Deeply Unsettled but Fundamentally Positive
A July 4th Message from A Faith That Does Justice
Today, July 4, 2026, I feel unsettled. Neither joyful nor woeful feels right on this historic 250th anniversary – a quarter of a millennium – of our birth as a country founded on principles that I cherish. Perhaps you can relate.
Do I go to the fireworks, listen to spirited and patriotic music, maybe even dance a little, enjoy more than my fair share of proof that God exists (ice cream), and relax and smile with friends new and old? Or do I hunker down and worry, spending too much time with the gloomy news and doom scrolling through my phone in search of the latest outrage to be shocked at and disgusted by?
In Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium) 1, Pope Francis dealt directly with feelings of unease and disjointedness in the context of faith. He reassured us that our faith is not authentic if it does not make us uncomfortable. By that I understand him to mean we must not only be ready to be unsettled at any time but also to expect it and see it as a call to leave the sidelines and enter the real world with a renewed determination to make it a better place in a new set of circumstances otherwise foreign to us. It is easy to love the Creator and Lord and our country and each other when all is well and seemingly rightly ordered, but that is not the crucible by which we should or will be judged in the final analysis.
Sixty years ago this past month, the American Trappist monk and theologian Thomas Merton penned an essay, “Is the World a Problem?” with a subtitle, “Ambiguities in the Secular.” He concluded it by declaring that the world is not a problem, but we are a “problem to ourselves.”
Why?
“… because we are alienated from ourselves, and this alienation is due precisely to an inveterate habit of division by which we break reality into pieces and then wonder why, after we have manipulated the pieces until they fall apart, we find ourselves out of touch with life, with reality, with the world, and most of all with ourselves.”
Pope Francis ceaselessly advanced the notion of “integral human development.” This sounds like what Merton says is missing. Certainly, our nation and world are full of grand-scale division and polarization. How can it not leave us unsettled?
It should not leave us paralyzed, however. Our Creator has not foreordained our destiny. He respects us (just as he demands that we do of others) and, as such, has given us free will. We can act or not.
Today, on our country’s birthday, there is, to use a Declaration of Independence word, a “self-evident” through line in all the division. Simply, it is a deliberate blindness to recognizing the inherent dignity of every person, and, in the language of faith, to the image of God.
Were this respect for inherent dignity to underpin our national policy discussions, we would not call immigrants “garbage,” we would not threaten to bomb civilizations out of existence, we would not belittle and insult others even if they were our political or religious opponents, we would not allow the world’s wealthiest man to mindlessly and meanly cut poverty programs for the least among us, we would not tolerate racism and the various forms of personal phobias against those unlike us in every particular, we would not manipulate and coerce others with threats and purposeful lies and deceit, and we would not consider empathy a weakness.
In the last week or so, our nation’s 250th birthday today has been cause for a national examination of conscience. Witness the innumerable Op-eds, news stories, person-on-the-street interviews, podcast episodes, all poking and probing whether we are being true to our most fundamental values.
Most ironically, or perhaps symbolically appropriate, even our supposed official national celebration is a wedge issue: Freedom 250, with its Great American State Fair, or the programs and festivities of America 250.
To cap it all, there was the inevitable poll, this one from Marist/NPR/PBS, released just days ago, that found that 83% of Americans say the U.S. has moved away from the principles and ideals it was founded on 250 years ago. Only 65% of us claim today to be “very proud” or “proud” to be an American.
It is no wonder we feel unsettled today. And that, I’ve decided, is good and okay. For it means that we know something is amiss even as we know that better is possible.
Most positively, it shows that deep inside we realize we must continue the journey to create a “more perfect union” where “all men are created equal” and where we universally recognize “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Happy July 4th! Have an ice cream!
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Tom Dwyer is the President and Executive Director of A Faith That Does Justice. He writes and speaks frequently about the imperatives of faith-filled social justice in building the common good and guiding our responses to political questions.
Wow, you captured exactly how I felt! Only, instead of ice cream I had vino.