Rebuilding America

          “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

          There was a special front section in the Erie paper Sunday morning. In big, bold letters, it said, “Rebuilding America.” The rest of the section was dedicated to brief reports on the current status of the several area industries. I understand. Getting our economy going is vital. It is desperately needed. The disaster created by locking down the various states is likely to bring about devastating consequences. I understand. I do. 
          But as protests rage over the murder of George Floyd, as I read repeated questions on Quora about what to do during the lockdowns, and as I read the comments and articles about “Rebuilding America,” I am convinced once again that our focus is being drawn to the wrong place. Yes, we need a good economy. Once again, I understand. I do.  But Jesus’ parable comes to mind, and with it, a story told by the late Ravi Zacharias.
          He told of touring a building designed by a Post Modern architect, with stairs that went nowhere, columns that held up nothing, and doors that led nowhere. The whole purpose was for the building to express meaningless and purposelessness. He didn’t sound too impressed, but when the tour was over, his question to the guide was about the foundation. No matter how meaningless the rest of the building was, could the same be said of the foundation? It had meaning and purpose, because without it, the building could not stand.  
          Jesus told basically the same story. A building built on the rock stood in the raging storm and flood. The building built on sand did not. There’s another story about houses, involving three little pigs and a wolf who “huffed, and puffed and blew the house down.”  And lastly, there’s the story of my own home. After having lived in it for 55 years, this summer I find myself facing some minor repairs – and pretending not to see things that may be signs of bigger problems. 
          I’m concerned that we’re so focused on restarting our economy as the foundation of our society that we are trying to build without a solid foundation. And in a way, we don’t have a choice. We’ve got to build a shelter or die. But while our society tries to restart, rebuild, or “fundamentally transform,” that’s not really the foundation. 
          Books have been written about this stuff, including the Bible. The foundation of any society is its god, even if it claims there is no god. It is the relationship between reality and the people. This is true whether we’re discussing individuals, cities, or countries. The closer we get to the truth, to what’s really real (as Del Tackett would describe it), the more our foundation is made of rock. Now, imagine a building with half of one side of the foundation built on rock, another part build on sand, a third part build on gravel, and still another on clay. 

Multiculturalism, as a place to lay a foundation, results in a building with fundamental flaws in its foundation. That doesn’t mean there’s only room for one world view, and those who don’t agree with it should be kicked out or shot – but it means that while we might let them build a part of the structure using materials from their culture, the foundation still has to be built on bedrock – on what is really real and truly true. 

On whatever we build our foundation, that is our god, whether it is an impersonal natural force kind of god, or a highly person, transcendent and immanent kind of god. There are people who don’t like it said that way, but whatever forms the deepest level of our beliefs about reality, that’s our god. And it is the rock on which we build our foundation, whether we like it or not. To fight this is like saying, “I’m going to build my house on air. Hand me a two by twelve. What do you think? Fourteen feet from the ground for the floor?” 

I submit that we need to be careful on what god or reality we choose to place our foundation. Building on the limestone of Florida sometimes results in  houses falling into sinkholes. But that god, that reality, whatever it is, is where we put our foundations.

There are things that are more core, more vital to society than the economy, as important as the economy is. The economy can’t function without people. Counties, states, counties, and cities… societies can’t exist without people. Individual people are the foundation that is put down against the bedrock that, properly, is God. They are held in place with other individual people with mortar that, Scripturally, is love. But the key here is that for the foundation to be sound, the stones and the mortar need to be strong. And this is where I think we need to begin as we “rebuild America.” We need to focus on individual stones, first connecting them to the bedrock – to God, because that will help strengthen them. Then we need to use mortar (love) and other stones (people) to fix minor flaws. It might require breaking the rocks down into smaller stones, or even putting them in another part of the building than the foundation, but no matter where the rocks or stones are put in the building, they are held to other rocks by the mortar of love. 

Here’s another key we need to keep in mind. When we build a foundation, we are building conglomerates. We are putting rocks together with mortar to make a bigger rock that fits our needs. That conglomerate is only as strong as the weakest stone and the mortar. 

Now, consider what would happen if, instead of holding individual stones together using mortar, a builder were to take a bunch of rocks, perhaps based on their color, or perhaps based on their shape, and pronounce that all of those individual rocks are really just one rock. No mortar is needed except where the outside of that one rock meets another one rock made up of lots of other rocks. This is rejecting the reality that the group of rocks isn’t really one rock, but lots of smaller rocks. This is why our foundation can’t be built on identity politics. It denies the reality of each individual rock. 

Ultimately, if we are going to rebuild America, we must begin with the location, and build on the best bedrock (god) we can. Then, we need to find or make strong rocks (individual) who can be held to other rocks with mortar (love) and thereby strengthen them. Sociologists have found that this happens most naturally and best in strong nuclear families. 

And it is ultimately at this point that economics come into things, because economics, the business world is where we apply the mortar – we provide to others what they need in order to be stronger rocks, and they provide to us what we need to be stronger rocks – often in the from of goods, services, and money. As they and we benefit individually, we benefit as a foundation, a floor, or a wall – as a society. So as we rebuild America, we need to get the economy going. That’s critically important, but even  more vital is to turn our focus to the bedrock, the individual rocks, and the mortar.