On the Fourth of July, we celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial. I love the energy of this word. It’s not only about where we are, but where we’re going. Centennial and Bicentennial were words focused on particular milestones. The word for our 250th anniversary is one of movement. It reminds us that we are on a journey, that we have not yet reached our destination and that we can do better.
The word is derived from the fact that we are halfway toward our quincentenary. The word challenges us to move beyond celebration and to examine how faithfully we are moving toward the founding goal of why we declared independence 250 years ago.
Stories of beginnings and journeys fill the Bible’s first book of Genesis. One of them is about Terah’s journey from Ur to Canaan. He takes one of his two surviving sons on this journey, “but when they came to Haran, they settled there.” Terah got about halfway and stopped. He settled. To become a “great nation” Terah’s son Abram needed to resume the journey. I think of our nation’s Semiquincentennial along similar lines. It’s an anniversary that warns us against settling and encourages us to keep moving toward our founding goal.
Why did Terah settle? Was it exhaustion? Did he lose sight of his goal? The Bible ends the passage with the terse phrase: “Terah died in Haran.” Is this also the Semiquincentennial’s warning? Is it about the danger of settling rather than working toward our founding goal?
What is that founding goal? The Declaration anticipates this question as it closes its introductory paragraph: “[T]hey should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” The first reason why our nation declared independence 250 years ago is a sentence that has inspired people across generations and around the globe, and remains inspiring today: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is why we began our independence journey; this is our founding goal.
The first word of this powerful sentence is “We.” It points to John Locke’s political theory that a legitimate government is defined by and depends upon the consent of its citizens because each person has unalienable rights granted by God. Therefore, we have a sacred obligation to history, ourselves and future generations to better live into this founding goal. The Semiquincentennial will not let us settle.
“We” is also the first word of the Constitution, and it is clarified as “the People of the United States.” The Constitution uses the Declaration as its preamble, as Sen. Charles Sumner mentioned in his eulogy at President Lincoln’s funeral. Its rights are not limited to citizens, but to “People.” This goal needed to be defended at the cost of the Civil War and by Constitutional Amendments that supported Reconstruction. All of this was abandoned almost as soon as the surrender at Appomattox was signed. The nation had grown exhausted and lost sight of its goal. The nation settled.
At our Semiquincentennial, we are challenged to renew the journey. We cannot settle for where we are. We can do better than this. When Abram continues the journey toward the original destination, it is the infusion of a fresh perspective that motivates him. Terah lives only for what is and “Terah died in Haran.” Abram lives for the promise of what could be and this strengthens him to continue the journey.
James Q. Wilson in “The Moral Science” wrote that “the most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise — and occasionally the application — of the view that all people, and not just one’s own kind, are entitled to fair treatment.” He judges this as a chief contribution of Western culture. Wilson’s ideal is the noble aspiration behind the Declaration’s “all men” and the Constitution’s “people/person.” Such a high-minded ideal, Wilson acknowledges, must be defended constantly from privilege, and the corruption and lawlessness it feeds. This is why Wilson underscores the uncommonness of its application. This rare ideal is our founding goal, and it exists with an ongoing tension between dreams and deferrals.
Our national greatness flows through our ideals, not where we came from or how long we have lived here. This is why being multiracial and multicultural does not threaten our unity because our ideals bind us together as one. Lose sight of this and we settle. Then we must erase unpleasantries in our national history, undermine democratic norms and institutions, rely instead on force, stoke division and mistrust, disappear the “other,” and halt progress toward a wider engagement with self-evident truths and unalienable rights.
Jaroslav Pelikan said, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” May we not settle for the “traditionalism” of performative patriotism, but rather believe in and continue to progress toward the “tradition” of our founding goal. We don’t go back to tradition; we push it forward. This seems like an authentic patriotism, and one worthy of today’s Semiquincentennial.
The First Congregational Church of Sunderland, United Church of Christ, is located at 91 S. Main St. Sunday Services begin at 11 a.m. Online Bible Study group meets on alternate weeks throughout the summer. The church’s website, Facebook and Instagram pages are found under First Congregational Church of Sunderland. If you wish to reach Rev. Randy Calvo, email randyc1897@gmail.com. We are an official “Open and Affirming” congregation of the UCC. We embrace diversity, work for social justice and aspire to a just world for all. When we say, “All are welcome here,” we mean it. We would love to see you.