America in the Whirl of 2020

The toppling of America's monuments and statues is a sad symbol of a nation abandoning her moral and spiritual foundations.  Kate Smith's "God Bless America", Katherine Lee Bates' "America the Beautiful", and "My Country Tis of Thee" are becoming tragic, sentimental, nostalgic tunes of America's bygone era of patriotism.  The President's 4th of July celebration at Mt. Rushmore was a valiant attempt to restore hope to a despairing nation. But at times, it felt more like a patriotic funeral - a eulogy instead of a rebirth of a nation.

America's founders began this nation on a foundation of Biblical wisdom - the Wisdom of the Hebrews.  Today America's postmodern, postChristian culture has abandoned the Wisdom of the Hebrews in exchange for the Wisdom of the Greeks; it's important to know the difference.

The Wisdom of the Hebrews is based on an accepted belief in God - it does not try to find out whether God exists.  All its beliefs are based on God and in the actual whirl of things as they are.  All its mental energy is bent on practical living. Although the faith of our current president is often doubted or unclear, his economic policies reflect the practical wisdom of the Hebrews with his focus on making peoples' lives better through jobs, private enterprise, and fair trade agreements in the actual whirl of the world as it is.   

The Wisdom of the Greeks, which is the wisdom of our day, is speculative - it is concerned with the origin of things, with the riddle of the universe, etc.  Consequently, the best of our wits is not given to practical living but to utopian ideals. This is why so much of America's politics is caught up with unworkable ideals or impractical but trendy ideologies such as the Green New Deal, identity politics, socialism, Black Lives Matter, and the "wokeness" of the social justice movement.

In examining the Bible's Hebrew School of Wisdom, we discover that the first curriculum produced by Solomon is the Book of Job. In it we see worked out, according to Hebrew wisdom, how a man may suffer in the actual condition of things.  The explanation of Job's sufferings was that God and Satan had made a battleground of his soul, and the honor of God was at stake.  God allowed Satan to destroy all Job's blessings and yet Job did not curse God; he clung to it that the great desire of his heart was God Himself and not His blessings.  Job lost everything he possessed; the one thing he did not lose was his hold on God, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.  Could it be that what we are witnessing in America is the same battleground between God and Satan? Has America been dishonoring God by clinging too tightly to God's blessings? Has America lost her hold on God Himself?

The record of the whirl of things as they are is marvelously stated in these Books of Wisdom:

• Job - how to suffer
• Psalms - how to pray
• Proverbs - how to act
• Ecclesiastes - how to enjoy
• Song of Solomon - how to love

There is a continuing debate over reopening America's schools this fall.  In the whirl of a pandemic, terrorism on our city streets, erasing our American heroes from history - perhaps, just perhaps, this would be a good time for America to pause and enroll our families in God's School of Wisdom. For here we can learn:

- how to trust God in life's suffering, 

- how to pray for wisdom and mercy, 

- how to act wisely instead of foolishly or selfishly, 

- how to enjoy God's gift of life in this beautiful country, and 

- how to put away hearts full of hate and learn once again how to love God and one another.   

This School of Wisdom offers a complete curriculum for life; there is no phase of life missed out. And, its objective is to show that enjoyment in this beautiful blessed but earthly country called America is only possible by being related to God.