I’d love to see your comments on this one. Please post your thoughts at the end.
When my wife and I moved up to Clayton, NY two years ago, we were housed by a wonderful saint in our church while our house was being built. She had an ancient framed certificate hanging in the bathroom and it always startled me.
Today, she asked me to come by the house to look at some furniture as she is selling her house and moving to Florida. Just before I left, I peeked in the bathroom and noticed the plaque still hanging in the bathroom–it hadn’t been sold. I kindly asked her for it, to which she happily removed it and handed it to me.
What I wouldn’t give to see the Supreme Court, and the ACLU for that matter, make a public statement about this on national TV. And I’m not talking about a “skirt the issue” kind of political statement that they think we’re appeased with. I mean, yes or no, do you believe this? I am longing for the day where we return to straight talk–to looking someone in the eye and meaning what you say, saying what you mean. For my part, may I ever be held accountable to this ideal.
So, just for the sake us of those reading my blog today, may we never forget where we came from and what truly makes us the greatest nation in the world. (Yes, I’ve been to nearly all the other ones). There has never been a country that has offered so much freedom to so many people.
“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to his extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
United States Supreme Court, 1892
Please post your comments!
CH
Wow.
Yeah, my pastor did a series of sermons on how our nations was founded under obvious Christian principles, with statements such as this made by some of our forefathers, and how the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, and even the Capitol of FILLED with Scriptures everywhere you go! It’s amazing and appalling to see where our nation has come since then.
BTW – still loving RotD
If I knew HTML code, I’d type AMEN so big it would fill the page! If our ancestors could be flown forward in a time machine to see what we have allowed this nation to become…they would be utterly ashamed. They’d probably think they were transported to another planet.
In a sense, we have been recolonized–recolonized by people who mistook liberty for license and slowly eroded truth–and even common sense–down to humanistic toleration.
But lest we look down our noses at history as if this disembodied “they” are at fault, we Christians need to take responsibility for allowing it to happen. And we need to start taking back what we’ve lost–with our voices, with our votes, with our actions, and with our purity.
-WtB
Strange – my comment says that it’s still awaiting moderation. *shrugs* Oh well.
I agree with you Wayne. It’s our responsibility to remind people where we came from. To, like Sharon’s book says, “Return the people to the Verses.”
Exactly!!!
I totally ‘gree!
Wasn’t this around the same time the supreme court was affirming ‘separate but equal’ state statutes?
Without the blessings of the Price of Peace, Jesus Christ, how could our noble forefathers extterminate the vermin, terrorist savages that stood in the way of our Manifest Destiny.
We must remember that every bullet we fire, every bomb we drop, every child we starve, every action we take, God is on own side.
I just found this great quote from J. David Hoke:
“You see, freedom is not the ability to do what you want to do, it is the ability to do what you know you should do!”
CH
Eros, that was 1896. Not sure if all the same Justices were serving in 1892 and in 1896. And, not sure which individual justices supported which doctrine. In any case, the affirming of the US as a Christian Nation doesn’t indicate in the least that the US was or ever will be a sinless nation.
And Tom, not sure if you intended the tone that I’m reading from your post. It sounds like it’s dripping with contempt. I’ll grant you, people claiming to be Christians have done some hideous things “in the name of God,” throughout history…as have men from every religion or “nonfaith.” But judging ALL of 2000+ years of Christianity by the evidently evil acts of relatively few is prejudice of the highest order.
How quickly people point to the bad and ignore the good that Christians have done over the centuries. Charities, Service, Salvation Army, Red Cross, World Vision, the list is virtually endless.
You say, “every bullet we fire, every bomb we drop, every child we starve,” I guess implying that, all these things are the result of Christianity? Get real. But I grieve to think of the bombs, bullets, starving children, and other depravities that might exist in a totally God-less society.
Look at some of the things liberals and humanists call progress:
1. free love in the 60s: epidemics of STDs and unwanted pregnancies–to say nothing of the emotional scars of people whose relationships are destroyed by so-called casual sex.
2. a woman’s right to abort–how many children have been murdered? At this point, more than all the wars of recorded history, I’ll wager. And let’s not have any of this nonsense about babies being nonliving fetuses. Science and common sense refutes that. Still, women must have a convenient escape from the consequences of irresponsible behavior, so kill children.
3. Kicking God out of schools. Eliminating prayer in schools. And schools have gotten so much better since then, haven’t they? Forgive the sarcasm, but seriously, things are getting horribly worse.
Again, I state without fear of reasonable argument, that our society has willfully confused liberty and license. And now, we’re paying for it dearly.
I found that there is more to the particular quote “…This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation…we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth…These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declerations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” This seems to go against everything we are told today.
John Quincy Adams said “Posterity – you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” I fear that he and the Founding Fathers along with many others who shed their blood for this nation, would weep at what we have made of it.
“What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem to lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods, and it would be strange indded if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” Thomas Payne 1776
If the point could be driven home even more, Nate, I think you managed to do it. Your thoughts are laid out well and your additional quotes are magic. Thanks for your contributions.
Tom, thanks for your comment, though I think the sarcasm was a bit broad, but not entirely ill-founded. However, I would be interested to know what you think of the current state of our country and any political influences that have brought us to our present status.
CH
Ok…..I have to weigh in. First, what a great quote from the Supreme Court and how entirely true. Its amazing how we think we can bring democracy to any country without the Spirit of the Lord – Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and liberty and its impossible without it. However, I still have to say we live in the greatest country on earth. Do we have problems? Yes, but that is why the church needs to be the church and rise to the occasion and bring Christ to a lost and dying world. It is our time!
In my humble opinion, for far too long the church world has taken the easy way out and blamed everyone else for the problems of our nation rather than taking it on the chin and advocating change and being the forerunners for that change. Is there really any better answer than the people of God? Can we endeavor to find a place of true holiness and love that shines a path that is so bright that even the wicked must marvel at its beauty and glory?
We do not need to fear. We are the army of God. Its time to teach our young people and our “old” people to rise up and reveal Jesus in the midst of darkness in whatever place we find ourselves. Isnt that really what the Supreme Court is talking about? Well the, I believe we all can change the world around us.
As Nate noted…..blood was spilled for our freedom….we must make good use of it!
Love ya all,
Kirk
Kirk,
Thanks for the amazing post. Wow! Putting the Church at the center of both the problem AND the solution is pretty revolutionary. But I would have to agree. “Big government” really only started to come in when She abdicated her responsibility as the core and center of culture, from “health care” to casting vision to setting standards.
Well said, and many thanks for chiming in.
CH
Two days ago I got back in touch with a friend from the 1980′s-probably the most radical Christian I’ve ever met. He spent 17 years working with Muslims in the Far East, in a very dangerous area. Raised a family amid guerilla warfare, death threats, the whole bit. I asked him about the state of our country now that he has moved back here. He said the first thing he bought upon returning to the US was a Bible and the second thing, an American flag. After 17 years working in countries without a Judaeo-Christian foundation, his conclusion is that, though we’re not where we could be, we’re not like a lot of the nations in which he’s traveled and ministered. His one caution is that we don’t now assume–as 21st century US citizens–that because something is American, that it’s therefore Christian. In other words, instead of the dog wagging the tail, the tail wags the dog and then becomes the dog. All we do and say and legislate in this great land must be weighed stringently against the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind.
Christian
Oh wait. Yes, I have. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have it in me right now to type it all out again. Besides, it was just ramblings anyway. You didn’t want to hear me go on and on about this, right?