In 1944, E. Stanley Jones wrote the book The Christ of the American Road to speak to our need to understand the role Christ needs to play in our national conversations. Recently, the E. Stanley Jones Foundation reprinted this book. Its timely word to our present situation is as necessary as when it was written over 75 years ago. It serves to challenge our priorities as citizens of the United States while calling us to live our faith above our nationalism. We can easily become more concerned with the stars and stripes than with the stripes that heal.
I want to recommend this book to your reading in the coming days as we prepare for and hear the results of the election here in the United States. Whether your party wins or not, it is my prayer we will seek first the Kingdom of God and unity in the midst of a country that is divided. Brother Stanley in writing about the prevalence of individualism within the United States stated: “Your supreme loyalty and your supreme interest is not to yourself, but to the Kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of self, and all these things—happiness, harmony, the very self itself—will be subtracted from you” (Page 132). You can find this book at Amazon.