To my American friends and all those affected by the events of yesterday on Capitol Hill; my prayers go with you.
Democracy has never been perfect;
America has never been perfect, but yesterday both received a shocking blow to
their fragile sense of order.
Democracy is fragile, but it is
made strong by those who are committed to it.
Democracy is not perfect, but it is
so much better than the vacuum that is left in its absence.
Yet there is hope, I believe, in
the small but significant majority who know what happened was wrong; there is
hope in the knowledge that even during this dark day, a black pastor and a
Jewish son of an immigrant were voted into the Senate from Georgia, a southern
state. There is hope that what we see in this moment is the fever breaking;
that the last throws of this disease of anti-democratic, self-delusional denial
of reality, in breaking to the surface in this moment, is finally burning
itself out. This is the hope I cling to in this moment.
I cling to the hope that there
will be a renewed commitment to honesty and truth. Though America’s democracy clearly
needs to move to a place of forgiveness and reconciliation, that place needs to
be reached by holding the truth to account, and this can only be done if those individuals
and groups who have sought to abuse and abandon the truth are also held to
account.
For the first time ever I will say this phrase, and I say it not with
the nationalist triumphalism with which it is normally said, but with sadness,
and sympathy, and the genuine hope that people of faith will take seriously the
gravity of responsibility that is on their shoulders; I say it with the
knowledge that it is not about a privilege received, but a covenant that
American Christians should promise to uphold, in solidarity with the work of God
throughout this world - may God bless America.
