Solution to USA division

The Solution to Division 

Be Golden, America!

The solution is simple, and it provides an opportunity for each and every one of us to be a part of a greater cause.  Be Golden America! 

The founders of America believed that Americans needed to be moral and virtuous for the country to prosper. They knew that America would not last long with only the Constitution as our guide. The founders were students of history. They believed that Americans needed constitutional rights (what we are entitled to), laws (what we are allowed to do), and morality (what we ought to do). However, the Supreme Court removed organized prayer and spiritual education from public schools in 1962. The American moral conscience spiraled out of control from 1962 to present-day America. Americans lost the key element that was embedded into our culture that inspires us to do what we ought to do. This is why the Creed Party exists. We inspire the nation to embrace its moral conscience. 

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Ministries in Atlanta, once gave a sermon called “Like Stars in The Sky” that perfectly illustrates the problem that the Creed Party intends to solve. Stanley preached that there is significant disunity in America, but there is a way forward. The United Creed believes that we the people can lead the way.

The Problem

One Congresswoman has said that America needs a national divorce. I think that kind of division bothers most Americans. It seems like everything automatically gets divided up into one of two buckets, even though we’re supposed to be the Creed States of America. Everything either goes in a red bucket or a blue bucket. No matter what the issue is, or whatever the topic is, immediately there’s a view that divides. It’s like whatever view you hold regarding sexual identity, healthcare, education, and even racism and equity defines you as a Democrat or a Republican. For example, if you believe in striving for a healthier environment, you must go in the blue bucket, or if you believe in American energy independence, you must go in the red bucket. What if I believe in both? Why do I have to be pigeonholed into a red or blue bucket? I don’t think anybody’s happy about that. 

Everyday people don’t like to be pigeonholed into only two groups. America is divided because the political pundits love division. There is a lot of money to be made by keeping America divided. There is also a lot of power to be preserved by creating the sense that we’re more divided than we actually are. Fear and division are very profitable. For example, if you convince me there is a group that I should be afraid of, and if you convince me that you will protect me from them for a donation and a vote, well, I’m happy to give you a donation and a vote, so you’ll protect me from those evil people. Both the far-left and far-right are good at raising a lot of money, but they rarely solve any problems. You certainly won’t find the compassion of Jesus the farther you go left or right. Real problems are solved when people cross party lines and work together in the middle. 

The True Enemy

The solution to disunity is simple. We’re adults; we should know better. We want our kids to work together to build a better world. Demonizing half the population based on party affiliation will never bring us together. Pundits and politicians from both parties inspire their followers to demonize entire groups of people. How can divisive rhetoric ever unite people? The enemy is not the Republican or the Democratic Party. Our enemy is not a political party. Our enemy is the division itself, because it slows everything down, it causes people to be hurt, and it silences people. Why don’t we unite around a commitment to Be Golden? The middle path is the way forward. In the middle, we respectfully debate what is best for the nation without dehumanizing people who don’t agree with us. There will always be disagreements. We must come together and leverage our diverse perspectives to solve the big problems that we wrestle with in our communities, in our nation, and the world. 

Finding our way to Unity

We must start with some common ground, because to move forward as a united nation, we must at least be standing on the same ground. The Bill of Rights was created to protect individual liberties. The Ninth Amendment serves kind of a catch-all amendment, because the founders knew in the future there would be other individual rights, and they wanted to make sure to protect them. The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” If I were to rewrite the Ninth Amendment in today’s language, it would read something like this: “I have the right to do what I want, when I want, with whom I want, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s rights.” The American way. People love this country for its liberty. However, personal rights, or freedoms, must be coupled with responsibility, or things can go terribly wrong. 

Parents know this fundamental truth. Parents give their children freedoms, but children are often irresponsible with those freedoms, and parents take those freedoms away. Some of your parents removed the door from your room when you were a teenager. Maybe you had that punishment, or maybe you’ve taken the door off your child’s room, why? Because we give our children the freedom to have their own space, and when they have been irresponsible with that freedom, we take their door off. I think most people intuitively understand that the nature of freedom and personal responsibility. Take gun violence for example. Some Americans are being extremely irresponsible with their Second Amendment rights. Children are being mercilessly slaughtered in schools, and our politicians are so afraid of restricting Second Amendment rights that they refuse to pass any meaningful legislation to address the problem. The answer to gun violence isn’t taking away the Second Amendment; American citizens must practice better responsibility with their rights by a commitment to Be Golden. 

