The Sins of a Nation

Guest Opinion

By Walt Wood | June 7, 2025

"Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

As Christians, this is how we begin prayer. The starting point is confession. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

My Lord, Jesus Christ, has instructed me to love myself and my neighbors, and spread the good news of his life, service, death, and resurrection. I confess to failing in response to that call. I am not a “good” Christian. I fall short every day. I make mistakes. I forget things. I do the wrong thing and refuse to do the right thing.

But that is who we are—sinners. It is our sins that bind us together as Christian Americans, and if we want to bring our faith to bear on national politics, we must address our shared sins. Our nation’s history is riddled with acquisitive evil and unbridled greed. Our government has meddled in the politics of numerous countries—Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, to name but a few, often accompanied by heinous violence—not for democracy and justice, but acquisition and profit.

Capitalism is the best economic engine ever conceived, but has become utterly corrupted by relentless greed, morphing into a predatory blight upon the world: Headquartered in America.

I happen to believe that our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ prefers civilization over barbarism. So how can we, as Christians, justify the sale of weapons to governments on the other side of the world for the purpose of destroying their perceived enemies?

These vile transactions would have continued under a Harris administration, to be sure. Apparently, our GDP requires the production and sale of these weapons to sustain growth and economic stability. However, a nation that peddles death cannot call itself civilized.

We now live under a lawless, authoritarian regime, ignoring the Constitution and the rule of law. Crime is just a hobby of the current power brokers—a series of opportunities to make a quick buck, while continuing to sin against the people of Ukraine, the residents of Gaza, the people of Sudan, people of color, women, immigrants…the list goes on.

Domestically, we have yet to address justice as it concerns ADOS, American Descendants of Slaves. “Forty Acres and a Mule,” a provision for freed slaves under the Lincoln administration, was snatched away by the racist president Andrew Johnson after Lincoln’s assassination. That injustice has never been rectified.

America can only ever label itself great when we as a people choose the path of love. Christ is love, and love seeks justice. The sins of a nation, past and present, must be atoned by the people if they expect to govern themselves with anything resembling wisdom and the sanction of Christ.

Or maybe we are so far gone that it no longer matters what we do. The Constitution will only function if the people are impelled to be governed by it. The alternatives are fascism and barbarism, with their incumbent cruelty and violence against the “other.” Sadly, this is already happening.

Our nation needs a moral reset. I’m not talking about Christian Theocracy. The separation of church and state is as essential as free speech.

We must agree that our government is not a business. It does not exist to produce a profit and make some of us rich. It exists to provide defense, infrastructure, “promote the general welfare” of its citizenry, and provide aid to the world as compensation for its sins.

Our call to morality and ethics must outweigh and inform our economic interests. Wealth is not money. Wealth is health, and the health of all our people must be our goal, notwithstanding our love of creature comforts, cash, and playthings.

Our call to morality is a call for a change in leadership. The current authoritarian-in-chief is racking up fresh sins against his own citizens and humanity at large, all for the lucre with which he is lining the pockets of his immediate family and himself. The love of money is the root of evil, and we are witnessing this corruption on full display before our eyes.

We need true leadership. Any leader professing faith in Christ does not seek to rule over their subjects, but rather strives to serve the needs of the people. True leaders, like Christ, are servants to humanity.

Walt Wood is a retired mailman, current Lutheran, and essayist focused on political philosophy and the intersection of religion and democracy.