As we celebrate the birthday of our nation today, and as many use this day as an opportunity to further their blind nationalism and unhealthy connection between God & country…I’d encourage you to watch this video today called “We the People.” The video was put together by the folks behind Prepare New York; they describe themselves on their website in the following way:
Prepare New York is a coalition of New York based interfaith organizations including – Auburn Seminary and its Center for Multifaith Education, Interfaith Center of New York, Intersections International, Odyssey Networks, Quest, and Tanenbaum and its Religion and Diversity Education Program, who are committed to preparing New York City (and the nation) for the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 by promoting civil dialogue, education about religious pluralism, support for the Muslim community, and coordinating events on the day of the anniversary.
I found this video while reading a great blog post by my friend Adam Copeland entitled “God bless the people of every nation.” I’d encourage you to give his article a read after watching the video.
I hope that folks will take this day to be appreciative, to be grateful, but never to be presumptuous that we “deserve” the rights we have by living in this country. Or to head down the path that assumes that God is blessing us over and above other nations. This morning in worship we heard a sermon on Acts 10 and Peter’s vision. The verse that obviously stood out on the 4th of July weekend was Acts 10:34: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.”
We need to always keep that in mind: God shows no partiality. No favoritism. We’re all in this together.