Perfectibility in Love
Perfectibility in Love
Yesterday was the Semiquincentennial (“halfway to 500”) of our Declaration of Independence, which is also a major Feast in our Book of Common Prayer. Given that this is the weekend of the 250th anniversary of our Independence, it is proper that we observe this major feast in The Episcopal Church. And what better way to commemorate our independence than a quote from that great observer of America, Alexis De Tocqueville: Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. (Not Tocqueville)
But Tocqueville did write the following from the chapter entitled The Principle Of Equality Suggests To The Americans The Idea Of The Indefinite Perfectibility Of Man: “Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man … the condition of others is improved; whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty of improvement … Thus, forever seeking — forever falling, to rise again — often disappointed, but not discouraged — he tends unceasingly towards that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly visible at the end of the long track which humanity has yet to tread.”
I suspect that most of the uncivil rhetoric and behavior we have witnessed over the last few decades is rooted in the fear that we are losing our belief in the indefinite perfectibility of the human race. This reminds me of the Irish playwright Brendan Behan’s quip that America will be a great country once it’s finished. It sounds like Tocqueville believed that American greatness was largely due to it’s not being finished. But are we now finished? Are we no longer perfectible? Or do we need to redefine perfectibility as Jesus defines it in today’s Gospel?
“You have heard how it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven … For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers and sisters, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect..”
That sounds like a setup, except that perfection as Jesus meant it two millennia ago, and as Tocqueville meant it in the 19th century, doesn’t mean without flaw or error. It means completeness, which comes at the end of a process of completion. We “must,” Jesus says, practice perfectibility. Perfectibility in what? Love: As there is no boundary on the infinite love of our heavenly parent, so we must work toward loving without boundaries. Our former Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, was fond of putting some perhaps uncomfortable specifics on Jesus’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves. Those specific dichotomies changed somewhat depending on where and where he spoke. Perhaps today in 2026, it might sound something like this:
Love your liberal neighbor, love your conservative neighbor. Love your Democratic neighbor, love your Republican neighbor. Love your white neighbor, love your person of color neighbor. Love your Christian neighbor, love your Muslim neighbor. Love your Jewish neighbor, love your Palestinian neighbor. Love your straight neighbor, love your LGBTQ neighbor. Love your immigrant neighbor, love your National Guard neighbor. Love your neighbor without exception.
Like “perfectibility,” “exceptionalism” is another loaded word when it comes to our country. Tocqueville was the first to use that term to describe the uniqueness of America. He meant how different we were from the more privileged and hierarchical nations of Europe. But we Americans have come to use it in a more normative way, to mean how much better our country is than everybody else’s: freer, more dynamic, richer, more dominant. I wonder whether the domination has come to be the point of American exceptionalism in the American century. Isn’t it ironic that our efforts to dominate the earth have made it impossible for many Americans to celebrate America 250 safely this weekend. And in truth, many nations and empires have made similar claims of exceptionalism before us. Will we really be the last?
It doesn’t matter, because love is not an “ism.” Americans have long sought perfection in self-improvement, as Tocqueville himself observed. Perhaps we can ease our anxiety of becoming “finished,” of losing our perfectibility by striving for perfection in love. The most “exceptional” thing that Americans can become more perfect in is to love your neighbor without exception.
July 5th, 2026
Independence Day
The Rev. David Kendrick