Winners and Losers

In a game of winners and losers, there really are no winners. To gain at the expense of another is selfish. To brag of it is arrogance. To celebrate it is childish.

According to msnbc.com, as the video screens projected the image of President George W. Bush, boos could be heard among the masses in Washington today. When the helicopter taking now-former President Bush to Andrews Air Force Base for his flight home to Texas, the crowds cheered his exit and some sang, “Na-na-na-nah, na-na-na-nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye."

What Americans should celebrate today is the great freedom this country affords each citizen. The election of Barack Obama illustrates this feature of our country. His inauguration demonstrates to the world how a country can peacefully transition power from one leader to another.

The family of five (Why weren’t the kids in school?) at IHOP this morning was rushing the waitress and eating at a frantic pace. At 11:00 they jumped up and headed for the door. The mother looked at me and said, “We have to get home and get in front of the TV!” I hated to tell her that it would be too late to see the swearing in of the forty-fourth president and to hear his inaugural address. So I just smiled and nodded. I really don’t think they cared; they had won.

Does the non-white community think they have lost every other election? If white people are supposed to accept Obama as the president of all the people, why haven’t they been able to accept the forty-three white presidents as the presidents of all the people?

What was once in a melting pot is now being strained and separated. Instead of being one people and one culture, we are a country of separate identities; President Obama called us a “patchwork.” And the truth is that each segment sees itself as a minority in some way and is fighting to be heard. Seems like if we were all one people and one culture there would be no minority; there would be one voice, one need, one solution.

Conservative politics and economic policy is concerned with (and in the past has proven effective at) helping every American obtain a better way of life by extending opportunity and creating an atmosphere of optimism. Liberal politics and economic policy is about advantage: winners and losers.

I believe the greatest problem facing the USA is spiritual. President Obama said in his address today that “we are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.” No wonder there is conflict! Of the five groups, Christians are the only ones who want everyone to be winners – by placing faith in Jesus Christ. In the New Testament book of Galatians, a letter to Christians living in Asia Minor in the mid-first century, Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Christianity does not discriminate. People who claim to be Christians may discriminate, and that is wrong. But Jesus embraces all who will come.

The reason the greatest problem we face is spiritual is because our country is not a Christian nation. Maybe it never was. At least in recent generations the commitment to and expansion of Christianity has been such that religions with other answers to spiritual questions have gained a foothold. So instead of being one in Christ, we are separate. And separation begets winners and losers.

America needs another Great Awakening. It is time for Christian – true Christians – to pray and to take the message to the streets.

In politics it is easy to create a false sense of “winning.” But it is always at the expense of the losers. And in such cases, the country loses. Fiscal budgets and legislative bills can no more bring us together than can bombing our enemies or building bridges to tomorrow (all of these are important in a nation’s life). But the Bible can bring us together so that we are winners.