(This is a submission of "Why I have hope for America" contest with Citizen Magazine. It wasn't chosen for publication)
"You have forgotten the face of your father." is a warning that the main character, Gunslinger Roland of Gilead, gives in the Stephen King series "The Dark Tower."
America is ill. America is in danger of dishonoring her mighty past and bright future. America, the beautiful, is struggling with a cosmetic allergy from the adornment of makeup that she has placed upon her body. The skin deep cosmetics of intolerable tolerance, political incorrectness, misdirection, minority rule over the majority, misspoken truth, and outright liberal lies have caused a cancerous growth to overshadow her natural beauty. Are there medical personnel in the country that can affect treatment and rescue the beautiful health of America? Is there a DOCTOR in the house? Or is it Stage 4 cancer, without hope?
America has forgotten the face of her earthly fathers; those brave and religious figures that stood against the tyranny of the mother country and dared to dream of a republic. We need to "Read up on what happened before you were born; dig into the past, understand your roots. Ask your parents what it was like before you were born; ask the old-ones, they'll tell you a thing or two." Deuteronomy 32:7 (MSG). She has forgotten, too, the face of her Heavenly Father.
But therein lies my reason I stand upon the shore of this country, with my fist raised in American pride. Because I and others have not forgotten the face of My Father. Because we have sought out the old, the reliable paths as the LORD spoke to His people, the Israelites in Jeremiah 6:16 (NET) to do, "Ask where the old, reliable paths are. Ask where the path is that leads to blessing and follow it. Then you will find rest for your souls."
Throughout Israel's history, the people have corporately and nationalistically turned their backs upon the Father of their ancestor Abraham, the God of the faithful. They turned to the Pharisitical religion of works and assumed that as their God. And the God of Love, the God of Abraham, sometimes with wrath and sometimes with grace, instructed and called back His wayward children.
I have faith that this country can once again rise as a beacon in the darkness of despair and shine with the powerful light of the Holy Spirit. Because there is historical proof that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had the power and grace to deliver another nation time and time again if its people looked to Him.
But the ultimate grace that gives me hope that America will once again find her way and seek the God of her ancestors, are the words of Katharine Lee Bates, "O beautiful for pilgrims feet, whose stem impassioned stress a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness. America! America! God shed His grace on thee till paths be wrought through wilds of thought by pilgrim foot and knee."
3 comments:
This is not, and has never been, a Christian nation. It was founded on several principles, among which is freedom of religion. Would you really impose your beliefs upon others who disagree. If so, be prepared for a backlash, and not a pretty one, at that. You seem to believe in freedom for only yourself and people like you. If that is true, then you can kindly go off and found your own country, because that view is antithetical to the principals that this nation was founded upon.
It always amazes me that someone who wants to be so angry decides to hide behind anonymous signatures.
Apparently you did not read the article and apparently you do not know your history that well. The Piligrims came to this country to have a place where they could worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the way they believed. Where all men were free to worship the way they wished.
It was the Christian faith that was brought here, established our first ever convenant (The Mayflower Accord) and legal system (Ten Commandments). But, I never did say it was a Christian nation. I said that we, as Americans, have forgotten the 'face' of our fathers by which I mean the reasons they came, the foundations which they used to make this republic. We attack the one faith that they all had and call it "religious freedom".
I believe that 'freedom for only yourself and people like me' did go off and found our own country (or at least my forefathers did). It is called America.
Why is it, if you are so fired up about freedom, that I cannot have the freedom to believe in Christ in my own country?
I didn't force you to believe as I do, I don't force you to attend my church, and I don't call for the attacks on other religious faiths that is currently dominating only the Christian faith.
You should construct your bitterness into a better argument.
Hile Gunslinger!
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