This Fourth, may American optimism and Christian hope prevail

More than most countries, America has always been as much about an idea as about a place, and the idea has always been an object of debate. This year, as we prepare to celebrate the nation's birthday, the idea of America is being contested on terrain most of us thought was in our past, with the resurgence of a racially tinged understanding of the American nation. That resurgence is marked by a disdain for human decency towards those defined as "other" that we associate with antebellum slavery or 1920s eugenicist, nativist hatreds.