Unity

The Golden Rule, our path to Unity.

The Golden Rule invites people to treat others the way they would expect to be treated. While Jesus is best known for teaching the Golden Rule, variations of the principle is found in many religions and moral philosophies. The Golden Rule appears very prominently in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, and is promoted by moral philosophers.

The Buddha made the Golden Rule one of the cornerstones of his teachings. It appears in various forms throughout the Tripitaka. One of the sayings attributed to the Buddha in Udanavarga 5:18 is, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

The ancient Hindu epic Mahābhārata 13.113.8 preserves the following exhortation, “One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own  self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.”

In Islam, there are similar examples of the Golden Rule.  Kitab al-Kafi, vol. 2, p. 146 says:

A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: ‘O the messenger of God! Teach me something to go to heaven with it.’ Prophet said: ‘As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don’t do to them. Now let the stirrup go! This is enough for you; now go and act in accordance with it!’

The Golden Rule appears several times Judaism. For example, Moses states in the book of Leviticus 19:34, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.”

Jesus famously taught the Golden Rule in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus described the Golden Rule as the second greatest commandment. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

My brother and I learned the Golden Rule at a very young age. Growing up, my mom always did a great job of  reminding us when we were being ugly or grumpy, “There are two things that you have complete control of: your attitude and the way you choose to treat other people.”

Every evening at our family dinner, my dad would always ask us to share what we did for God and our community that day. He knew that Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount that the two most important moral rules for Christians to follow are: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love others as yourself. My dad taught my brother and I to take responsibility for following these simple rules. In this way, my dad taught my brother and I to Be Golden.

I eventually learned that when I gave God focused time in prayer and reading His word, I came to understand the character of the God of goodness and love. I learned that when I connect with love, loving others comes more naturally.

While loving God makes following the Golden Rule come more naturally, you don’t even have to be religious to Be Golden. All you need to do is take responsibility for honoring others. That means you treat others like you want to be treated, even if you disagree with them, and even if you are angry with them. To Be Golden means to take responsibility for treating others with respect, no matter what.

My grandfather, James Alan Hughes, who was Daddy Jim to me, was a fine gentleman. He taught my family how to honor others by simply being polite and using good manners.  Daddy Jim would make us take our hats off at the dinner table give thanks for our meals. He unwaveringly reminded us to honor others with the way we respond to one another, “yes sir and no sir,” or “yes ma’am and no ma’am,” and “please and thank you.” He taught us to serve others by opening the door for the person we walk into a room with, even if it is a stranger, or even if it is someone we don’t agree with.

I am forever grateful for the life lessons Daddy Jim taught me and my family. We have done our best to follow Daddy Jim’s example, and it has brought great benefit to my life. My entire life I have done my best to treat other people with honor and respect. Those small acts of love for others created powerful relationships that blessed me many years later. I discovered this blessing when my friends and family came together to coordinate events to raise money to pay for my experimental cancer treatments. When I got sick, many people showed up for me when I needed them most. They all genuinely wanted to help me from the bottom of their hearts.  In the fall of 2021, one of my best friends, Kip Cunningham, put together a golf tournament fundraiser for my family and invited all our friends.

This event took place just before a big live music fundraiser that my aunt, Patti Hughes Prescott, had coordinated. The Bulverde Lion’s Club helped generate large donations and raise money for my cause. My friend Katie Chain rallied together our work community from H-E-B. H-E-B treated me very well throughout the battle. They donated all the food and water for the event. These efforts paid for a very expensive experimental cancer treatment, and they continue to help my family.  About a year later, I had another cancer recurrence. My spiritual community at CrossBridge Community Church rallied around my family and raised money to cover expenses related to traveling the country to see doctors as we tried to establish a prescriptive path for my unclassified cancer diagnosis. Around that same time, my aunt, along with a family friend, Larry Pyle, coordinated a skeet shooting tournament and celebration to raise money for my continued battle.

When I ran out of conventional treatment options in the summer of 2023, I began a cutting-edge new cancer treatment called Immunocine, which was not covered by insurance. I needed about $100,000 to pay for treatment, travel, food, and hotel expenses. My aunt opened a GoFundMe page to ask for donations. We were about $60,000 short of the goal right before I started the treatment, then an anonymous person from CrossBridge donated $30,000.

The United Creed exists because my friends, family, and church followed the Golden Rule: they all treated me the way that they would want to be treated. There is no way my wife and I would have been able to produce the money needed to get this mission off the ground on our own.

My life experiences are a great example of the power of the Golden Rule. I have seen the Golden Rule unite a very  diverse community. The people that supported me in the cancer battle come from different cultures, races, political views, sexuality, gender, and age. People from different walks of life committed to Be Golden, and that made unity possible.  The United Creed is proof that Be Golden is a path to restoring unity in communities across our extremely politically divided country. Be Golden reminds Americans of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, which is, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, selfcontrol.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus illustrates a beautiful spiritual truth. He likens himself to the vine of a grape plant, and He says His followers are like the branches that spring out from the vine. He tells us when His followers remain with Him, they will produce fruit, but apart from Him, they can produce nothing. The United Creed intends to encourage Americans to be engaged with the God of goodness so that the fruit of the Spirit can heal our country. Be Golden is the path for us to bring the fruit of the Spirit to the forefront of American culture. It has the power to heal American culture from the inside out, one person at a time.

