#138 The Soul of a Nation

#138 The Soul of a Nation In the Christian worldview, nations don’t have a soul, only individuals do.  There is no soul in Socialism, only power.    President Biden gave a speech recently addressing the “Soul of the Nation.”  President Biden said, in part, “The soul is what makes us, us.”  Well, it doesn’t.  It’s a singular, not a plural term.   The first definition of soul is “The spiritual part of a human being that is immortal.”  Another definition more specifically says “…in an individual life.”   Based on that definition, the nation does not have a soul.  One theologian goes as far as to say that the word “soul” means “the individual.”     There are at least 95 citations for soul in the Bible.  One of the verses I use the most in Christian Economics includes the term “soul:” In Matthew 22:37-39:  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.   This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That second commandment forms the heart of free market economics, because it’s only in free markets that we can love others and ourselves at the same time.  My PhD dissertation was on US-Russian joint ventures.  I’ve visited the country three times, and know something about the Russians, although I should not be considered an expert on Russian culture.  I am fascinated by the phrase “The Russian Soul.”  I tend to think it has something to do with an inner strength that I see in the Babushkas, a demographic of middle-to-older aged women who tend to control the culture.  I don’t have much evidence on this, but I think Russia withdrew from Afghanistan because Babushkas protested the death of their young sons in a meaningless war.  But I digress.  Oh, I would also say there’s something in the Russian soul that grows out of centuries of struggle: Both physical, emotional, and economic. Often, when counting people aboard a ship, they will say “2000 souls on board.”  Why do they use that phrase?  Because they often refer to passengers and crew as different categories, but they all have “souls” so that if something terrible happens, they want the rescuers to know how many people to look for.  Does a Country have a Soul? So what about the American soul?  Do we have one?  There is no American people group.   There are Russian people, German people, French people, and even Native American people, but there is no American people group.  We are all immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants.  President Biden was correct when in the speech, he said, “America is an idea.”  He’s right.  America is not a people, it is an idea.  It’s an idea that anyone, from any people group can get in on, by stating their agreement with the American idea.  What is it?  Dennis Prager says the idea is contained on the coin in your pocket or purse: Liberty, In God we Trust, and E Pluribus Unum.  A country can have a culture and societal norms, but it can’t have a soul.  President Biden tried to degrade E Pluribus Unum in his Soul of the Nation Speech.  He proclaimed that there are people who support the soul, and those who don’t.  Thus, he tried to change E Pluribus Unum to E Pluribus Pluribus.