The Founders

The founders were very open about how individual rights must be coupled with individual moral responsibility, or their new country wouldn’t work. The founders of America learned from the Greeks and Romans that if responsibility is divorced from liberty, it undermines the fabric of society. The founders also knew that moral responsibility cannot be legislated. And yet without individual responsibility, we isolate, and we divide. 

The problem with law is this: the law reflects the minimum requirement. How wicked can I be and still get away with it? That’s what the law tells you: it’s how low you can go. The law is designed to keep terrible things from happening, but it doesn’t inspire us to Be Golden. It doesn’t inspire greatness. It doesn’t inspire virtue. It doesn’t inspire us to be morally responsible. Traffic laws are great, but traffic laws don’t make you a courteous driver. Free speech doesn’t make you kind with your words. Laws just set the limit. 

Our founders believed that if the Constitution and law were all we have embedded into our culture, the American experiment would fail. Americans need a constant reminder to Be Golden. The American legal system is appropriately decoupled from any religious dogma. We do not want to live in a theocracy. But what we do need is a new national conscience, a commitment to Be Golden.

A New National Conscience

We have the power to embrace a national conscience that is informed by the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Golden Rule can be followed by everyone. The teachings of Jesus can be thought of as a moral compass that will immediately guide America to its national conscience. Jesus taught what we now know as the Golden Rule. As I have loved you, Jesus told his followers, I want you to do that for everybody else. And then Apostle Paul comes along, and he takes this giant idea of, “do for others what God through Christ has done for you,” and he calls it the law of Christ. Paul mentions this principle in Galatians 6:2 and 1 Corinthians 9:21. 

Even if you aren’t a Christian, or if you aren’t even a religious person, you can still Be Golden. This is the world you want to live in. This is the community you want your kids to live in. These are the kinds of kids you want to raise. When this simple idea gives shape to our national conscience, it will address every single social problem and perhaps almost every single legal question that we deal with. 

The Golden Rule inspires us to honor one another. Do you know what it means to honor someone? It means we treat other people with respect because we know that everyone is made in the image of God and reflects the image of God. We see other people valuable and worthy. We treat each other honorably because we are all equally important as children of God. What if that principle informed the American national conscience?

What Will You Choose

American citizens have every right not to treat everyone the way they would like to be treated. The question is, will we choose to Be Golden? Unity can’t be mandated. Unity must be chosen, and somebody must go first. How about going first? In your family, in your community, at work? If you go first, your friends may be upset. They may feel like you’re abandoning the cause. They may accuse you of leaving the political party. People around you may ask you, “What’s happened to you?” “Who have you been listening to?” “What have you been reading?” They may try and slander you as a liberal, or a conservative. The far-left will tell you that you’ve been consumed by capitalism. The far-right will tell you that you’ve been consumed by socialism. We must choose to love, accept, and forgive. When we choose to Be Golden, the distance between our politics decreases, and we begin to unite. The United Creed invites you to go first, to Be Golden. 

Paul brilliantly said that all the requirements of the law are fulfilled in keeping one command: the Golden Rule. It’s simple, powerful, and life changing. Paul quotes Jesus’s Golden Rule when teaching Christians how to live a moral life with abundant freedom. However, people who don’t believe in God have followed the Golden Rule. 

A Golden Future

What if Americans followed the Golden Rule for six months, three months, a year? The temperature in the nation would change. The culture would start to change. We must come together, because when Americans come together, wonderful things happen. We begin to hear other people’s stories, understand other people’s experiences, and see life through their eyes. When that happens, we learn something new. We may realize that we were wrong. 

When people choose to live according to the Golden Rule, much of the hateful political rhetoric melts away. So, what if we just did that? We already know what happens if we don’t. We’re devouring each other because only the fittest can survive. We divide into groups that look, believe, and live the same way. 

The United Creed believes that Be Golden can heal America’s division and isolation. This guideline can be embraced by people from all religions and by those who aren’t religious at all. We don’t have to wait for an election cycle, we can shine like stars in the sky just by leveraging our freedom for the benefit of other people. That is how we make our way to the middle, where problems are solved, and our culture begins to change in a positive and healthy manner. Not for our own sake, but for the sake of our communities and our nation, and ultimately for the sake of the future generations of the world. Isn’t this worth giving your life to?

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