“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds….reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle.” George Washington, 1st President of the United States of America.
“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation –at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”President Barrack Obama, 66th President of the United States of America.
“For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer? And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today? Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children..’ (Deuteronomy 4:7-9 BBE) Moses, Leader of the Israelite people after the Exodus.
It is oft the debate that clouds the issues of abortion, immoral sexual lifestyles and any discussion of the religion of Evolutionary Darwinism, meant to shut down the calls of Homeland Security’s ‘extreme right-wing radicals’ for the revival and return of America to its foundation and its purpose. (Side note: I am, according to DHS Intelligence Assessment of 4/7/09, said ‘extreme right wing’ activist) It is a hot topic, usually found in the arsenal of the secular or cultural religious that form the majority of the ‘83%’ declared-Christians that populate America’s shores, that we were never a Christian nation, never meant to govern by the biblical principles or should expect our national morality to be tied to the commandments set forth by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The American Dream isn’t what it once was and neither is the nation that envisioned its creation.
The celebration of our national independence from the governance of Great Britain and King George lit up the sky this past Saturday, the booming echoes of explosive charges hammering the ooohs and ahhhhs of the crowds gathered around this land. Mostly done were the barbeques, the games or family gatherings by nightfall so that grand tradition of fireworks could be comfortably viewed, no matter how reduced or less-grand than years previous. A celebratory air seemed to float everywhere, as even those who had to work on a national holiday were caught up in the joyful proclamation of our national birth……and I would venture to guess, scarcely a thought given to what we once were and the dying cries of its once vibrant life.
Our President, the sixty-sixth man to hold that office and title, has it all wrong; we are no longer a Christian nation, period. No ‘at least, not just’ or any carefully worded phrases to give a passing glance to the national heritage of Christianity that has been crowded out by false doctrines, false religions and reintroduced pagan rituals. No longer can the words of our pilgrims and colonists be heard and the remembrance of the blessings received by a young nation by the hand of God due to its foundational dream lay forgotten and twisted in the cavernous ruins of its destruction. The reasons, hopes and dreams of our fore founders no longer excite the national identity. The grand experiment of a republic, guided by the morality and direction of the Judeo-Christian God has fallen prey to the manipulation of man…..and their complacency in its growth. Accordingly to the DHS assessment, holding positions of “the right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment”, “abortion is morally wrong”, “lower taxes, not higher”, “state and local governance as opposed to federal expansion”, “the bible is literally true” and “veterans deserve honor” are a few of the ‘warning signs’ of radicalism from the right-wing segment of American society.
If you go back in history, this describes the Pilgrims who traveled to America, colonists who formed their governing bodies for the colonies and the colonial minute man who stood against the British distant and enslaving rule. Each of the founding fathers of this republic would be in chains under DHS control if this document was applied to their thoughts, words and deeds that ironically gave birth to the body that created such an entity. No wonder why America has fallen into the practice of rewriting historical facts with distortion and misstated half-truths. America was once a Christian nation, in its infancy…..and has never achieved what it was supposed to be: a nation governed by, seeking after and under the divine guidance of Almighty God through the working hands, minds and hearts of its people and by a federal body that subscribed to principals and created institutional foundations that were biblically based to govern a people with a understood and shared biblical worldview. A Christian nation is not one in which all the people are all Christians, but where the social and governing morality are biblically defined and biblically enforced (i.e. in love, with the intent to restore) for the benefit of all; even Muslim, Buddha and nonbelievers.
"The highest glory of the American Revolution,” said John Quincy Adams, ”was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." The grand experiment has failed, because we lay in ignorance of our heritage and the blessings that enabled a ragtag, untrained and outmatched band of ‘patriots’ stand against the mightiest army of the time and win.
