As we prepare for a week of flags, fireworks, and patriotic speeches, we need to ask ourselves how we reconcile love of and loyalty to country with the goal of world community. In a world that seems to be degenerating into tribalism, perhaps we can engage our liberal religious values to work for reconciliation both within and beyond our national boundaries.

Holley Ulbrich is a retired Clemson University economics professor with a post-retirement Master of Theological Studies degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory. She has been a UU since 1990, is the author of a Skinner House book on the history of the lay-led fellowship movement, and has been a guest preacher at more than a dozen UU congregations.