Faith Works 6-26-2026
Jeff Gill
It’s new to you, this country is
___
If I tried to get you to buy a washing machine that was fifty years old, or a car that was a hundred, you’d assume we’re talking about antiques, and you’d be curious about the value.
When I explain my offer was for a working Whirlpool, or a running Duesenberg for everyday use, you would be puzzled. Worse yet, a dress or suit that’s two hundred years old? That should be in a museum, maybe, but not to wear.
Let me offer you the United States of America. It will turn two hundred and fifty years old at the end of next week, and I’d say it’s in running condition. Engine knock? Needs some body work, a little polishing here and there, missing a taillight? Perhaps. But it’s a going proposition.
You would not be the first owner. In truth, Thomas Jefferson or Richard Henry Lee or George Washington could claim that honor; John Hancock, Samuel Huntington, or Thomas McKean would have had their name on the title (we have a township named for McKean in this county, you know).
As a vehicle of governance, the United States of America is well used, but as the sales folk like to say, “It’s new to you!” The service record is known, and previous mechanics and operators have not always kept up the maintenance as we wish, and in fact it’s coming with some liens on the title, money still owed by previous owners. Encumbered is a word you can use here, I suppose. Getting behind the wheel of the U.S.A. at 250 carries a certain measure of risk, but what’s the alternative? Walk? Ride a bike? There’s no other transportation heading where we’re going.
In my personal faith, I follow a person and example and practices with roots going back 2,000 years; my particular religious tradition looks to 1801 as a key turning point, a kind of birth (there’s 1804 and 1809 which you could call the origin story, I teach a class on this in fact), and we have a 225th birthday celebration down in Kentucky in August. In religion, age is a kind of endorsement, and few think it odd I attend a church that’s got that kind of mileage, or that I preach for a congregation over a century from its origin.
America 250 has evoked some interesting pushback, though. History is a contested thing, and as a historian, I’d first say thus it always has been. Is the battle over who controls our national historical narrative particularly contentious right now? I’m not sure. What I am certain of is that we have good reason to read and reflect and ruminate on our two centuries and a half right now, and I’m happy to be part of all that in this semi-quincentennial year.
We have a particular reason to celebrate this Fourth of July. As I only dimly realized during the Bicentennial summer of 1976, our national experiment in democracy and popular sovereignty is unique among the nations. Other countries have picked up the challenge first laid down by Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress, but nations like Italy or Germany or even France? They are much younger than we are. You could look it up. By 1848 they were still sorting things out; in 1914 and 1939 it was still being tested.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
56 words we’re behind the wheel of, moving forward in them for 250 years. They are a vessel, a vehicle, for human self-understanding, in which we also reflect on how our Creator is working within us as we roll along.
I’ll take it!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s enjoying this year immensely. Tell him what you’ve gotten out of America 250 at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
It’s new to you, this country is
___
If I tried to get you to buy a washing machine that was fifty years old, or a car that was a hundred, you’d assume we’re talking about antiques, and you’d be curious about the value.
When I explain my offer was for a working Whirlpool, or a running Duesenberg for everyday use, you would be puzzled. Worse yet, a dress or suit that’s two hundred years old? That should be in a museum, maybe, but not to wear.
Let me offer you the United States of America. It will turn two hundred and fifty years old at the end of next week, and I’d say it’s in running condition. Engine knock? Needs some body work, a little polishing here and there, missing a taillight? Perhaps. But it’s a going proposition.
You would not be the first owner. In truth, Thomas Jefferson or Richard Henry Lee or George Washington could claim that honor; John Hancock, Samuel Huntington, or Thomas McKean would have had their name on the title (we have a township named for McKean in this county, you know).
As a vehicle of governance, the United States of America is well used, but as the sales folk like to say, “It’s new to you!” The service record is known, and previous mechanics and operators have not always kept up the maintenance as we wish, and in fact it’s coming with some liens on the title, money still owed by previous owners. Encumbered is a word you can use here, I suppose. Getting behind the wheel of the U.S.A. at 250 carries a certain measure of risk, but what’s the alternative? Walk? Ride a bike? There’s no other transportation heading where we’re going.
In my personal faith, I follow a person and example and practices with roots going back 2,000 years; my particular religious tradition looks to 1801 as a key turning point, a kind of birth (there’s 1804 and 1809 which you could call the origin story, I teach a class on this in fact), and we have a 225th birthday celebration down in Kentucky in August. In religion, age is a kind of endorsement, and few think it odd I attend a church that’s got that kind of mileage, or that I preach for a congregation over a century from its origin.
America 250 has evoked some interesting pushback, though. History is a contested thing, and as a historian, I’d first say thus it always has been. Is the battle over who controls our national historical narrative particularly contentious right now? I’m not sure. What I am certain of is that we have good reason to read and reflect and ruminate on our two centuries and a half right now, and I’m happy to be part of all that in this semi-quincentennial year.
We have a particular reason to celebrate this Fourth of July. As I only dimly realized during the Bicentennial summer of 1976, our national experiment in democracy and popular sovereignty is unique among the nations. Other countries have picked up the challenge first laid down by Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress, but nations like Italy or Germany or even France? They are much younger than we are. You could look it up. By 1848 they were still sorting things out; in 1914 and 1939 it was still being tested.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
56 words we’re behind the wheel of, moving forward in them for 250 years. They are a vessel, a vehicle, for human self-understanding, in which we also reflect on how our Creator is working within us as we roll along.
I’ll take it!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s enjoying this year immensely. Tell him what you’ve gotten out of America 250 at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
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