In America any child can grow up to be President!

In his endorsement of Barack Obama. General Colin Powell referred to Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a young American patriot, age 14 on September 11, 2001.

One in four people in Texas believe Barack Obama is a Muslim!

Barack Obama’s a Christian!

But!

A book I read that touched me deeply was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He wrote that a turning point in his life came when, as a child, he told a teacher he’d like to become a lawyer. The teacher laughed and said, “Negroes can’t be lawyers!”

From that early disappointment followed years of wandering in dead end paths, until he became part of the Nation of Islam. Later, his religious experience broadened into mainstream Islam. When he went on the Hajj, and mingled with Muslims of every skin color, it was a transformational moment for him.

General Colin Powell’s comments endorsing Barack Obama included the observation that Obama isn’t a Muslim, but what if he were! Why shouldn’t any child born to American parents grow up thinking she or he could be President?

The earliest statement of the American dream I learned was, any boy can grow up to be President.

Fifty years ago I didn’t think about a girl growing up to be President. 

The 2008 election has caused us to examine our most deeply held ideals. Exactly who can claim the American dream as her or his own?

For me the American dream is not making a $100 billion. It’s all people having equal worth before the law and (for me) under God. All people having equal opportunity.

One of the holiest places on the planet for me is the Abraham Lincoln birthplace near Hodgenville, KY.

You can walk down to the spring where the Lincolns drew water. You go down into the earth which the water has hollowed out through the years. The boundary oak that marked the property line was still standing when I pastored at Rolling Fork Baptist Church near there. A short walk away in a climate controlled marble shrine stands the small one room log cabin where Lincoln was born.

I’m sure in my lifetime a woman will be President. Maybe an Hispanic man or woman. Even an openly gay man or a lesbian.

Soon members of Congress will take the oath of office, swearing on the Holy Qur’an. So who knows?

In America, any child can grow up to be President.

Maybe in my lifetime the time will come when we won’t use labels to divide or exclude, but to celebrate and enrich the vast mosaic that is America.

The 17th century Roger Williams is one of my heroes. He was, briefly, a Baptist, so Baptists claim him. But he found being Baptist a little too restrictive, and ended his life as a seeker.

With the best theological training he was qualified to pastor one of the fine churches of Boston. But he turned them down. He learned Indian languages and contended that the English had no right to take Indian lands.

He founded the colony of Rhode Island, where no religion was established, and all religions could be freely practiced. In the 17th century he spelled it out: that included ”Christians, Jews, Turks, and atheists.” 

At the end of his life, he built a trading post which provided financial security. But he used that money to finance a return to England and a renewal of the Rhode Island charter. Neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut would have liked to be rid of their troublesome neighbor.

A century later Rhode Island refused to ratify the constitution, without a guarantee of religious freedom. So the first amendment goes back to Roger Williams.

The Bible climaxes with this description of the heavenly Jerusalem:

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day–and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

Rev 21:23-26 (NRSV)

To the extent that America celebrates the beauty of all colors, all cultures, all persons, it’s a little bit of heaven on earth.