In this month’s blog, Bishop David Bard reflects on what it means to celebrate, with open-eyed honesty, the gifts and challenges of our nation’s 250th anniversary…
This year’s July 4 national holiday celebration will be significant. Independence Day has been celebrated in some form since 1776, making this the 250th such celebration. Congress made July 4 an unpaid federal holiday in 1870, and it became a recognized paid holiday in 1938. Despite the history being a little convoluted, I appreciate the annual opportunity to celebrate this nation, particularly at 250. To celebrate and reflect.
There is much to love about these United States. Our country’s literature features some of my favorite writers: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, William Styron, Robert Bly, Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, and Louise Erdrich. Since I was a boy collecting baseball cards, I have loved the sport, a uniquely American invention.
America has created new sounds in its popular music that continue to combine and influence one another. Folk ballads, mountain music, western music, and the blues all contributed to country music. Country music, western swing, and rhythm and blues came together in rock ‘n’ roll. Jazz integrated African rhythms, the blues, and unique forms and instrumentation. Country, rock, and jazz continue to influence one another, and unique forms such as soul and hip-hop have developed. We have also made unique contributions to classical music. I listen to it all and am particularly fond of classic jazz, classic rock, and classic country.
I cherish our democratic political traditions. I vote in every election. I am proud to be from the United States and pleased to celebrate it every year. And yet I cherish this nation with eyes wide open. I want to offer some wide-eyed reflections on the United States at 250.
You may ask why, as a bishop in The United Methodist Church, I would reflect with you on our national life, including our political life. What does this have to do with the church? While it is not the church’s primary task to make our country work, we have a stake in making it work.
In his treatise “Thoughts Upon Slavery,” John Wesley wrote, “Wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation; but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of our country.” We should do what we can to encourage and nurture these qualities in our public life through active engagement. “You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” (Isaiah 58:12, NRSVUE). “But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
Even more, weaving a rich tapestry of diverse people is at the heart of what it means to be the church. In the name of Jesus Christ, we are invited to create beloved community in the church. We do so in the context of a country that has both successes and struggles in creating a more beloved community. The church shares in those successes and struggles. As we do our beloved community work in the church, it will reverberate through our society, and our society needs such beloved community work more than ever.
I would like to offer these words from the Council of Bishops’ book “Building Beloved Community”: “Christians can and should be ethically engaged in politics because our political choices shape how we live together…. The spiritual cannot be separated from the material — this is one of the central insights of the incarnation…. Discipleship in its fullness means following Jesus in all the activities we see him engaged in — healing, liberating, comforting, feeding, empowering, teaching, including, and yes, confronting unjust powers” (pp. 32, 33-34).
I have often noted that the gospel has a moral dimension. Politics, at its best, also has a moral dimension, and as Christians, we want to strengthen the moral dimension of political decisions. This is deeply ingrained in the Wesleyan tradition. If you have any doubt about that, I would encourage you to read John Wesley’s essay “Thoughts Upon Slavery” and the first Social Creed of The Methodist Episcopal Church from 1908, which stated that the church stood for equal rights and justice for all, worker protections, a living wage, and reasonable leisure for workers. That creed ended by stating that the church stood: “For the recognition of the Golden Rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills.”
As the United States turns 250, there remains much to celebrate and appreciate. Vibrant communities across our nation are finding common ground for the common good. We have significant freedom and opportunity. We enjoy a robust cultural life. And there is work to do. What follows is an exercise in both theological reflection and “reflective patriotism,” as coined by Danielle Allen in a recent New York Times essay.
Part of our work is to remain honest about our history. Honestly grappling with our history can be painful. Our history as a nation and as a church within this nation is genuinely mixed. There are grand moments of beauty and wonder, soaring rhetoric that calls out our best. There are ugly and brutal moments — slavery, callousness toward people indigenous to this land, the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, pervasive anti-Semitism, and cruelty toward those who are “different,” whether that difference is related to race, education, economic status, gender, or sexual orientation.
Our history is a mixed bag of wonderful moments of love, compassion, justice, and care, and of the calling forth of high ideals, alongside difficult moments of segregation, oppression, diminishment, and cruelty. To ignore either is untruthful, and we are people who trust that the truth sets us free in Jesus Christ. One dimension of the perniciousness of white Christian nationalism is its refusal to look honestly at our nation’s history. I am deeply concerned about movements in our society that seek to turn us away from any part of our history, and some of those movements are powerful right now, including Christian nationalism, defined as “a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identities” (Amanda Tyler, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty).
