But nativist hostility scarcely accounts for the long term orientation of our community to prepare to enter the American mainstream. Surrounded by walls, we opened gate after gate. In the last half-century in ways good and imperfect we have lived with a new agenda and a renewed spirit. We have not, I think, sufficiently reflected on all that has come to pass. This should not surprise us.
Reflection follows experience.
And reflective systematic interpretation of experience is in the final analysis a secondary, specialized task, in this case that of theologians, biblical scholars and the like. Americans are, now as ever, a people bent on redemption. Although we have always differed on the particulars, we have a perfectionist dream. Neither individually nor collectively should we settle for less than God calls his people to be. King did not have to convince a perfectionist America that the text applied to us, that this word should legitimately cut into the fabric of this nation's status quo, and more directly so than to any other people.