Our 250th: A Year of Hope

How we can revitalize the culture of American democracy.

For many of us the past decade has caused consternation and confusion. One by one, the norms and institutions of our cherished liberal democracy have cracked and crumbled. At times both halves of America have despaired about the state of our system of government.

I hate despair. It’s so unproductive. And as a Jew, I know I’m obligated to hope, not to be pollyannish, but always to work for something better. So as the 250th year of our country approached I began to think, what can we do to make this a year of hope?

I decided to post this to one of my Facebook groups: “I want to propose an idea for synagogues about Shabbat, July 4, 2026. I think we could catalyze multi-faith clusters of congregations to celebrate America250 together. Is that nuts? The goal is to ‘flood the zone’ with hope in dozens (or hundreds?) of communities as an alternative to whatever the politicans produce. Is this nuts?”

Over the next month I spoke with about a dozen colleagues and we began to dream. Then, working with the team here at American Scripture Project, and iterating with a slightly larger group of colleagues (including a few wonderful Presbyterian friends, Revs. Becca Messman and MaryAnn McKibben), we designed something. Finally, on July 1, we held a zoom with about 25 clergy from around the country to launch faith250.

The basic idea is that next summer’s celebration is an opportunity to solve a problem we did not even realize we had. That is, when July 4, 2026 rolls around, we will be surrounded by lovely, flashy, joyous, but superficial celebrations of our country. Parades and picnics are really not the time or place for the hard conversations. However, if we let the country’s important moral questions go unaddressed, something will be missing. Enter American religion.

So we created a way to talk with neighbors, to listen, to probe our collective tensions, anxieties, hopes, and sources of pride. We have a format for (1) small groups of clergy to talk about our big texts, and then (2) to gather their congregations for meaningful conversations, and finally, next summer, around the time of the big weekend, (3) to host dozens (or hundreds) of local ritual celebrations of America. Civic rituals, if well designed, can do something that parades and picnics cannot. This is because (as I described here):

[Rituals] provide legitimacy, express deeper values, and remind the community of what binds us together. They elevate us beyond the immediate policy or political conflicts of the day to remember the transcendent values undergirding the American endeavor. They make the losses of a single election bearable because our “true creed,” as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, remains intact. They help us maintain hope that even our worst national mistakes can be overcome and we can, in the words of Langston Hughes, “Let America be America again.”

Rituals can do this because they are vast and complicated. They communicate overlapping and even contradicting layers of meaning. Often, through art, architecture, music, garb, choreography, tradition, poetry, and, in the case of religion, theology, the combined aesthetics are more powerful than any speech or public statement. Because of their artistic complexity, they mirror the messiness of our humanity, and thus rituals address our individual and collective identities. In their ambiguities, they invite multiple interpretations and broad arrays of meanings. Thus they can unify, uplift, and even heal us, which is why after national tragedies, sanctuaries everywhere are full.

So think about joining the effort. Think about clergy colleagues you want to know better and talk with. Think about congregations in your area who could join you for a deep exploration of our country’s meaning in our lives. More info can be found here, and if you are interested, please sign up here. Stay tuned for more to come . . .