

It was a great experiment, blessed by God, that worked. Less than two hundred years after a rag-tag army somehow defeated the strongest fighting force in the world, the United States of America had become the “greatest nation on Earth”.

How did this happen? What was it that made this nation grow so fast and become the beacon of hope and freedom for the world? There are many, I’m sure, who will disagree with my answer to this question- they might even disagree with the question. And that’s why I am writing this.

This country grew like no other on a foundation consisting of three bedrock footings: the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and the Holy Bible.

The inspired revolutionaries and patriots, who were not full-time politicians, but part-time statesmen, forged the Declaration and the Constitution based on an over-arching desire to build a nation which would last and withstand the test of time. They did it based on principles which were taught in every home, school and college in the colonies- those found in the Holy Bible.

Probably few disagree with this since it is widely known historical fact. So from where does the intense and often blinding polarization that has become the norm in our culture originate? Where has our standing as world leader gone? How have we become a debtor nation full of corruption, greed, pornography and hate-speech? If the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bible are still with us (it still says “In God We Trust” on our currency) then what has changed and why do we have such intense division and polarization in our society?

What has become of the “Great Melting Pot” that my teachers, years ago, were so proud to teach me about? It forged Americans out of emigrants from all over the world.

How has marriage between two men or two women, a concept unknown and unthinkable to our forefathers, become the topic of discussion, much less the law in some states? How has allowed issues that were once cultural and moral taboos to be discussed and actively promoted as “rights” and legislated as acceptable ”norms”? What has changed our sense of decency and allowed hardcore pornography be embraced by big business, condoned by government as a “right” and piped into almost every home in America? What has caused our news media and journalists to take up sides and abandon their charter to provide the news unbiased?

What has caused us as individuals and as a country to spend much more than we make and become slaves to our creditors?

On and on and on, our country is a vastly different place than it was just fifty years ago-
full of high-tech convenience and knowledge-at-your-fingertips, to be sure, but at the expense of civility, forthrightness, transparency and morality. It was never perfect, to be sure, but it had an underlying sense of reason and creative resolution.

The changes seem clear to all except the very young, but the problem seems to be that, to many, the changes are either “inevitable” or even desirable. But based on what?

Many of our oldest and most respected universities once founded and run as Christian institutions first abandoned their strict Biblical heritage in favor of loose or even secular interpretations. More recently even law schools began interpreting the constitution as an “evolving” document to be viewed in context of current cultural standards, not as the timeless, inspired document which was the cornerstone of the most respected country the world has ever seen. We are choosing to regard these documents as “temporal” or of value only in relationship to the time they were created. As long as we revered these documents as representing basic truths and used them as guideposts to steer our course through social pressures and issues, we prospered. When it became necessary to amend the constitution to clarify the message for a particular social development, we voted on an amendment and either added it or not. This is vastly different from our current tendency toward reinterpreting the Bible or the Constitution to adjust and allow for whatever some
want be true, fair or legal.

This relativism is the least common denominator or reason for the obvious shift away from world leadership toward mediocrity. When a business rises to greatness and success and grows in stature and size, it is always when it forgets what it was that made it great in its formative years that it starts its often rapid decline.

We are attempting to reinterpret these pillars of our successful culture and government as we would “adjust for inflation” the cost of goods sold in 1776. The problem is, of course you can’t adjust truth, ethics, or morality for societal “development”. Truth does not change; neither does human nature. Look around. Has our loosening interpretation of once clearly accepted and understood principals made us a better nation or better individuals? Do we really want to continue to slide into the confusion of relativism making it impossible to work together without underlying common, shared interests?

We must start a journey back toward a shared understanding of the most basic principals as a basis for adapting and responding to the present as it becomes the future. We won’t last long as lobsters trying to keep each other from climbing to the top of the basket to imagined individual power. We can only keep our freedom through a restored common cause. The original reason that the disenfranchised from all over the world wanted to come to America must be reaffirmed; reestablished: America was the only country where you could be insured freedom in return for becoming an American. You can’t go to any other country and become a Canadian or an Italian or a Swede. America was unique.

In my opinion the Liberty Bell should be remounted upside down and proudly displayed as a symbol of the great melting pot and the Liberty that can be found by becoming an American. Only then will America return to its status as beacon to the world for liberty,
human rights and truth.