In my 20s and early 30s, I would never have written and published this. But sports fans know: If you play it safe for long enough, you lose anyway… 

Yesterday’s July Fourth celebrations, as they often do, stirred me to ruminate. My reflection is that we Americans share a great deal in common with one another, regardless of where or when we were born. Or we did up to a point in our history. Perhaps both things are true. 

Like many Americans, my ancestors were not all born in this country. But they did come here legally, with dignity, and with a sense of providence. Simply, they shared a belief that in this place we call America, with enough sweat and blood, God would provide. 

In a way, I am sitting in the back of the figurative classroom ashamed. As both the inheritor and product of my forebears’ hard work, I know they all were tougher than I am and sacrificed more than I have. They did not sit and wait for the future to come to them. They found it, chased it, built it, protected it, and passed it forward. I am proud that my family served in every major American conflict from 1630 until Iraq, when I chose not to. 

“They” were better than “us” in the ways that matter most. Individually and collectively. So, in this era in which the tendency is to denigrate and disparage those who came before and to pray to our new gods for a future with no connection to our “backward” past, I am seeking a better answer by examining my own past. 

One group of my American ancestors journeyed here from England in the 1630s. They were probably landed gentry who exchanged their birthright to afford passage across the Atlantic. They were also outcasts. One hundred years prior, Henry VIII had established the Church of England in a political powerplay that, regardless of his motives, destabilized the balance of power in the British Isles and Continental Europe. Puritans or not, my people were Englishmen who saw the brewing civil war of the 1640s looming as the public’s disgust with Charles I deepened. And whether for patriotic or personal reasons, they departed for these shores with the certainty that God would see them through, whatever the outcome. 

One group of my American ancestors journeyed here from Germany in the 1880s. They came from Westphalia and Pomerania, fleeing the inevitable outcomes heralded by Otto von Bismarck and the rise of the Prussian state. The complexities of the post-Enlightenment religious landscape in Germany certainly suggests they came for reasons of faith as well. Three hundred and fifty years after the Reformation, the politics borne out of the interplay between Pietism (a reaction to Lutheran theology, like many of the Protestant variants) and Modernism (e.g., Marx) had left little room for anything else. So, they left their homeland to build a different future. 

One group of my American ancestors journeyed here from Denmark circa 1914. They were siblings, two brothers and a sister. The latter was my great grandmother, Nora. Certainly, the bullishness of the unified German state that Bismarck laid the foundation for was a major cause of them coming to America. An irony of Nora’s life is that she did not like Germans but lived among a huge German diaspora in the rural Midwest. She became a Methodist to avoid them, and then her son (my grandfather) married a woman of German descent. Life is strange, and God has a sense of humor. 

My American mother journeyed here from the Philippines in 1986. That year, the People Power Revolution deposed Ferdinand Marcos. Even though that was not the reason she left, it absolutely highlights the political instability of a country that has, in my opinion, struggled to find an identity after centuries of colonial rule by the Indonesians, Spaniards, and Americans. The Philippines is a nation split between Catholicism and Islam, and in ways it’s poetic that Christianity circumnavigated the globe just to encounter an old adversary in Southeast Asia. I would not say my mom immigrated for religious freedom like my European ancestors, but she certainly took the leap to America with faith in her heart. 

While my family has diverse roots, we have a common understanding that we are American—not English, German, Danish, or Filipino. “We” left those places and people behind to create and be part of something new, as did my wife when she immigrated from the Philippines in 2018. 

Building the future was neither easy nor assured. I reiterate my belief that faith in God and a distinctly American sense of providence not only led Americans to success but demanded they remain steadfast and continue advancing. Our losses are nuisances, setbacks and delays. Our wins are mere steps towards our ultimate goal. 

In the 1630s, surviving the boat ride from England to America was a minor miracle. But those that survived carried on and gained a foothold in a harsh land. 

During both World Wars, German immigrants were not fondly regarded and many Anglicized their names. Yet, when called upon, they served their country on the battlefield and behind the plow. 

And then for so many people, after overcoming those challenges, the Great Depression destroyed any scrap of familial wealth. One of my great grandfathers chose moonshining as his answer. If indeed he gave in to despair—I cannot really say—he was not alone in that era. 

My point: Succeeding in America was never easy or perfect. There have been times that we have failed enormously as a nation. But the failure never kept us from striving to achieve our purpose. The sting of loss is temporary. The angry tears of being ignored and pushed aside will dry. The shock and fog of watching a plan fall to pieces will lift. We get up, we learn, and we try again. 

Still, if the only measures of our society were past glories, present socioeconomic success, and familial ties, we would be just like any other country. For most of our history, we have believed the opposite. America is Separate. Exceptional. Unique. 

Instead, my argument is that personal wealth and freedom are the inevitable consequence of a governmental structure with God at its center and belief in God built into its systems. The separation of church and state protects religion from interference and meddling as much as it does government, both within rational limits. Moreover, no system or process functions without people, and our Founding Fathers were exemplary in the precedents they established and the care they took in operationalizing the governmental systems they invented. 

In short, this republic—the longest lived on the planet, disregarding all the chatter about America being a young nation—has proven itself worth preserving. It is our duty to learn how it works and keep it functioning well. Blaming our leaders for being poor when they come from the people is a little… oblivious. 

Especially among those my age and younger, I fear we have irrevocably lost this. Many regard America as just another country in a big world. A failed state. A bad experiment. A young nation and a dumb people fully ignorant of the world. Blah blah blah. 

I fully reject all of that. 

Our cure-all can be found in the answer to two questions: (1) What do we want to accomplish as a nation?; and (2) What do we need in order to accomplish it? 

Serving as a beacon for the disenfranchised causes in the world and sanctioning everyone who does not agree is not working. Perhaps we should again aspire to be a beacon of faith in God and give ourselves over to divine providence. That worked well for the first 200 years, and the Postmodern alternative has proven a poor substitute in the last 49. 

I have spent my entire adult life shying away from this idea and these words, because in the circles I have inhabited, expressing these types of beliefs marks you as a superstitious, science-rejecting, irrational idiot. I do not think I am those. 

But, as I stated at the start of this post, play it safe long enough and you always lose. For the future of the country and the children who will inherit it, I pray enough people are committed to similar ideals. 

Time will tell. Either way, God will see us through. That has not changed since the 1630s (or the beginning of time).