Mennonite Weekly Review

How long will the United States remain a major power?

Elaine Sommers Rich

Is its influence increasing or waning? Is the United States rotting from within? Do most of our citizens believe in and practice such ideals as respect and equality for every individual because the Creator loves all equally and has endowed each one with “certain inalienable rights”? And just where did such ideas originate? Do other nations share such ideals? Sweden? Uganda?

I have taught myself not to worry about the future of the United States. I shall tell you why.

Over the millennia, civilizations have risen and fallen. Ancient Egypt was once the dominant power, as were Persia; Greece with its philosophers and mathematicians; Rome. None of these civilizations endured, although each left us something valuable.

Historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) examined 26 civilizations. He asked basic questions. Why did they rise? Why did they fall? He concluded that they rose because of creative minorities and good leadership that responded to problems. They fell because of the sins of nationalism, militarism and the tyranny of a small minority. Toynbee’s student Guy F. Hershberger agreed that survival of a culture depends on its spiritual values.

I love the United States. But first of all I am the citizen of an entirely different country, one that has neither borders nor armies. It is called the kingdom of God. In the days of powerful Rome, Christians, unnoticed by the Empire, were taking the good news of the kingdom to the barbarians of the north — Theodore to Switzerland, Patrick to Ireland, Boniface to Germany. Scholars, like the fourth-century bishop Wulfila, were quietly and painstakingly translating the Bible into languages people could understand. The mustard seed was growing.

And so it is today. Christians are quietly taking good news of the kingdom to far places. This activity does not make headlines. But even as I scan the morning newspaper, I find evidence that my daily prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” is being answered.

Therefore I conclude that I should not expend energy worrying about the future of the United States, but should rather listen to the voice of God directing me for today.

Elaine Sommers Rich lives in Bluffton, Ohio.