The American Spirit vs. The Great Awokening: What are We Going to Do About it?

Wokeism is a brilliant but dangerous response to America's spiritual crisis. The only way to defeat it is to reconnect to our own spiritual roots.

The American Spirit Essays #3

(continued from last week’s How did We Get Here?)

A Nation Founded on a Creed

Stopping the onslaught of Wokeism is only part of the challenge.  To prevail, we must reconnect with the spirit of our founding.  That reference to a founding spirit—in a discussion of religion in an essay on our spiritual crisis—is intentional.  Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom, the founding of the American nation was a profoundly spiritual event. 

As the English author G.K. Chesterton noted a century ago, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.”  At the time, all European states recognized their ethnonational foundations.  Blood, language, and shared historical experience defined those nations.  The American nation stood alone on its creedal foundations. 

How could such a nation determine who belonged and who did not?  That’s not a technical legal question of determining who qualifies for U.S. citizenship.  It’s a metaphysical, philosophical question that goes straight to the heart of what it means to be “an American.”

The answer lies at the very start of the document that declared the American nation into existence: The Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration’s establishment of a new creedal nation is hardly subtle.  The language may have become too familiar to warrant notice, but it’s worth pondering the meaning of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

There’s nothing remotely self-evident about equality or rights.  In all of human history prior to 1776, no society had ever organized itself along those lines.  An actual “self-evident truth” is an assertion that few would bother debating, much less actively ignore.  “That all men are created equal” doesn’t come close to qualifying.  Furthermore, if you really want to state a self-evident truth, why pump yourself up?  “We hold?”  Who cares what your opinion may be about a self-evident truth?  You noticed something self-evident?  Hardly worthy of bragging rights or lofty pronouncements.  What in the world was Jefferson thinking?