c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is a consultant to humanitarian organizations.)

(UNDATED) And so the spinning begins. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t technically illegal, no one told me it was wrong. From Martha Stewart to teens downloading music to soldiers guarding prisoners in Iraq, we are a nation proficient at excuses and seemingly unable to mourn our ethical and moral failings _ let alone repent.

We would like to believe the American soldiers pictured in those horrific photos from the Iraqi prison are not like the rest of us. We talk about punishing those responsible as if we can simply deal with a few aberrant citizens and then go back to remaining in denial about our own culpability.

But I believe we must look at each of those young soldiers involved in the Iraqi prison debacle and see them as if they were our own sons and daughters. Collectively, as a nation, we share their guilt. We have raised them to believe that ethical behavior is a moving target and that the law trumps morality. And if we choose to make examples of them without looking deeply at ourselves, God help us all.

We have preached our moral superiority over those who look different than ourselves and devoted media coverage to the deaths of movie stars and sports figures while ignoring the slaughter of thousands in Third World nations. We have told our young people that human life has varying degrees of value and individuals count more for their accomplishments than their souls.

As a nation we have stopped studying history for what we can learn from it and manipulated it to support our views of national superiority. We rarely look at the Constitution as a call to individual responsibility in exchange for freedom. Instead we see it as one more tool to use in a lawsuit.

We have tagged those who stand up for what is wrong as “whistleblowers” instead of heroes; we have shown that the guy who speaks up for what he sees as wrong is usually ignored or worse because of systems in business, education and the military that reward group think.

And since the tragedy of Sept. 11 we have allowed ourselves to profess that individual freedoms are secondary to national security without questioning what that really means or how far we are willing to take it. Because we were wronged we feel righteous, a view that must strike the many peoples of the world who have suffered horrendous tragedies as both immature and myopic.

As a nation, we have nurtured individuals who have no moral muscles and whose vision of righteousness is to try to be better than the next guy. We have allowed violent video games to provide hours of entertainment for our children and shrugged as music that denigrates women and blasts profanity becomes “mainstream.”

Our houses of worship often seem more geared to entertainment than godly pursuits and our schools are places where teachers are so worried about being accused of abuse that they can neither show concern nor administer discipline without fearing for their jobs.

We are, as a nation, not nearly as clear about morality as we profess in this harsh glare of international publicity.

So how do we begin to right the wrongs of our society? I don’t think we start with more rules. I think we start with collective repentance.

We begin by acknowledging that “there but for the grace of God go I.” We are not morally superior as a nation any more than any one of us individually is less capable of sin than the next human. We are fallen human beings living in a society where we are more likely to call a lawyer than a minister, priest or rabbi when confronting a decision.

A Dutch friend once told me that the entire population of the Netherlands still suffers over the fact that Dutch soldiers were part of the United Nations force guarding Bosnians at Srebrenica and couldn’t stop the slaughter of innocent men and boys. While only a few of their citizens were involved, the entire nation took responsibility.

As a nation we should all be repenting over what has happened in Iraq and what our national values really are. We cannot claim to be one kind of people then live different lives without getting caught. We are raising the next generation to do as we do, not as we say. If we are going to hold them responsible, we must all accept the blame as well.

If this horror does not bring our nation to search our souls as never before, it will be more than a disgrace. It will be a national tragedy.

DEA/PH END BOURKE