To rebuild the body politic, we must first discover as a people that which moves our thinking from “me” to “we.” Whether a person or faith, or no, Easter is an ideal season to begin that journey.
by Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The advantage that historians have over those who live in a given moment is perspective. The further one is from any given event, the better one’s perspective tends to become.
Distance from an event helps minimize our personal stake in how it’s interpreted. Distance also comes with the advantage of seeing how subsequent events unfolded.
A century from this Easter – April 2, 2124 – historians may well be working to make sense of the steep decline in religious practice that began in the United States around 2000 and has continued to accelerate.
A report released this week by Pew Research finds that 80% of Americans believe religion is losing influence in America. In 2002, just 52% of Americans felt that way.
Ironically, the majority of Americans (57%) also say that this loss of religious influence is a net negative for our society.
The reasons for this are complex and not well understood, but the phenomenon is one that has repeated itself in the modern era.
Both Emile Durkheim (1858—1917) and William James (1842—1910) were men who personally did not embrace religion, but both appreciated its importance in the civil operation of society as well its role for individuals as we move through life.
This Easter Sunday, the FXBG Advance is paying tribute to the tension that we live in by giving our usually early-Sunday-morning lengthy list of articles a later starting time so that our readers can focus on an extraordinary essay by our columnist, Shaun Kenney.
Not all will share his belief in God, nor will all share his theology. But in this Easter morning writing, there is something that we can all grab hold of.
If I am proselytizing a bit here, it is not from a place of coercion, but rather an enthusiasm and a peace and a love which I freely share and see every Easter Sunday.
What Shaun grasps is something that moves him from a philosophical position that begins with “me,” to one that begins with “we.”
It’s not the only philosophical position that moves us from me to we. I personally have no particular religious persuasion, but I do share in transcendent ideas that have a similar effect on me.
And as such, even though we don’t share the same transcendent understanding, we can, and do, share a belief that finding our “we” is central to moving forward in our turbulent political environment.
A century from today, what will historians look upon as the more important elements that brought our nation together?
We can’t know – we’re too close to the moment.
But we do know this. “Me” will not sustain for long.
Easter offers an opportunity for all of us — whether of faith or no — to reflect upon, and discover, or rediscover, that which moves us towards peace.
