American Unity – E Pluribus Unum

Are U.S. citizens all committed to American ideals?

Why would such unity be important for a nation?

Find out by watching / reading our Truth in Two (2 min vid + text)

#6 in our Summer 2024 series, “With What Will You Replace It When It’s Gone?”

Dr. Mark Eckel is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University. Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website) and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

FULL TEXT

E Pluribus Unum is inscribed on U.S. currency. The Latin phrase means “out of the many, one.” The original intention of the statement by America’s founders was clear: United States citizens came from many backgrounds, countries, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, but all citizens were to be unified to American beliefs. Unity, no matter the diversity, should be a common American goal. But when diversity takes priority over unity, fragmentation results.

When people divide themselves by some kind of identity group, the American ideal of unity is lost. The first result of sin in the Garden of Eden was separation: separation from God, from others, and from creation itself. Perhaps one of the most insidious divisions that occurs within a citizenry is when individuals give up personal responsibility, separating themselves from their own actions. One of the most obvious lessons of life is a result: if you can’t control yourself, someone else will. The great Roman politician Cicero understood this better than most. He wrote “Piety is the foundation of all the other virtues.” To be pious was to acknowledge the sacred, Someone above humanity. Proverbs 28:14 explains, “Blessed is the one who fears always, rather than the one who hardens his heart, falling into calamity.” What should a person fear? The context tells us we should continuously dread the consequences of our actions.

It is our separation from fearing God, from dreading the consequences of our actions, that separates us from right action, that separates us from each other. Our summer Truth in Two series applies the question of replacement, “What will you replace the unity of American principles with if that unity is gone?” If we at least remember that we bear responsibility to God, we might be able to practice E Pluribus Unum, “out of the many, one.” For the Comenius Institute, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.