I’ve seen more than my share of signs, graffiti, posts and proclamations lately proclaiming what people believe to be true about this country. So in the spirit of our shared particularly unique First Amendment rights, I lift up my voice to join the chorus of vocalism we hopefully all hold in the highest esteem.

I believe America is the greatest and freest nation on planet earth! In America, a black man can become President of the United States, own a fortune 500 company, and make 100’s of millions of dollars playing a professional sport he or she has poured their blood, sweat and tears into. Though we started out with slavery, we ended that over 150 years ago with a Presidential proclamation by Abraham Lincoln and we sealed that new covenant in the blood of over 360,000 of our distant relatives during the Civil War…. White and Black fighting side by side to end slavery. More than 2 million additional Americans served the cause as well.

And because the South wouldn’t initially accept it, we marched again behind the leadership, this time, of Dr. Martin Luther King, a Black man and fighting for civil rights of not just Blacks, but all marginalized minorities, and further abolishing racism in America.

Americans eventually put an exclamation point on our progress and disdain for racism in 2008 when Barrack Obama was elected the 1st Black President of the United States of America.

Unfortunately, but thankfully in increasingly rarer occurrences, some American does something stupid, or racist in the most diverse and blended country of over 350 million otherwise co-existing Blacks, Whites, Asians, Native Americans and a host of other ethnic and racial backgrounds.

However, you may not agree and that’s okay, but regardless of what you think about the progress that we’ve made, it is not a compelling reason to burn it all to the ground. And unless you get this additional point, no further progress will ever be made. And that point is… there can be no healing without forgiveness.

Those who hate…, Black or White, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, atheist or believer, are held in slavery to their own hatred regardless of whether or not there are physical chains present or not.

Jesus said in Mark 3:25, “And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

In America, we are constantly striving to be better and to live out our values that were established, not yesterday, but at our founding. “All men are created equal,” “We the people in of the United State of America, in order to form a more perfect union,” and “one nation under God,” are words that are knitted into the fabric of our society.

Not communism, nor socialism or any other “ism” in the history of mankind has set more people free than our form of government, not because we are inherently better people, but because we have acknowledged God as our creator and the fact that he has created all men and women equal. So before you bash it or burn it all down, please know what you plan to replace it with because even though you have freedom of speech now, know that this is uniquely an American value established at our founding.

Take it away and it’s gone forever.