With the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States, we have truly entered a new era. Not only has the baton been passed to a new generation of leaders (Obama is 47 and McCain is 72), but for the first time in American history, we have a president whose ancestors are not entirely European. The cohort raised in the aftermath of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s is very comfortable with this reality. Previous cohorts are not so comfortable, though.

There has been much rejoicing among those who describe themselves as progressive or liberal and much despair among those who describe themselves as conservative. During the campaign, a lot of energy was devoted to labeling both candidates inappropriately. The reality in this country is that it cannot be governed from the left or the right – it must be governed from the middle. During the Bush years, the country was governed from the hard right and the ascendancy of Obama will result in governing from left-of-center, to a slight degree, to counteract the excesses of the Bush years.

The excesses of the Bush years damaged the social fabric of this country terribly, as the neo-conservative ideologues experimented with unilateral foreign and domestic policy that violated the community values of the American people. The American people value a stronger America, broad prosperity, a better future, effective government, and mutual responsibility. The Bush years gave us ruinous military expenditures that has left America weaker, free markets for multi-national corporations that has left Americans in poverty, lower taxes that have decimated social safety nets for the weakest among us, larger, ineffective government that relies on spying and police-state tactics to keep the populace under control, and the family values of the militant religious fundamentalists, which are not the values of the large majority of Americans.

The Bush years have also been terribly divisive and have exploited the generational differences that I spoke of in the first paragraph of this post to further the Bush regime’s agenda and retain power. They have exploited the hot-button issues of immigration, sexual preference, reproductive rights, education, and economic ability, among a long list of concerns, in such a way as to divide Americans and set them upon each other while the elite looted the country.

With the election of Obama, this will hopefully come to an end. The reality is that we all live in this land we call America and we must get along. Our challenge now is to heal the divisions in this country. It is time for real Christians to stand up and speak truth about power, for Muslims to educate Christians about the subtleties and wonders of the Islamic faith, for Buddhists to continue to work for peace and understanding, and for the prejudiced amongst us to confront our fears and misunderstandings and reach out to those we have wounded with our words and deeds.

For those who would like to know where to start, I would suggest perusing the links on this blog under the category of “Religious Left”. You could do worse than going to the library and checking out and reading one of Wendell Berry’s many books of prose or poetry. Or, if you are inclined to activism, go to the Rockridge Institute website and educate yourself on the ideas of George Lakoff.

It is time to bury the hatred, poison, and disputatiousness of the past and move on to the future. As Patrick Henry said, in denouncing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, ““Let us trust God, and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”