Democracy Under the Gun: Who Will Save Us From Ourselves?

They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”              --Jeremiah 6:14

Myths die hard, especially the mythical stories we tell ourselves as Americans.

In my dining room hang reproductions of four Norman Rockwell prints, created in 1943. Called “The Four Freedoms,” Rockwell based his paintings upon a 1941 speech by President Franklin Roosevelt.  FDR said, “In the future days…we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.... freedom of speech and expression…freedom of every person to worship God in his own way…freedom from want [and]…freedom from fear.”

I love the sentiment behind those images. Parents tucking in children as the dad holds a newspaper with headlines speaking of cities being bombed. A family sitting down to the abundance of a Thanksgiving table. A lone man standing up to speak at a New England town meeting. Worshippers from a variety of religions pictured in community, each connecting to God in their own way.

These are not perfect nor inclusive images. They portray a very white and very male America. Yet I still love them, because of the deep and eternal values they seek to portray. Our aspirational American values and myths, those we celebrate on Memorial Day Weekend.

Freedom for all, no one left out, citizens and immigrants alike. Freedom of speech, opinions  shared, decisions made by citizens gathered in peace. Freedom to worship, no one religion forcing its narrow view of morality upon other folks of faith or no faith. Freedom from want, providing the weak and the sick, medical care, housing, food, and work.

We once might have believed these myths defined America. But lately? In 2022 I weep for America and who we’ve become. Our myths are no longer even aspirational. They are false, a civic fig leaf to make us feel okay about ourselves. Yet nothing can cover up the depths to which we have fallen as a society, the noblest of human and transcendent values forgotten, rejected. 

We were attacked by a pandemic. If most of us had taken basic precautions and gotten vaccinated, hundreds of thousands of Americans might have been saved. But because some value so-called “personal freedom” more than the lives of their neighbors, COVID kicked us to the ground, and we deserved it.   

We elected politicians who are bullies and braggarts, purveyors of conspiracy theories. Folks  more interested in partisan power than the common good. Thus, gridlock, even while most Americans are political moderates, and seek compromise in government. Give and take. Common ground. What we have instead are politicians ready to burn down the house to stay in power.

Thus, we sacrifice the lives of our children and the innocent, so we can worship at the altar of the second amendment to the constitution, the “right” to bear arms.  No exceptions. Easy access to weapons, like assault rifles that can slice someone in half in a second or two. 

More than 90 percent of Americans are in favor of new gun safety laws. Not to threaten gun ownership. Just sensible laws to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not bear arms. But a handful of politicians want power more than to protect our sons and daughters. 

In the faith I try my best to practice, the truth matters, even if it hurts. Telling the truth, even if it punctures long held myths. The truth is what sets us free to be free. The truth binds us with integrity to fellow children of God and to the divine.

In America, it is time to tell the truth about who we really are and just what we really stand for in 2022. It is not pretty. But if things are to change for the good, we have to confess to who America has become in these past few hellacious years. Only then can we aspire to lasting values that will shape us into a decent and just citizenry.

God help us all.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org), blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com, and was a longtime columnist for Gannett Media. He has served churches throughout New England for more than thirty years and is also a resident scholar at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.