Have you heard of the 4B movement?

Many women in America who are distraught over the recent elections are joining the “4B movement.” The campaign originated a few years ago in South Korea; the four Bs stand for bi-hon (no marriage), bi-yeonae (no dating), bi-chulsan (no birthing), and bi-sex (no sex). In other words, protesting what they perceive to be discrimination against their gender, women are choosing not to marry, date, have children, or have sex.

One tweet promoting the 4B movement generated twenty-one million views. A woman posted on TikTok stating that she was breaking up with her Republican boyfriend and joining the 4B movement campaign; her video has thirty-nine thousand comments at this writing.

As another sign of our times: A cruise company is offering passengers a four-year voyage to “skip forward” until the next presidential election, an opportunity the Associated Press calls an “escape from the Trump presidency.” Depending on your side of the partisan divide, you might be thinking “good riddance” to such passengers, or you might be wishing you could join them.

However, the divisiveness that is persisting and even growing after the elections is more dangerous than it might seem. As I noted last week, Americans do not serve a king or an autocrat but one another. In our democracy, we vote for each other, do commerce with each other, and live in community with each other.

If Americans cannot get along, America cannot get along.

“What may be thought of as the American creed”

In What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song, the writers assert:

The American Republic was founded as—and remains—a nation not of birth, lineage, or inherited ways but of ideas. It was the first nation to define itself in terms of certain teachings and aspirations, what may be thought of as the American creed—the equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; freedom of religion and religious toleration; majority rule; minority rights; and the rule of law.

However, this “creed” is not required of any who wish to be Americans. As the authors note:

We have never had an established national church or even an articulated national morality. Our tolerance, and even encouragement, of ethnic and religious pluralism is a great national strength, but it also poses a challenge for creating a deep national bond and spirit. As a result, our emotional ties to our separate ways and beliefs often exceed ties to our common national whole.

America’s founders adopted the motto “E pluribus unum,” “Out of many, one,” envisioning a “melting pot” in which our previous cultural identities are merged into a new unity. They hoped that encouraging trade and commerce would encourage unity in the midst of our diversity.

But today, we are more of a “salad bowl” in which tomatoes are still tomatoes and lettuce is still lettuce. Prosperity has turned into greed, and our fellow Americans into means to our ends.

In addition, many in recent years have insisted not only on their individualism at the expense of the collective good—they have disparaged the collective itself. They claim that America’s history begins not with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but with the introduction of slavery to our shores in 1619. Through the lens of critical theory, universities across the land have taught generations of students that America is founded on white supremacy and that democracy is a means to the end of securing privilege for the privileged.

Is it any wonder that, more than at any time since the Civil War, we have two “Americas” today?

“Are we interiorly at peace?”

This question is therefore vital to our future as a democracy: How do we love people in ways that promote unity and community? This inevitably requires asking a second question: How do we love people we don’t like?

Truly loving each other and ourselves requires a capacity beyond human agency. Because we are fallen people, you and I simply do not possess the ability to love others or ourselves unconditionally. In our drive to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), we use others as a means to our ends and measure ourselves by what we do and what we have.

What is the way forward?

Henri Nouwen, one of the spiritual geniuses of the last century, wrote: “The first questions are not ‘How much do we do?’ or ‘How many people do we help out?’ but ‘Are we interiorly at peace?’” He explained: “Jesus’ actions flowed from his interior communion with God. His presence was healing, and it changed the world.”

Following our Lord’s example,

When we love God with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul, we cannot do other than love our neighbor and our very selves. It is in being fully rooted in the heart of God that we are creatively connected with our neighbor as well as with our deepest self. In the heart of God we can see that the other human beings who live on this earth with us are also God’s sons and daughters and belong to the same family we do. There, too, I can recognize and claim my own belovedness and celebrate with my neighbors.

Our society thinks economically: “How much love do I give to God, how much to my neighbor, and how much to myself?” But God says, “Give all your love to me, and I will give to you, your neighbor, and yourself.” We are not talking here about moral obligations or ethical imperatives. We are talking about the mystical life.

He concluded:

“It is the intimate communion with God that reveals to us how to live in the world and act in God’s name.”

I plan to say more about this vital topic tomorrow. For today, let’s ask ourselves: how “intimate” is our “communion with God”?

The health of our democracy and our souls depends on our answer.

Monday news to know:

• Hezbollah spokesman killed in Israeli airstrike in Beirut, official says
• As Western leaders look to talks with Putin, Russia launches massive barrage on Ukraine
• Joe Biden allows Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made long-range missiles
• Snow to slam US as winter storms to wreak havoc ahead of Thanksgiving travel
• On this day in 1978: mass suicide at Jonestown

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” —attributed to St. Augustine