Column: Salt & Light

Columnist: Kevin Slinger

This Submission: Remember what we were

We’re at a very critical time in our nation as decisions are being made on a nearly daily basis that will greatly affect each of us and the future of our nation.  How will we respond?  Will we sit by and say nothing?  Will we stand up and speak up? 

We are a nation truly blessed by God, but how long will God continue to bless a nation that continues to turn away from Him?  Will we continue to go the way we’ve been going or will we change our course and turn back to the biblical principles that made our nation great? 

America is currently witnessing a campaign to remove every vestige of faith or reverence for God from all public life.  Have we really forgotten where we came from or have we simply been duped into believing and accepting a lie?

Woodrow Wilson said, “A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do.”

Who were we yesterday?  Where have we come from?  Were our founding fathers merely a hodgepodge of deists and free-thinkers who insisted on instituting a constitutional separation of church and state?  Of course not.

Throughout our early history Christianity actually permeated America from top to bottom.  Here are just a few of many documented examples.

In 1777 Congress approved the purchase of 20,000 Bibles from Holland to give to the states.

No fewer than six of the thirteen original states had official, state-supported churches.  In fact, these states (CT, GA, MD, MA, NH, SC) actually refused to ratify the new national Constitution unless it included a prohibition of federal meddling with their existing state “establishments of religion.”  Still other states required those seeking elected office to be Christians.

The Continental Congress routinely designated days of fasting and prayer and other religious observances, appointed government-funded chaplains, and appropriated money to pay for Christian missionaries.

Why, you might even be surprised to know that Congress even had the audacity to hold church services in the Rotunda of the Capitol building while Thomas Jefferson was President.  Not only did Jefferson himself attend, he provided paid government musicians to assist in its worship.  Separation of church and state?

I believe these actions by the original American government, under the Constitution, would have driven the ACLU and other like-minded individuals and organizations crazy.

What exactly did our founding fathers believe?  George Washington said, “True religion (Christianity) offers to government its surest support.”  Washington, indisputably a constitutional expert, went on to say that no true patriot would attempt to weaken the relationship between government and the influence of religion and morality.

John Quincy Adams stated, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

Thomas Jefferson said that, “No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion.  Nor can it be.  The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.” 

Jefferson, supposedly one of the least religious of the founding fathers, also wrote three books, two of them on Jesus Christ.  One of the books, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” was printed by and adopted by Congress as the manual on ethics for both the House and the Senate and contained only the teachings of Jesus Christ.   

We have a real problem here.  Will Rogers once said that the problem with America isn’t so much what people don’t know, the problem is what people think they know that just ain’t so.

One of the first things Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators did was rewrite their nations’ histories, remaking the past to promote their control of the present.  The secularists in the liberal Left have done the same thing with our nation as most American history books today are laden with politically correct foolishness and have misinformed generations, frequently with theory rather than any actual evidence.  The many liberals in academia today continue to impose these distortions.  

Today you will not likely find the Mayflower Compact, Washington’s farewell address, or Patrick Henry’s speech in their entirety, as all references to God or Jesus Christ have been removed through censorship.

If the ACLU had their way, reading many of the writings of the founding fathers would be unconstitutional.  How can you use one writing of the founding fathers, the Constitution, to say you can’t read the writings of the founding fathers? 

Next week, cases regarding the Ten Commandments will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.  We also have several other cases pending attempting to strip God from the public square in America. 

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  Over the next couple of weeks I will cover just where we went wrong and more regarding our authentic biblical roots.  Until then, ponder this: “It is the duty of nations as well as men to recognize the truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all of history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” - Abraham Lincoln