09/02/2012

Clint Eastwood’s film J.Edgar, starring Leonardo di Caprio, is still showing in our cinemas. As well as examining the character of its eponymous subject, it takes a good hard look at law and order in the United States in the middle decades of the last century. It’s obvious that one of the big questions being faced by our American cousins at that time was, quite simply: what constitutes a good American? The rise of communism around the world led to something akin to paranoia and anyone who even flirted with ideas coming from the left soon found themselves under suspicion. On this day in 1950, another notorious figure entered the scene and muddied these waters. Senator Joe McCarthy announced to a startled world that he had the names of dozens of people working in the State Department who had proven links with the world of communism. China had only just fallen to the red army and everyone was on edge. It was a torrid time. There’s nothing more crippling than to suspect your own people of collaborating with an enemy. In a family or a classroom or a workplace, it’s just the most awful thing when we suspect that one of our own has stolen something or done something horrid. For a moment Americans, Christians in the main, forgot the command of Jesus to love one another or that, if they were unable to love the neighbour whom they could see, then it was hardly likely they could love God whom they couldn’t see. Trust, once destroyed, takes ages to build back again.

Dear Lord, help us to help one another, to trust one another, to love one another, throughout this day and in the days that come. Clothe us with the mind of Christ. For his sake. Amen.