22 / CHRONICLESnwell as policies have consequences.nBut how well have we learned? After 200 years we mightndo well to remind ourselves that we still are engaged in thengreat democratic experiment and that there is no guaranteenof success. Our present perception of domestic disarray andnforeign policy confusion can lead to loss of public faith andnthen failure to defend the national interest, first psychologically,nthen economically, and finally militarily. John Adamsnwrote: “There never was a democracy yet that did notncommit suicide.”nRACIAL INTEGRITY by Harold O.J. Brownn’You only have I known among all the families of the earth.”n—Amos 3:2nThe early chapters of the Bible present two major storiesnof judgment: the Deluge and the Tower of Babel. Thenfirst, the story of the dramatic “liquidation” of the vastnmajority of the human race, has no parallel in recordednhistory, although pessimists speculate that man may try tonoutdo the biblical flood by launching a general thermonuclearnwar, or that the AIDS virus could get completely outnof control and write Finis to human history. The eventsnportrayed in the story of the Tower of Babel (GenesisnHarold O.J. Brown is professor of biblical and systematicntheology and the Franklin Forman Chair of ChristiannEthics and Theology at Trinity Evangelical DivinitynSchool.nnnCertainly, nothing will happen until public indignationngrows significantly. Congress will not change its colors nornits composition by itself. Public outrage must be the catalystnfor that. Public sentiment brought down a President in then1960’s and transformed our foreign policy and lost us a warnin Southeast Asia. If such outrage can be evoked for andubious cause, surely it can be aroused for a sane and vitalnobjective which parallels the Constitution itself: namely, thenpreservation of a democratic republic.n11:1-9) were far less destructive than the flood, and they toonhave no recent historical parallel.nAt Babel no one died. The background, as Genesisndescribes it, was humanity’s pride or hubris as men soughtnto create a perfect environment, insulated from the threat ofndivine judgment. God’s judgment in this case was mild, butneffective: The confusion of tongues rendered cooperationnamong the builders impossible, and they dispersed to the farncorners of the earth, leaving their proud tower unfinished.nThe lessons that we can draw from this story are two:nfirst, that it is very dangerous for man to boast to himself ofnhis own capacity and to treat his projects as though theynwere achievements; second, that confusion of communicationsncan ruin otherwise sound projects and make theirn