Is America still a ‘shining city?’

American voters have retreated to their respective corners. Principles like compassion, tolerance and inclusion are no longer unanimously accepted as guiding principles but are now considered transactional. Profiteers who gain political or financial benefit by stoking social division, do all they can to keep people apart rather than encourage them to work together for a “common good.” Compromise has become a dirty word and people champion autocracy over democracy.

Ronald Reagan once imagined America as a “shining city” on a hill, “teeming with people of all kinds in harmony and peace.” His “city” analogy came from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus spoke of how great the world would be if people loved each other in the same way they loved themselves. Jesus described his audience as being the “salt of the earth,” but warned them that "if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Is anyone listening?

Hal Penick

Iowa City