“And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.
“Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you.”* –Rick Warren’s Inaugural Invocation, 1/20/09
“….the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace….
“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility–a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.” –President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,
Welcome to the new era of global “civility,” the emergence of a civic “common ground” happening at the global level. It is no accident that Rick Warren was invited to deliver the invocation at President Obama’s Inaugural. “Civility” is a term laden with special meaning to those who have goals to change the governance structures of society at the international level.
To the average American, “civility” is one of those mantra-type buzz words that invokes nice feelings of camaraderie, implying polite disagreements. But in the new order of things “civility” is destined to become a way to shut off the more polarizing aspects of culture and theology. In this series Herescope will conduct an in-depth look at this issue.
read the full article here.
