The Tension of the Historian and the Statesman

During the last 40 years of my ministry, I have had the privilege of speaking in over 90 countries. My friends and contacts from afar are concerned about the situation in America. "What is going on in America? It seems divided and crazy over there! What’s going on in your government? What's the deal with all the riots, the debt, racial issues, and other stuff going on? Is America spinning out of control?" It seems people in other nations are seeing something that many Americans won’t or don’t see – yet.

Allow me to share a concept with you that is a key to preventing the stagnation or even collapse of a nation.

Henry Kissinger captures the tension between the historian and the statesman. “I think of myself as a historian more than a statesman. As a historian, you need to be conscious of the fact that every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately failed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized, of wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what was expected. So, as a historian, you live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy. As a statesman, one acts on the assumption that problems can be solved.” A statesman knows history, but he also knows how to apply lessons from history to avert tragedy.

Kissinger, a historian, has a point. It's hard to embrace the statesman approach when history supports the historian. Many nations start right, end up wrong. The constructive values of what made a country strong get traded in on destructive values that make it weak. Almost every nation seems to have its spring, summer, autumn, and winter. History shows countries don't learn from history.

The farther formerly great nations got away from 'home,' the more they got lost. Sydney Harris says, "People are fond of saying that the past is dead, but it is actually the future that is dead. We make it come alive only by applying what we have learned from the living past to the present.” Nations seem to forget the wisdom of the old saying, ‘Learn from other’s mistakes, the second mouse gets the cheese.’ There’s lots of cheese if you are the second mouse who learned.

History shows us the path that many great nations before us have traveled. 1. From bondage to spiritual faith. 2. From spiritual faith to great courage. 3. From courage to liberty. 4. From liberty to abundance. 5. From abundance to selfishness. 6. From selfishness to complacency. 7. From complacency to apathy. 8. From apathy to dependency. 9. From dependency back to bondage. History is littered with nations born to win but conditioned to lose.

Edward Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1788. He discovered five primary reasons why Rome withered and died. The reasons were: 1. An undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis for human society. 2. Higher and higher taxes and spending public money for free bread and circuses for the populace. 3. A mad craze for pleasure, with pastimes becoming every year more exciting, brutal, and immoral. 4. Building great armaments, although the real enemy was within – the decay of individual responsibility. 5. Decay of religion –faith faded into mere form, losing touch with God-life, and losing power to guide the people. Sound familiar?

As I said earlier, other nations are detecting these patterns at work in America before America sees it. It’s like having bad breath; everyone knows you have it but you. Anyone who thinks the government is their savior is naïve. A wise once said, "Government is the art of trying to solve problems. Politics is the act of trying to attain power. The two sometimes intersect, but not often.” That’s true with a large majority of politicians. Absolute power seems to corrupt absolutely over time.

Billy Graham said, "The lesson of history tells us that no state or government devised by man can flourish forever." Could it be what is currently happening in America is what happens when a nation abandons God and godly values like truthfulness, civility, cooperation, and humility?

Yes, it's time to end racism and other injustice, but not by chaos, deceit, power-grabbing, revenge, or reverse injustice. We will need to do it God's way. Micah 6:8 addresses injustice perfectly. We need to “do justly, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” It takes all three of these, not one or two. Currently, we're not doing well on any of these three pieces of the solution.

Young adults, the immediate future will be determined by you. Get involved. Be a stateswoman or statesman who knows how to reverse the demise of a country. Be governmental first, political second. Now is the time for you to look back to America’s past to secure America’s future. The farther you go back into our nation's history and research what made our nation great, the longer and brighter our nation's future will be. Our nation's future is our nation's past in disguise.

Some want us to forget our past. When we do that, we undermine our future. We won’t learn the lessons (both good and bad) history teaches us. Discover why America is the way it is and then the Constitution will make more sense to you. Correct the ‘wrongs’ in America, but don't rip and tear all the ‘rights’ of America to pieces in the process. Progressive can become regressive if you aren’t wise. Statesmen and stateswomen can do what chaos or apathy won’t.

The historian reports the Titanic sunk. A statesman sees the opportunity and responsibility of steering the ship around the iceberg and changes history. The times require statesmen and stateswomen, willing to learn from the past, be aware and responsible in the present, so we can be confident of our future. With God's help and all you statesmen and woman out there, we can steer America out of harm’s way. Real stateswomen and statesmen do what’s best for their country, not themselves. You’ve been given stewardship of America, not ownership. God’s the owner of the country.

Here’s a letter we can write to ourselves at this crucial time in our nation’s history. “Dear Past. Thank you for all the lessons. Dear Future: I am ready!” We can do this. I know we can.

Ed Delph January 25, 2021, CCC

Ed Delph/NATIONStrategy

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