Faith and Patriotism

The greatest war in the history of the world was fought and won without a shot ever being fired or a soldier or sailor having been killed in battle. Three men leveraged and then deployed their moral fiber and virtue, and their profound belief in God, that was the bases of the moral pillars they all three stood upon, to execute the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia. The President of the United States (Ronald Reagan), the leader of The Western Catholic Church (Pope John Paul II), and the head of the largest labor union in Poland (Lech Welensa), acted together to confront the great evil of communism.

The point is that it was their profound faith that served as the bases of their political actions. Not the other way around. My Quaker Grandmother whose Quaker mother marched with Susan B. Anthony, understood the importance of putting faith before politics. “Our faith should inform our politics… our politics has no business informing our faith”, she told me almost 20 years after she made her position known to the principle of a Quaker pre-school that I attended as a young child in Swarthmore Pa. There was no greater patriot than my grandmother.

In spite of that fact, she lived in one of the most progressive communities of her time, she was proud that her son was a Navy Fighter pilot. She was often times shunned at Quaker Meetings because of her son’s vocation.

When I was 4 years old my grandmother (Oie), became upset when she found out that we were learning to say the pledge of allegiance to our country’s flag, before we were learning to say the Lord’s Prayer. It was absolutely necessary when raising young children, she believed that learning to pray and teaching about God was the first priority of childhood preschool education. Then after those underpinnings are advanced, we learn about our country. She often opined that the words “One Nation Under God” means nothing if you don’t believe in God and you don’t practice the art of prayer. The moral predicates that underly the very Foundations of our Founding Documents and that reflect the spirit of our people, are based on our belief in God. She was adamant, like many traditional Quakers, that an oath to God in a Court of Law meant nothing, unless you believed and feared God.

Even today many traditional Quakers, Charismatic Catholics, and Evangelicals affirm their oath before the court with an affirmation—because they so fear making a mistake in testimony.

In a Court of Law or in politics, the horse before the cart is faith—before politics and testimony. Without faith, there can be little bases for the words that follow.

I am hoping that with a new Pope and a new President, the example of the fall of the Iron Curtain can be remembered and the lessons learned. Our faith and prayers should always proceed our politics and legal testimony. Our faith should inform every aspect of our lives. Today many of our people, including me sometimes, have it backwards.