We can look at historical documents and derive clear intention from the “July 4th colonists’” forbearers; the Pilgrims. The first known governmental document, the Mayflower Compact, 1620, written on American soil puts pen to paper what those colonists, in the Plymouth colony of what would become Virginia, considered their mission in the New World; “….Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid….” The Compact would be used to fashion other governance documents, like the Exeter Compact, and its meaning echoed in the writings of other colonies….
In the Supreme Court's 1892 Holy Trinity Church v. United States decision Justice David Brewer overturned the decision by circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York in the matter of the anti-immigration statute (143 U.S. 457, 459]…) that forbid certain vocations from being filled by foreign nationals. Holy Trinity Church had hired an Englishman to be its pastor and the Immigration and Naturalization Service moved to block his installment. In what is now a rarity, the Supreme Court interpreted the law made by Congress by drawing on the background of the law’s creation and implied intention not to include Christian ministers in its scope because of the lengthy review of the ‘mass of organic utterances’ throughout the history of America that established “this is a Christian nation” overturning the circuit court’s decision because it’s decision went against the whole history and life of the country.
In the reversal, we find example after example of Christianity as the national identity intentionally and with clarity: “The commission to Christopher Columbus, prior to his sail westward….the first colonial grant, made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584…the first charter of Virginia, granted by King James 1 in 1606…….the language of subsequent charters of that colony in 1609, 1611…..and various charters of other colonies……the celebrated compact by the piligrims of the Mayflower….the fundamental orders of Commecticut 1638-39……the charter of Pennsylvania to William Penn…..the declaration of independence……every constitution of the 44 states [note: this was the number of states in the US at the time] contains…..constitutions of the various states recognize…..the constitution of the United States, which is supposed to have little touch upon the private life of the individual, contains in the first amendment a declaration common to the constitutions of all the states, as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," etc., - and also provides in article 1, § 7, (a provision common to many constitutions,) that the executive shall have 10 days (Sundays excepted) within which to determine whether he will approve or veto a bill constitution of the United States…….”, all that provide there is no disagreement in the historical documentation and intent of the United States because of an ‘universal language pervading them all’ that affirm throughout its history that it is a religious nation.
Justice Brewer called these examples “organic utterances” that speak the voice of the entire people,, using the Pennsylvania decision (Updegraph v. Comm., 11 Seg. & R. 394, 400) to point out “Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law…….not Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men”
In conclusion, Justice Brewer wrote; “If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life, as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters note the following: The form of oath universally prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, "In the name of God, amen;" the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath, with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day; the churches and church organizations which abound in every city, town, and hamlet; the multitude of charitable organizations existing everywhere under Christian auspices; the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and aiming to establish Christian missions in every quarter of the globe. These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” Likewise in 1931, Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland reversed the 1892 decision in relation to another case and reiterated that Americans are a 'Christian people' and in 1952 Justice William O. Douglas affirmed 'we are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.'"
“Saying that the U.S. is not "just" a Christian nation carries the sense that it is both a Christian nation and more:” opines Brooks Jackson in an article on FactCheck.org, “a nation of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonbelievers as well. Furthermore, any survey of religious beliefs held by Americans will show that to be a factually correct statement.” A slight twist of meaning and suddenly it doesn’t appear so bad, being ‘not just’ a Christian nation but rather a collection of people with differing moral values. I would offer that a survey of religious beliefs held by Americans proves that this is no longer a Christian nation, though it was once declared to be so and it was once intended to be. It is the distortion of what it means to be a “Christian nation” that has led to its demise.