As James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” If you are interested in exploring our history from a theological perspective, the General Commission on Archives and History has produced a new video series, “From Crown to Conferencing.” It’s ideal for small groups to study. Learn more about the series.
Aligned with movements and forces that seek to turn us away from some of the more difficult parts of our history are those that seek to move us away from seeing others as human beings created in the image of God. We are stronger as a church and a country when we recognize the value of diversity and engage in building community. “Creating beloved community requires more than the absence of racial hostility — it demands the presence of relationships and structures that actively celebrate the divine image in every person regardless of racial background” (Council of Bishops, “Building Beloved Community,” p. 88). “Racism is not merely a social or political problem but a theological crisis that strikes at the heart of Christian faith…. Confronting racism is therefore not an optional activity for Christians but a requirement of faithful discipleship” (p. 87).
As followers of Jesus, we need to struggle against the continuing ripples of racialized thinking that cross our history. We need to stand against dehumanization in all its forms. Race is not the only factor in dehumanization. We hear too many voices today that dehumanize people born in other countries. There is dehumanization of people who think differently. There is an important difference between critical disagreement and dehumanization. Beloved community stands against every form of dehumanization. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
If inequality rooted in racial categories remains an issue for us, as it does, another concerning factor in our national life is the growing economic inequality. We live in a world where our economies allow vast accumulations of wealth among a few while consigning too many to grinding poverty. In the United States, wealth inequality has risen sharply since the late 1980s. Federal Reserve data from 2024 indicate that the top 1% of households held 30.5% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 50% held 2.5%. How do we evaluate a set of laws and economic arrangements that enable extraordinary wealth while leaving a significant number of people in poverty or struggling to make ends meet? If we find current laws and systems wanting, how might we work to change them? “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him” (Proverbs 14:31).
Significant economic inequalities undermine political equality, an important element of democracy. A healthy democracy depends on free and fair elections, opportunities for diverse positions and viewpoints to be expressed, access to alternative sources of information, opportunities to form political associations, and opportunities to engage in political activity (Robert Dahl, “On Political Equality,” p. 80). A lack of adequate economic resources negatively affects one’s ability to participate politically, access information, and form political associations. Political equality and economic equality are not the same, but they are related, and increasing economic inequality undermines democracy.
Our democratic traditions and institutions are being undermined by other forces and movements. Our information environment appeals more to fear and anger than to critical thinking. Repeated assertions that elections have been rigged or unfair, in the absence of credible evidence, unnecessarily undermine democratic institutions and processes. As someone who has spent significant time studying democratic political theory in the context of Christian ethics, I am concerned about the well-being of our democracy.
In fact, these reflections converge on the idea of a healthy democracy, which seems central to our national identity. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure” (Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address). We are part of a 250-year experiment in democratic governance, continually striving for a healthy democracy. A healthy democracy also has deep theological support, as I argued in my doctoral dissertation.
Being a healthier democracy will not solve all our national problems. What might an adequate tax system look like, one that funds essential services and meets basic human needs without stifling economic creativity? How do we address the misuse of human freedoms in relation to AI and the ubiquity and accessibility of gambling and sexually explicit materials? When will we have a deeper conversation about gun violence and the proliferation of guns that seem designed more to take life than to protect it? A healthy democracy does not magically solve all these problems, but we have a better chance of arriving at creative solutions together through healthy democratic processes.
The United States at 250 has much to celebrate, and we have issues to address. As followers of Jesus and members of communities of faith, our primary concerns are not political. We seek to form people in love, to share with them that they are loved by God in Jesus Christ, and that abundant life means growing in that love and living it. And love has moral and political dimensions. The Council of Bishops encourages engaging in moral and political issues “with curiosity and humility while still maintaining moral clarity” (“Building Beloved Community,” p. 40).
Thank you for wading through these serious reflections. I expect that some of you may have different thoughts about our nation’s challenges, and part of the beauty of our country is that a healthy democracy is inherently dialogical.
Let me offer this final thought: “If we want to improve the condition of democratic politics, we need to occasionally do something together other than politics” (Robert Talisse, “Overdoing Democracy,” p. 4). So on July 4, celebrate the United States at 250. Have a picnic, gather with family, listen to music, watch baseball, swim, stroll, watch a fireworks display, go to a parade, and feel gratitude for the good in our country. Talk with others about sports, summer, music, literature, family, or vacations. Know that on July 5, the work of making us better continues, forming us in love and in love to build beloved community in the name and Spirit of Jesus.
Last Updated on July 1, 2026