Canceling The Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence Was Hubristic And Self-Righteous

To the editor: Good work, Chris Perry. Lucid and thoughtful; touchy topic.

My brief experience with Rev. Splaine is similar. Disagreement is met with pro forma responses that are unilateral and rehearsed. As a performer, I knows one when I sees one. Debate rapidly becomes opaque. I can picture what you describe; tough cookie.

The substance, though, is a mixed bag. Acknowledging the unfortunate human frailty and occasional cruelty shot through the American past - any country's past - is essential, and reflection and taking rigorous inventory is often necessary. But I agree with Martin Luther King that despite humanity's occasionally grievous mistakes and cruelties, history bends toward justice. And Bill Clinton's paraphrase that the American people in this democracy sometimes err in the short term but eventually get it right.

For me, that is my personal touchstone as a definition of faith. We fuck up, and then eventually we correct. As a lapsed Presbyterian, I believe that Sermon on the Mount Christianity is sublime, but we are also redemption junkies who don't do a great job of preventing disasters - a whole lotta people gotta fall out of the sky before we fix the plane. Nothing gets fixed until somebody gets nailed. Then we congregate and atone and congratulate ourselves for being newly enlightened. Often a little late, folks.

At this point in our history, I think more than ever we need to hear and own the words that brought us to the great imperfect place we are, lately threatened by those who would subvert the principles of the Declaration, and for that matter Christianity, for their own purposes. I can't for the life of me see how refusing to read one of our founding documents helps the cause of righteousness. In fact, it cedes the landscape to those who have misappropriated our country's principles. And damn it, it feels hubristic and self-righteous. I can't understand the metasyntax of the gesture.

It may be couched in some well-meaning premise about past (or present) inequity, but it fails, in my view. And it's alienating by its nature - the intent is to omit endorsement of our common values. It's not inclusive; it's separatist.

I was at St. Paul's as a citizen of this often clumsy and misguided country. Not always a proud citizen, but certainly as an equal and included participant.

Jamie Howarth