Charles Foster Johnson, leader of Pastors for Texas Children, reflects on the meaning of citizenship:
America is not a geography. Or nationality. Or ethnicity.
America is an idea. A truth.
That idea, that truth, is this: “That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Jefferson was right, that idea is “self-evident.”
So, let your life be the evidence.
Do these things:
Vote. Register to vote, vote in every election, and get everyone in your family, at your work, and on your street to do the same. When you don’t, bad people win.
Read. Be informed. Take the daily newspaper and read it. All of it. Turn off all cable television news. It is all fake. It is designed to entertain you—not inform you. Do it today. When you don’t, bad people win.
Serve. Start with your neighborhood public school. It’s right down the street. Make an appointment with the principal and ask how you can help. Defend your neighborhood public school against its privatization. When you don’t, bad people win.
Worship. With your neighbors. With folks who know you, love you. Turn off all television and celebrity preachers. Do not listen to any preacher who does not know your name, your face, who will not hold your hand in prayer when you need it— and call you to do the same. When you don’t, bad people win.
This land is your land. This land is my land. This land was made for you and me.
Let’s put the idea of America into action.
The truth of America is “self-evident.”
The evidence is you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Amen
I am very proud to live in the U.S. I have worked on the mission field alongside my daughter and her husband in Nicaraga and my other daughter in Nicaragua. Also. I have seen poverty at its worst amid the most loving, caring God-fearing people. We have spent winters in Cuba with our daughter and Cuban son- in-law and their 3 Cubanitos. There are ‘ people who yearn to be free and worship God freely. I love this country.I am a former bilingual teacher in CO and feel so blessed to have had the privilege to impact these young people’s lives. God has gifted me with a love of language, and I passed that love on to my 4 childen. What a blessing. God bless America!
Thank you for sharing. This is excellent!
And please remember that every one of those people locked into cages on our border are also AMERICAN.
Good point!
I took a trip to Peru once and when people asked where I was from and I said “I’m American” they smiled and said “So are we!”
I didn’t really think about this until I travelled in my teens. I lived in Tunisia for a summer with a wonderful family. They always said, “USA” when asked where I was from. They were ones who pointed out that “America” isn’t the name of the country.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I was 29 at the time.
I had just the opposite experience in Canada. I identified my self as from the state’s and they called me an American. I was trying to be sensitive so I pointed out they were Americans too, but they seemed to be more intent on being Canadian.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/04/open-letter-randi-weingarten-and-american-federation-teachers-regarding
Not only are they Americans, but most of their suffering has been caused by US policies and failures. Government policies from the 1950’s on have harmed so many of our southern neighbors.
May we be forgiven for the harm we have caused the world as a nation. Yes, we have done good as well, but way to much harm.
Amen. Greed, pure and simple. Greed for money, for resources, for power.
YES!
Sorry to disagree with Woody Guthrie on the Fourth, but
This land is Trumpland It isn’t our land
From Eli-fornia to the Bloomberg island
From the Bill Gates forest to the Jeb! stream waters
This land was made for Betsy D
… I need the man they call Bernie
‘Cause I was nearly swept into the sea
By a broom wielded by Michelle Rhee
Joe Klein’s bio of Woody G pointed out how Guthrie viewed himself as a communist and meant his song as a protest against the way things were. How ironic that GM used the song to sell cars several years ago.
It definitely was. Look at the last couple stanzas. Unfortunately, inequality has gotten worse in many ways since 1944.
Johnson’s point about listening to someone we know in the pulpit is a sort of fascinating bit of thinking. I think I know the origin of this thinking. He sees mega-churches and feel good preachers as the source for the lack of political motivation that steals communicants from his church and votes from his cause. Perhaps he is right, but I have some reservations.
I know many churches where th congregation is on a personal basis with their minister. Because he is a believer in so many of the negative aspects of our society, they find solace in a man of the cloth who accepts their own prejudices and hostilities. Knowing your imam well might actually tend you toward radical Islam. Knowing your minister can be a good thing to, but this in itself is a neutral aspect of worship.
I am sure Johnson would disagree with me on this one, but I believe in total separation of religion from politics. I know that this is a thing impossible, but we must strive for an ideal. In religion, one holds views that are faith supported. Principles of faith must be strong and general in order to weather the storm of personal misgivings. You must find unwavering positions to hold in a faith experience. In political life, the opposite is true. We must believe strongly in the precepts we hold dear, but we must be willing to bend our attitudes with the information we receive in a public debate with people who are different from ourselves. Failing to separate these two processes creates problems in government, and it destroys religious practice by confusing the two ways of thinking.
There is a small group of independent churches near me where, according to a friend who married into that community, the most vitriolic of racism proceeds from the pulpit, complete with references to the division of the races under Abraham’s progeny and the moral degradation of the African. There are churches where sermons consist of raving in an unprepared repeating of conservative and Christian radio. If this helps democratic processes, then I am inclined toward another ism.
Some will suggest that the Black Church in America spearheaded the Civil Righs movement and carried it forward in a way that kept it from violence. while this is an accurate portrayal of what happened, it should be noted that civic organizations of other kinds restricted the Black community to the church as a social institution, much the same way that the frontier churches had to behave as civic law on the early frontier. Stripped of other avenues for power, African-American ministers became the driving course for reform. It is to their credit that they did so without infringing on civil liberty. The emulation of their success in modern conservative churches has given us the trump administration, which threatens us with the possibility of permanent minority rule over majority vote.
We might need corporate worship personally, but it does not need to guide our political thought. Perhaps it can help establish the things we value, inform our ethical presuppositions, and calm our soul, but it should not guide our mode of political thinking. To allow that n ourselves is to imperil the idea of debate and compromise.