“The observation could be made because people of all beliefs largely respected the Judeo-Christian system,” Monte Kuligowski points out on AmericanThinker.com, “and accepted it as society's basis for right and wrong and moral order. Indeed, back then, even an atheist would have acknowledged society's religious moral framework as the basis for social order.” Justice Brewer pointed out that his claim reached into the ‘organic law’ of the nation and each state, showing that America being a Christian nation was “the domain of official action and recognition….[not mere] individual acceptance.” (Brewer, The United States: A Christian Nation/1905)
Our 66th President says that our national heritage of ‘faith’ was twisted into a divisional weapon by the "Christian Right": “Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us," he said, in an article on WorldNetDaily....and promptly ignores ‘official action, recognition and responsibility’ that supersedes individual acceptance or desire. Far beyond a misstated and untruthful statement of “separation of church and state” which has led to the social separation of faith and governance in the voice of the people, the government should well look into its own formation and hold itself accountable to the utterances of its membership. The moral fabric of the national identity superseded any individual acceptance of its decrees and was the guide for the formation of what was to be a “Nation under God”, in a world where each state was Christian, constitutionally and ‘organically’, the founding fathers envisioned a ‘theocracy’ of democratic accord as the goal of America, which since 1947 we have declared to be otherwise.
In the current decline into the humanistic, postmodern world of self-theology where the Mormonistic preaching of ‘self-evolution’ into godhood seems to be the prevailing whim as the American dream has morphed into one of comfort and ease, such historical facts are reinterpreted and reexamined so that a legislative branch can make laws protecting and promoting an alternate history that denies the un-attaining of the original goal for this nation. Instead of a nation empowered by God, indwelled with the Holy Spirit and given the holy charge to ‘storm the gates of hell itself’ with a promise felt in the individual marrow of its citizens of “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”….we have become a mockery for the world to point to as we run full tilt for the things that have been proven worldwide to be the death of nations; socialism, postmodernism and individualism.
History is no longer studied to gain knowledge of the mistakes that lead to the fall of empires, the decline of the societal fabric that binds civilizations together with the cohesiveness to weather trials nor to find a better path for the future. It is simply examined for the simplisticity of altering, denying or misstating the facts to the cultural inhabitators so that an agenda, human in its sinfulness and evil in its bondage, will bring the masses back under Egyptian rule.
“It must be admitted that today, although we are still essentially a Christian nation in form (i.e., the Constitutional, legal structure, church affiliation), we are not one in conduct. For the first 250 years of our existence Christian character determined the conduct of self-government in homes, churches, and civil society,” an unknown author submits in their essay posted online. “But today we have forgotten our heritage and only the skeleton remains. Even so, deep within the American character there lingers a Christian conscience ready to be revived by the spirit of God through awakened American Christian patriots………………. Our history is unique in that we were allowed to express the full flower of Christian civilization and government. This fact should give us cause to ponder the price we have paid for the maintenance of our Christian liberty. Will we be the generation that presides over its death?”
A haunting modern echo of the words of Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers………
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” (Subscribed on the Jefferson Monument in Washington, D.C.)
I don’t know if this blog makes any sense today….finally finished four days after we have gone back to our daily lives having celebrated the 4th of July throughout the land called America……I don’t know if I conveyed my feelings about this country, about the direction its heading or the sorrow I feel for her greatness, once glorifying God and now only condemning itself to the annals of history where the writers will write, “The once grand experiment……failed”.
I leave you with a poem from Sir Frances Drake, sent to me in a devotional I read a few days ago. It is time for the patriotic to show their pride in country and countrymen, the faithful to express their faith in conduct and life and the Kingdom of God to be restored upon the societal fabric of our land.
It is time for us to surrender the comfortable uncomfortableness for the disturbance of God’s movement in our lives and once again cry out in humble thankfulness, “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” It is time to dream the American Dream anew, from the freshness of the original hopes and dreams of the founding fathers and the ones who journeyed to its shores to establish a nation shining for God…….
We have been asleep for far too long………………………………
Sir Frances Drake:
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little,
when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
As Christians we know that with God all things are possible.
In are communities we face challenges both small and large.
Let us remember with God there is no task to large, and nothing is impossible.
Revival starts within each one of us,
as God moves and empowers us to speak a good word to our neighbor,
invite them to church,
to fellowship at your home.
Or just a warm greeting,
representing Christ in our actions.
Let us try to remember God in all we do,
and as a great Christian song says:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
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