If God has turned his back on us, “Turn back to God to save our nation,” (July 24), He has a funny way of showing it. Our natural resources are second to none, we rank among the top handful of nations in per capita GDP, and we are unrivaled in strength, spending as much every year on our national defense as the rest of the world combined. 

It’s true that we ranked even higher in your idealized 1950s, with our competition decimated by World War II; but I would like to remind readers that these were also a time of segregation and Jim Crow; a time before Medicare and Medicaid alleviated illness and poverty among our oldest and most vulnerable citizens; and a time when gays and lesbians could not safely, or often legally, live lives not closeted by false identities or counterfeit marriages.

I don't pretend to know God's will, but our moral lives seem, to me, improved by the past 60 years. 

And though our choices in presidential candidates have indeed hit new lows, please don't forget that many conscientious people, conservative and liberal, are still working tirelessly to make this world better for all children or that God seems, for now, to still smile upon the United States of America.

William Allik

Stonington