Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Michigan’s House of Representatives have all proclaimed June as “Fidelity Month.” This emphasis on faith, family, and country began as a grassroots movement started by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University.
You might think Prof. George initiated Fidelity Month in response to Pride Month, but this is not so. Prof. George explained:
Back in the spring of 2023, I happened to read a report in the Wall Street Journal. It included polling data showing that the belief of Americans in certain core values—values that had traditionally been sources of unity and strength for Americans—had very considerably diminished over the past decade or decade and a half. I’m talking about values such as religion, family, and patriotism.
And these values have indeed been sources of our unity and strength in the United States of America because we are not a nation who can look to a common racial heritage or ethnic heritage, or even a common religious tradition or cultural heritage for our unity and strength. We Americans come from many, many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. We come from different traditions of faith. Our cultural histories are very different. So what do we have in common? What binds us together? Especially when times get tough—what are our sources of unity and strength?
According to Prof. George, “The polling showed that one value had increased in importance in the minds of Americans, and that was money. Religion went down, family went down, country went down, but the belief in the importance of money went up.”
In response, he announced on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, “By the power vested in me by absolutely no one, henceforth the month of June will be Fidelity Month.” The movement he launched has now grown across the nation.
“When you eat and are full”
I believe there is a simple reason our commitment to religion, family, and country has declined as the importance of money has risen. Think of the first three as one side of a seesaw and the fourth as the other. The higher our love for God, family, and country, the lower our love for money as a mere means to these ends. The reverse is true as well.
Why is this?
In Deuteronomy 6, Moses warned the Israelites as they prepared to enter their promised land:
When the Lᴏʀᴅ your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lᴏʀᴅ, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (vv. 10–12).
But this makes no sense. If the people built nothing they are about to own and enjoy, if God provided it all, why would they “forget” him when they “eat and are full”?
For the same reason we do: Humans want to be our own god (Genesis 3:5). We want to be self-reliant so no one can take away what we rely upon. We want to own what we have as if we deserve it, lest it be taken from us and given to those who deserve it more.
The more religious among us are willing and sometimes even glad to give some of what we have to God and his projects. We will give time, money, and service to causes we deem worthy.
But make no mistake: it is our time, our money, and our service we are donating. We begin each day as the rightful owners of the next twenty-four hours and choose where and how to spend “our” time through “our” day.
Nothing I wrote in the last paragraph is true.
Born in Houston and not Pyongyang
Paul asked, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Did you have anything to do with your conception and birth? Can you manufacture the next minute of your life? Do you “own” anything in this world that God Almighty cannot take from you this moment?
I was born to loving parents, a privilege many do not experience. The abilities with which I work were given to me apart from any merit on my part. I have had opportunities that much of the world’s population has not, through no fault of their own.
I did nothing to be born in Houston, Texas, and not Pyongyang, North Korea.
The fact that I do not have pancreatic cancer (so far as I know) and Ben Sasse does is no merit on my part or demerit on his. In short, my life is a gift, as is yours.
Fidelity to God’s purpose during Fidelity Month and all year long is therefore an appropriate expression of gratitude for his grace.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Quote for the day:
“God desires from us more fidelity to the little things that he places in our power than ardor for great things that do not depend upon us.” — St. Francis de Sales
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