Conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, takes the President to task in today's column (published April 11 in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune). The headline reads, Obama celebrates U.S. decline. As I read him, and other critics, it seems that any effort on the part of an American President to seek cooperation and mutuality among the nations of the world is regarded as weakness. "It is passing strange for a world leader to celebrate his own country's decline." Does he seriously think Mr. Obama did that during his recent European tour?
Coincidentally (providentially?) the reading for April 11 in Henri Nouwen's Bread for the Journey reads: "Authority and obedience can never be divided, with some people having all the authority while others have only to obey. This separation causes authoritarian behavior on the one side and doormat behaviors on the other. It perverts authority as well as obedience. A person with great authority who has nobody to be obedient to is in great spiritual danger. A very obedient person who has no authority over anyone is equally in danger."
Nouwen is obviously not talking about international politics, but neither is it irrelevant. The days when the nations of the world would bow before America and cry "uncle" are over. Those days have not served the cause of peace in the world. Empires don't last forever. What is the change we can believe in? I would not claim to know the details, but the changes we often fear the most just might be the changes that save us.
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