America’s Moral Decline

In his book Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (2011), Timothy Keller writes: Karl Marx and others have charged that religion is ‘the opiate of the masses.’ That is, it is a sedative that makes people passive toward injustice. . . That may be true for some religions that teach people that this material world is unimportant or illusory. . . Christianity, however, teaches that God hates the suffering and oppression of the material world so much, He was willing to get involved in it and fight against it. Properly understood, Christianity is by no means the opiate of the people. It is more like the smelling salts. The major political parties in America are content with spiritual and moral education being absent from our culture because enlightenment encourages people to unite. The United Creed is passionate about terminating the political parties’ control over American minds. If you study the classroom, you will see the future of the country’s culture in twenty years. The average American student spends 180 days in a classroom every year.

My great uncle, Joe Pirtle, was the superintendent for Belton ISD in central Texas. Uncle Joe used to say something like, “I really believe that no matter where you grow up, or from what part of town you come from, education is the path to put everyone on the same level.” I agree with Uncle Joe, and I believe that Americans have a duty to provide all children the education they need to live a moral life filled with inner wellness and freedom from evil. Slowly, over many generations, our public education system has removed spiritual and moral education from the classroom. Americans have lost the education that inspires wisdom, morals, and honor for one another. American education has been reduced to one that teaches kids how to serve those in power and neglect the God of goodness. This environment has produced a “survival of the fittest” mentality in our culture.

Americans have forgotten the importance of honoring and loving others as we love ourselves. We have lost our national conscience. We have neglected the Golden Rule. The United Creed recognizes we are one nation, united under God. America’s spiritual roots run deep and wide. America’s founding documents, like the Mayflower Compact, The Declaration of Independence, and the writings of the founders clearly indicate a deep concern about spiritual enrichment. The founders of America knew that morality is an essential part of making our democracy work. They learned this from the ancient Greek civilization. The goal of ancient Greek education was to liberate students from the inside, to make them free thinkers, and prepare them to contribute to society.

A free-thinking culture was the foundation that made the Greek civilization thrive for so many years. Early American education embodied similar spiritual and intellectual principles. As we have lost the spiritual element of our culture, we have lost the ability to talk with one another, and we have become a divided population that talks against one another. The major political parties in America do not want to equip the population with the intellectual tools needed to expose their divisive system. They have nurtured the “survival of the fittest” culture that characterizes our country today. Such a culture always leads to isolation, and isolation always leads to division. When people embrace a divisive spirit, they are not likely to love others.

People committed to a dysfunctional ideology tend to only hang around people who think, look, or act like themselves. People start to fall into various labels (gender, race, religion, and political party), and political leaders and their pundits use these labels to divide Americans and win votes that will preserve their power. Each party demonizes the other to win votes and donations to the party. This hateful rhetoric has devastated American culture. It has created the division that prevents us from solving the serious problems we have in our country. Politics will change when culture changes, culture will change when we take responsibility to Be Golden. Many political leaders and their media are on a mission to divide us; they do this to prevent us from understanding how powerful Americans are as a united people.

They have made a deliberate attempt to distract us and disconnect us from morality and inner wellness. They are on a mission to suppress our full potential and misguide us into serving their divisive system. Americans are at a pivotal point in history. It is time for all of us to Be Golden. If Americans continue playing into a divisive political agenda, our culture and politics will continue to deteriorate. If people think it’s bad now, it can get far worse. The outcome of the leftist ideology is communism, and the outcome of conservative ideology is ultra-nationalist authoritarianism. That’s where the parties are taking us. We need to meet in the middle before the divisive political landscape in America implodes. It is time for us to stop playing into the division that the political pundits have created. Our enemy is not the Republican or Democratic parties, our enemy is division

The Powerful Truth

Americans have nothing to fear. We need to snap out of our current mindset to rediscover morality and virtue. We have fallen into a spiritually bankrupt culture where we worship the tools that enslave us to division. The United Creed inspires Americans to follow the Golden Rule, focusing on the founding principles of morality and virtue. Our approach makes room for the fruit of the spirit to heal our country. Americans have the responsibility to look behind the curtain of our divisive political system. When we do this, we will find that the system is fragile and has no real power to enslave us. Problems rarely get solved from the far-right and far left of the political spectrum. The United Creed invites Americans to unite square in the center of the political spectrum. The middle is where we can solve our serious cultural problems. We believe commitment to the Golden Rule will guide us there. We believe it is urgent for our generation to act because the political parties and their media machines have manipulated Americans by holding us in a state of constant fear. When we decide to step outside of their system, we realize our true identity as children of God. When we recognize that every human being is a child of God, it is natural to Be Golden.

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.

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 somebody that I should be afraid of, and if you convince me that you will protect me from that person 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 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. 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 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.

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?

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 theJewish religion 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. What if Americans followed it 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?