By Sanford Goodkin
Could we get along without religion? Yes, I think so. Could we get along without
God? No, I can’t think so. To be in love with God, to emulate goodness through
a special spirituality, to teach this goodness to children is what Judaism is
all about.
The noted historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in a marvelous article, in the New
York Times, “Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr," the supreme theologian of
the 20th Century, reminds us of another great American, President Abraham
Lincoln and his expressions towards religion and God; they serve as a wake-up
call to the holier-than-thou crowd that dominates the Republican party and which
has convinced me of the necessary separation between God and religion:
“Mortal mans’ apprehension of truth is fitful, shadowy and imperfect; he
sees through the glass darkly." Lincoln’s experience of the Civil
War taught him about the darkness of mans’ thinking even when claiming that
God was on his side. What happens when the North and the South pray to the same
God? Whom does the Lord answer and why? Lincoln summed up his feelings in the
magnificence of his second inaugural address; “let us never forget that the
Almighty has His own purposes."
When complemented on this address, Lincoln wrote back: “Men are not flattered
by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty
and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God
governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told.”
Mr.Lincoln neither smoked, drank or cursed. He was an unusual man of great
confidence, yet true humility. He kidded no one nor tried to. He therefore
remains ironically, godlike, in his lasting influence, especially within the
context of modern politics, which are a disgrace to God and to humankind.
Niebuhr wrote nearing the end of his life, in his, The Irony of American
History, “If we should perish..the primary cause would be that the
strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards
of the struggle; the blindness would be induced, not by some accident of nature
nor history, but by hatred and vainglory.” We have reached that point wherein
we cannot measure ourselves by GDP nor statistics, but by intelligence and
morality.
We are a splendid people and nation, too busy to thoughtfully analyze what we
read, what we see and to whom we listen. Our immaturity is showcased by how
profoundly we are failing the next generations. We drive them to soccer games,
buy them new cars at a very young age, and are simply too busy to be parental
about how God is our hope and faith and that we must treat neighbors as we would
have them treat us—”the rest being commentary.”
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