A Re-Information of Our Greatness

There is a YouTube video circulating of a former Marine singing the last verse of the National Anthem. A comment with the video says the audience was shocked that he knew the last verse. It didn’t shock me. My fourth grade music teacher, Mrs. Lewis, taught the anthem, both verses, to our class. I’ve remembered it ever since. What dismays me, however, is how few people actually do know it.

In the remarks section below on one of the e-mails sent to me were several critical comments including one that was almost a joke. Some liberal, left wing, anti-Christian wrote, “We are not a Christian nation. Read the Founders, they were all deists.” Read the Founders! What a novel idea. Obviously that person had never read the Founders or he would have known his own statement was untrue.

What America needs today is what Ronald Reagan suggested almost thirty years ago when he said, “There is a need in America today for a … re-information of our greatness.”

We need to start with a “re-information” of who we are. Obama says we were never a Christian nation. Liberals notoriously deny our Christian heritage. The Supreme Court continues to rule against Christianity and the Bible in the public square even though the Ten Commandments are written in stone above the Justices’ bench in the Supreme Court chambers. So, what is our heritage? What did our Founders really believe? Who was George Washington praying to at Valley Forge, or was he praying at all?

Isaac Potts, a Valley Forge resident, told of riding through the woods in the harsh winter of 1778 when he heard a voice as of a man in prayer. He went quietly toward the sound and found Washington alone on his knees begging God for aid in the cause of the country. Potts had never believed a man could be a soldier and a Christian, “but if there is one in the world, it is Washington,” he said.

In his 1796 Farewell Address to the nation Washington said that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to political prosperity. He also wrote, “Do not let anyone claim to be a true American if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics.” That statement is enough to indict the United States Supreme Court, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and every other anti-Christian organization or individual that seeks to remove God from our politics for being un-American. No doubt Washington thought we were and needed to be a Christian nation.

Consider what some of our other Founders wrote.

Patrick Henry, who stirred the passions of the colonists when he said, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” closed his Last Will and Testament with the following: “This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.” Henry was a Presbyterian and a devout student of the Scripture.

Our second president, John Adams, in his last speech in office, dedicated the newly created District of Columbia and capitol building by offering a benediction. “It would be unbecoming the representatives of this nation to assemble for the first time in this solemn temple without looking up to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and imploring His blessing.... Here, and throughout our country, may simple manners, pure morals, and true religion flourish forever!” Obviously John Adams believed religion was a necessary part of American life and government.

To be clear, the only religion the Founders were talking about was Protestant or Baptist Christianity. Adams also had this to say, “I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

And then there are these:

“Only one adequate plan has ever appeared in the world, and that is the Christian dispensation.” - John Jay, First Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

“Principally and first of all, I recommend my soul to that Almighty Being who gave it and my body to the dust, relying upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.” – Samuel Adams’ Last Will and Testament.

“I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance equal in power and glory.” – Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

“History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion … and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.” – Benjamin Franklin, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

This is but a small sampling of what all the Founders and early leaders of America wrote, but if we were to quote all of them we would find nearly all of them in agreement. There is not a deist among them, and that includes Franklin and Jefferson. This is the truth about America’s founding. We were definitely founded as a Christian nation.

Today we are in a war for the heart and soul of America. It is more than just a question of a socialist system versus a free enterprise system. It is about our national identity, about who we are, about whether we are a free or an enslaved people, about whether our culture will continue to honor the God of our Founders or drop into the abyss of atheistic impiety.

Actually, our culture as a whole has not really honored God for a long time. Ronald Reagan declared 1983 to be the Year of the Bible, yet the Bible was not even allowed in our public schools. Just this last week the US Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez, upheld a California law school’s banning of a Christian student group because it would not allow non-Christians to be voting members. The assault on our First Amendment religious liberties has been so relentless in recent years that the Christian Law Association has represented thousands of cases defending religious freedom. And now we have a president who is not just trying to push another failed high tax welfare system on the country, but who, with leftist, liberal help, is trying to undo our Constitution and turn us into a socialist, anti-Christian state.

This year as we celebrate the independence of our great nation, we need more than ever before to join together as Christians and conservatives to fast and pray for God’s mercy on America. It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

The issue in Jefferson’s day was slavery. The issue in our day is also slavery. We have two choices. Either we turn back to the God of our Fathers and constitutional government, and continue to be free, or we will finally turn our backs on God completely to be enslaved by pagans, atheists, and Islamists, and lose our liberties forever.

Would you join me in praying for our country? God Bless America.