After America250: What Comes Next for People of Faith?

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence invited many of us to look back — to remember the nation’s founding promises, to give thanks for real gifts, and to tell the truth about the people excluded from those promises. But now that the celebration has passed, the more urgent question is not only what we remember. It is what we will build.

For Lutherans, the work ahead is not nostalgia. It is vocation. We are called to live as neighbors, citizens, voters, advocates, servants, and truth-tellers in a complicated public life. We can honor the best ideals of our nation by asking how our communities, laws, budgets, and public choices can better reflect the dignity of every person.

LAMA’s earlier reflection on the Declaration of Independence spoke of gratitude for the Declaration’s vision of equality, rights, consent of the governed, and resistance to tyranny, and of humility, because those promises were never extended equally to all. Enslaved people, Indigenous peoples, women, immigrants, and many others were excluded from the freedom the document proclaimed. That history is not just a past-tense concern. It asks something of us now.

The Arizona Center for Economic Progress made a similar point as America250 approached: Arizona’s story must include all of us. Our state has been shaped not only by the wealthy and powerful, but also by working families, immigrants, teachers, caregivers, small business owners, Tribal communities, faith communities, and neighbors organizing from the bottom up. If our public celebrations tell a story of liberty while our public budgets leave families without a fair chance to thrive, then our story remains unfinished.

That is where people of faith come in.

The question ahead is not whether churches should care about public life. Our neighbors’ lives are shaped by public decisions every day: whether a child has enough to eat, or a senior can see a doctor; whether a family can afford rent, or a student can learn safely; whether a worker can earn a living wage, or a migrant is treated with dignity; or whether every eligible voter can participate without fear or obstruction.

Faithful civic engagement begins with listening. Who is being left out of the story? Whose voices are missing from the room where decisions are made? What would public policy look like if it were shaped not by fear, scarcity, or the interests of the powerful, but by the well-being of all?

For LAMA, the next chapter calls us to recommit to public witness rooted in love of neighbor. That means advocating for food security and a Farm Bill that protects SNAP. It means defending Medicaid/AHCCCS and access to health care. It means supporting housing and homelessness solutions, public education, immigrant welcome, voting access, fair taxation, care for creation, and budgets that invest in people rather than deepen inequality.

It also means practicing democracy as a discipline of faith. We can register voters, learn about candidates and ballot measures, attend town halls, request meetings with lawmakers, write letters, testify at the Capitol, use Arizona’s Request to Speak system when the Legislature is in session, and invite our congregations into respectful conversation about the common good. None of this requires everyone in the church to agree on every policy detail. It does require us to remember that disengagement is not neutrality when neighbors are harmed.

The ELCA’s social statement Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-being of All reminds us that civic participation is part of our Christian calling. Lutherans do not place our ultimate hope in political parties, elected officials, courts, or constitutions. But we do believe God is at work in the world, calling us to seek justice, peace, and the well-being of all creation.

After America250, people of faith have an opportunity to move from commemoration to commitment. We can ask better questions, and tell a fuller story. We can build broader coalitions. We can continue to stand with those pushed to the margins. We can help our congregations become places where civic life is practiced with courage and compassion.

The anniversary has passed. The work remains.

The next 250 years will be shaped by the choices we make now — not only in Washington, D.C., or at the Arizona Capitol, but in congregations, school boards, city councils, county offices, neighborhoods, ministries, and voting booths across our state. Let’s step into that future not with despair, but with hope grounded in God’s love and with hands ready for the work of justice!