On this July 4, celebrating our nation’s birthday, how should Christians view America’s role in the world and their role in America?
In his The Case for Goliath, Michael Mandelbaum suggests an appreciation for America’s global vocation can be likened to Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. A bank clerk named George Bailey played by Jimmy Stewart glumly imagines his existence in a small town to have been worthless and, in a moment of despair, even exclaims his wish never to have been born. A bemused angel appears to grant him his wish, and Bailey walks the street and enters the homes of Bedford Falls to witness how life transpired without him. His parents, the woman he married, and various friends all have lived tragically in his absence. His brother drowns because Bailey was not there to save him. The pharmacist mistakenly confused poison for medicine, killing a child, because Bailey was not there as his alert employee. The town is under the control of a cynical land developer whose influence Bailey had countered, and the streets are filled with the fruits of his moral indifference: seedy saloons, gambling dens, burlesque theaters. Viewing the full panoply of his universe absent him, thanks to the angel, Bailey realizes that for all his failures and self-absorption, his exertions were not in vain. Without directly theologizing, It’s a Wonderful Life illustrates that no life that pursues good under God’s care is ever in vain.
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