World politics is guided by different elements namely: unilateralism, bilateralism, and multilateralism. Multilateralism as a multiple cooperation and system to govern global trade became a key element of world politics since the end of World War II. Bilateralism in this context ‘is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states.’ The issue is that just as multilateralism and bilateralism could be in conflict with each other, America’s diversity gives a history of tension and conflict. Racism is a terrible sickness and America’s racial divide over policing and the criminal justice system calls for urgent racial healing, ‘a commitment at the heart of the gospel.’ The US President-elect, Joe Biden’s ‘America is back’ is indeed good news first for Americans to overcome what Jim Wallis called ‘America’s Original sin.’

Four years ago, and guided by cooperation at a bilateral level, President Donald Trump changed the landscape of America, ‘it’s become America first, America alone.’ United State of America entered into a position where their ‘alliances are being frayed.’ Trump administration for the past four years have tried to ‘increase its leverage and obtain greater public procurement concessions in bilateral talk with other nations and organisations in the world.

Despite the continuing tragic effect of Covid-19, 2020 Thanksgiving for the United State of America is indeed a time to welcome America back again into a new era of multilateralism and healing. The US president-elect, Joe Biden has highlighted the need to rebuild alliances, as well as tackling coronavirus and climate change. According to US President-elect, Joe Biden, world leaders are “looking forward to the United States reasserting its historic role as a global leader over the Pacific, as well as the Atlantic, all across the world.” President Trump’s bilateralist system of cooperation and his unilateralist nationalism shaped by agreements and obligations that only apply to particular contracting states or organisations is not only divisive, it is ‘wasteful in transaction costs than the multilateral strategy.’ 2020 Thanksgiving invite Americans to move away from “America first” policy of incumbent Donald Trump, the process of leaving the World Health Organisation (WHO), and withdrawal from the Paris climate accord among others.

Bearing in mind the divisive nature of November 3 election, 2020 Thanksgiving calls for ‘a totally different world … faced in the Obama-Biden administration.’ It is good to know that Biden’s team meets this moment. According to Biden, the team “embody my core belief that America is strongest when it works with its allies. Collectively, this team has secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory, made possible through decades of experience working with our partners. That’s how we truly keep America safe.” America need safety. America need healing from the two pandemics of Covid-19 and racism. There are millions of undocumented people in America who need a pathway to citizenship and medical facilities. There is need for healing in America and the rest of the world by doing “away with some of the very damaging executive orders that have had significant impact on making the climate worse and making us less healthy.” For America to be back, there is need for healing in America by speaking and hearing the truth.

John Dawson in his intercessor’s handbook, Healing America’s Wounds: Discovering our Destiny points to the foundational, cutting-edge text on national repentance and reconciliation. Beyond the immense difficulty faced by an individual even to get basic health insurance when they fall ill, America today ‘finds herself more wounded than ever after two hundred years of struggle.’ John Dawson points us to the systems that promote evil and hinder God’s redemptive purpose in America and the urgency to turn away from them. 2020 Thanksgiving is a new era of healing in breaking down the chain of sin and reconcile a divided America. Racial injustice and rioting continue to bring humiliation to America in front of a watching world thereby “violating our own redemptive purpose, thus releasing a wave of despair throughout all of humanity.”

For America to be back, 2020 Thanksgiving calls on American ‘to live out the biblical practice of identificational repentance, a neglected truth that opens the floodgates of revival and brings healing to the nations.” “America is back” starts with personal confession of sins and sins of the nation. America’s problem with race has deep roots as old as America. Jim Wallis in his book, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America explained that America’s foundation is ‘tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation’s original sin.’ The call to action by Wallis in overcoming the legacy of racism so ingrained in American society could be the beginning of a new era of healing and time to ‘right this unacceptable wrong.’ In a nation founded on Christian principle and where Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week, Americans need to become channel of peace, racial justice, and healing. In a nation of divided cultures, where ‘gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin,’ 2020 Thanksgiving summons the church and the leadership in America to repentance and reconciliation in order to help lead the way to grassroots change for America to be back in truth and Spirit.

Let us use the hymn ‘Make Me a Channel of Your Peace,’ to prayerfully celebrate 2020 Thanksgiving and for a new era of multilateralism and healing:

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
It isn’t pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men let we receive
And in dying that we’re born to turn around

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy