56 Sermon Illustrations on America

An old English picture represents a king, with the motto beneath, "I govern all;" a bishop with this sentence, "I pray for all;" a soldier with the inscription, "I fight for all;" and a farmer, who reluctantly draws forth a purse, and exclaims with rueful countenance, "I pay for all." The American citizen combines in himself the functions of these four. He is king, prophet, warrior, and laborer. He governs, prays, and fights for himself, and pays all expenses.

France tried to get on without a God in the time of her first Revolution; but Napoleon, for reasons of State, restored the Catholic religion. M. Thiers gives this singular passage in his history. Napoleon said, "For my part, I never hear the sound of the church-bell in the neighboring village without emotion." He knew that the hearts of the people were stirred by the same deep yearnings after God which filled his own; and so he proposed to restore the worship of God to infidel France. The savans of Paris ridiculed the proposal, laughed it to scorn, declared it was weakness in him to yield to a superstition that had forever passed away; that he needed no such aid to government; and that he could do what he pleased. "Yes," said he; "but I act only with regard to the real and sensibly felt wants of France." Negotiations were opened with the pope; and the Romish worship was set up, amid the enthusiasm of the nation. The historian utters this reflection: "Whether true or false, sublime or ridiculous, men must have a religion." Later, and with deeper meaning, Perrier, successor to Lafayette as prime-minister to Louis Philippe, said on his death-bed, "France must have religion." So I say to-day, concerning that better faith, which overthrows what Romanism sets up, which breaks the shackles Romanism binds on, which is the only security of national permanence,—America must have religion.

— C. D. Foss

The meaning of the name Amerigo has been often discust, the only thing certain being that it is one of those names of Teutonic origin, like Humberto, Alfonzo, Grimaldi, or Garibaldi, so common in northern Italy, which testifies to the Gothic or Lombard conquest. Americ, which occurs as early as 744 A.D., is probably a contracted form of the name Amalaric, borne by a king of the Visigoths who died in 531. A Bishop Emrich was present at the Council of Salisbury, in 807, and an Americus Balistarius is mentioned in the Close Rolls (thirteenth century). It has been conjectured that the stem is im, from which we get the name of Emma. The meaning of this is not known with certainty, tho Ferguson thinks it may denote “strife” or “noise.” Since, however, the name is probably of Gothic origin, and since the Amalungs were the royal race of the Ostragoths, it is more likely that the stem is “amal,” which was formerly thought to mean “without spot,” but is now more plausibly connected with the old Norse “aml,” labor, work. The suffix “ric,” cognate with rex, reich, and rick, means “rich” or “powerful,” and, therefore, the most probable signification of Amerigo is “strong for labor.”--ISAAC TAYLOR, _Notes and Queries_.

Suppose you are a father, and you have five children. One is named Philip, and Philip says to his brothers and sisters: “Now, John, you go and live in the small room at the end of the hall. George, you go and stay up in the garret. Mary, you go and live in the cellar, and, Fannie, you go and live in the kitchen, and don’t any of you come out. I am Philip, and will occupy the parlor; I like it; I like the lambrequins at the window, and I like the pictures on the wall. I am Philip, and, being Philip, the parlor shall only be for the Philipians.” You, the father, come home, and say: “Fannie, what are you doing in the kitchen? Come out of there.” And you say to Mary, “Mary, come out of that cellar.” And you say to John, “John, don’t stay shut up in that small room. Come out of there.” And you say to George, “George, come down out of that garret.” And you say to the children, “This is my house. You can go anywhere in it that you want to.” And you go and haul Philip out of the parlor, and you tell him that his brothers and sisters have just as much right in there as he has, and that they are all to enjoy it. Now, God is our Father, and this world is a house of several rooms, and God has at least five children--the North American continent, the South American continent, the Asiatic continent, the European continent, and the African continent. The North American continent sneaks away, and says: “I prefer the parlor. You South Americans, Asiatics, Europeans, and Africans, you stay in your own rooms; this is the place for me; I prefer it, and I am going to stay in the parlor; I like the front windows facing on the Atlantic, and the side windows facing on the Pacific, and the nice piazza on the south where the sun shines, and the glorious view from the piazza to the north.” And God, the Father, comes in and sends thunder and lightning through the house, and says to his son, the American continent: “You are no more my child than are all these others, and they have just as much right to enjoy this part of my house as you have.”

— T. DEWITT TALMAGE

Boycotting did originate in America, but it was started long before the slavery troubles became annoying. The boycott originated with Thomas Jefferson. It will be remembered that by the embargo we boycotted every species of English goods; we neither bought of that country nor sold to her. The ships of New England were suffered to lie rotting at the wharves, and American foreign trade was at a complete standstill. The Hartford Convention was the result of that boycott, and the lukewarmness of the East in the war of 1812 may be traced to it. It was not a highly successful boycott, but it occupied a pretty big place in history.--Detroit _Evening Journal_.

See ARMIES OF THE WORLD, NAVAL POWERS AND ARMAMENTS; NAVIES OF THE

WORLD; WAR AND RACIAL FERTILITY.

[Illustration: UNITED STATES S. S. NORTH DAKOTA]

Forty Y. M. C. A. buildings could be built and equipped throughout for the cost of a battleship, each building accommodating the young men in a city of 200,000 people.

One 26,000-ton battleship ($12,000,000) + 20 years’ upkeep at $800,000 a year,--$28,000,000: Then the junk heap.

$28,000,000: 1,400 churches at $20,000 each, 7,000 farms at $4,000 each, a college education for 14,000 men or women at $500 a year for four years.

For past wars and preparation for war, $423,000,000, or 70 per cent.

Left for other purposes, $181,000,000, or 30 per cent.

[Illustration: THE WAY OF MILITARISM

Which benefits a few trusts and contractors and gives temporary and uneconomical employment, but which is rapidly impoverishing the nations.

Ordinary income of the United States for 1908–09, $604,000,000.]

Our generation has not accepted Christ’s ideal of non-resistance, gentleness and humility. We believe in _Dreadnaughts_ and armed regiments. At our conferences in The Hague and Mohonk we plead for peace; at our capitals we vote uncounted millions for cannon and bombshells. Disclaiming hypocrisy, we excuse ourselves by saying that the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war, when in our hearts we know that a man who carries a concealed revolver in his pocket is a thousand times more likely to slay any chance enemy than if he had left his weapon at home or hurled it into the sea. We admire and love the Quaker--but we want him to stay in Philadelphia; the man we send to Washington must argue for us that a nation needs a war about once in thirty years.

— N. D. HILLIS

I wrote to a friend of mine in Toronto for some figures. I shall leave out the hundred thousands.

In 1881 the population of Canada was between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000; in 1901 it was 5,372,000; in 1908 it was 6,940,000; and in 1909, between 7,000,000 and 7,500,000. Now, then, what are their bank deposits? In 1880, thirty years ago, they were $96,000,000; in 1884, $131,000,000; in 1890, 176,000,000; in 1900, $358,000,000; in 1908, $593,000,000; in 1909, $917,000,000; showing an increase of almost 63 per cent. in one year.

What was the value of the farm products of the Dominion last year? $532,000,000, an increase of one hundred million in one year. They have the largest continuous wheat-field in the world. One field nine hundred miles by three hundred miles. I am talking about money, and this is Canadian money, with a population of between seven and seven and a half millions; and they have deposits of $917,000,000 in the bank.

We all know the phenomenal growth that Canada has had and is destined to have. When I asked, “What are the resources of Canada?” my friend replied, “I don’t know, Marling, but they are beyond the dreams of avarice.” Then I got this telegram from him to back it up:

“According to the census of 1901, the capital invested in Canada was $2,356,000,000 and the value of the products $992,200,000.”--ALFRED E. MARLING, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.

The great increase of wealth in the United States through a period of eight years (1900–1908) is shown in the tables below. Does it not mean a corresponding increase of national responsibility?

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

The greatest speech in American history is Lincoln's Gettysburg address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion -that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

(John Hay draft)

40 years ago when I was a first grade school child guns were as common as dirt. Many, if not most, adult males had a rifle or shotgun in the closet. Or in a rack in an unlocked truck. Many, if not most, had a .38 revolver in the nightstand drawer near their bed or in the glove box of the car. You could buy a revolver or even a 20mm anti-tank rifle through the mail from advertisers who placed ads in popular magazines.

There were no schoolyard massacres in those days. In those days the possession of so much as a Tijuana stag film could get an adult a few days in the pokey. Booze could not be sold from after midnight Saturday until Monday morning. Stores closed up by 6 PM on every other evening, 9 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. No stores were open on Sunday. The vagrancy laws were enforced, as were the curfew laws for children. If you spoke a racial slur or derogatory remark about someone’s family you were likely to get a broken nose for your pains. And then get whipped when you got home and had to explain yourself. Children were not allowed to talk back to their parents, nor were they allowed to run like a pack of wild animals through the stores or up and down the streets. Parents were the authorities you had to answer to. Punishment was a bar of soap in the mouth for lesser crimes and a belt across the buttocks for more serious offenses. All adults in the community were to be obeyed and respected. All adults in the community held themselves to be responsible for all the children.

Credit was something precious and hard to get, a badge of higher standing in the community. Bankruptcy was shameful, as was illegitimate birth. A young man who got a girl pregnant and didn’t do right by her would never get a responsible job in his own town and would have to spend years proving himself again as trustworthy. Thrift and virtue, viginity and self restraint, self-reliance and moral character were hallmarks of respect and public esteem.

Ministers, School authorities, Parents, all firmly believed that they had a moral responsibility to live and conduct themselves, and hold others to high standards of moral conduct and good character. They believed that setting an example for others was a civic obligation. The badge of authority of adulthood.

There were no schoolyard massacres in those days.

America, Since that time you have universalized every form of pornography and filth. You now have normalized every kind and type of perversion and deviancy. You have taught and rewarded Moral Relativism from kindergarten on through university for the last 4 decades. America you have made the murder of babies in the womb a routine substitute for moral character and an acceptable form of birth control, and in so doing proclaimed to all your children that their lives are worthless to you. You have allowed them to become the wards of the state by abandoning them to the public schools and turning your teachers into daycare workers and babysitters. You have encouraged and rewarded your children for remaining in a state of immaturity long into their adult years by remaining in that state of self-absorbed immaturity yourself. You have tolerated and rationalized, and justified self-indulgence as an enshrined right.

You, America, planted the seeds of wanton greed, lust, self-glorification, self-righteousness and arrogance. You have pacified your military into garbage collectors and traffic cops. You have militarized your policemen into para-military goon squads and unsupervised spy organizations. You have turned your face away and allowed priests to molest children and go unpunished. You have allowed your judges to become Social Experimenters. You have allowed your leaders to commit flagrant and public crimes and shouted down and demonized those who would hold them accountable. You have closed your eyes to blatant criminal activity and acts of war by your elected representatives so long as your wealth and positions are not harmed.

You have labored mightily for forty years and defended your choices against any and all who tried to stop the evil. You have made yourselves into indentured servants to unlimited desires and enslaved yourselves to mindless passions. You have elevated the most corrupt to the highest positions and persecuted those who would try to undo the horrors.

Now in your advancing years the fruits of your labors have come home to you. Now the seeds of destruction you sowed and nurtured and defended have flourished and are reaching their appointed harvest.

Why are you now surprised? You have reached the ultimate fulfillment of all your desires and dreams. Your aspirations have reached maturity. These are your children America. They are everything you raised them to be. They are the epitome of everything you slaved for all these years.

The children who have been performing these hideous acts of evil, these schoolyard massacres are not nice, normal, “ good kids “ who suddenly became deranged, slavering psychotics after touching a gun. Each and every one of them signaled their intent through their behavior months, years in advance. Each of them was known to parents, teachers, police, and other children as being twisted, perverse, dangerous and blatantly so. Each had a long history of flagrantly violent and dangerous behavior that was known to everyone they ever came into contact with.

Where were the adults all those years?

This is your reward for your lifetime’s success at sabotaging, betraying, denying and overturning a thousand years of law, morality, religion and culture. Embrace your legacy, your monstrous offspring. They are the mirror image of you, their parents and the society you have reshaped.

For a generation you have fought long and hard to achieve this day, You have succeeded. Now those other days are gone. Then, children respected their elders. Parents respected themselves, each other, and their leaders. America was respected by her friends, and by her enemies.

There were no schoolyard massacres in those days.

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, someone in Pakistan published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law, wrote the following to let everyone know what an American is, so they would know when they found one. [He apparently is not an Australian dentist as the original email stated.]

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An American is English, French, Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. The best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.

Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers in the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families. [I've been told that the people in the Towers were from at least 30, and maybe many more, other countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.]

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands, too, will join the community of free and prosperous nations. And America will welcome them!

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5027]

Early in the nineteenth century the French statesman, Alexander de Tocqueville, made a study of democracy in our country and wrote:

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there.

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there.

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there.

"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution, and it was not there.

"Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.

"America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

-- The Greatness of America by Alexander de Tocqueville

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Fourth of July sermon. Deuteronomy 4:5-9

UNDER GOD - OR NOT?

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I. Swimming against the tide.

II. Where the Pledge of Allegiance came from.

A. Written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister.

B. The pledge has become woven into American life.

III. Is America becoming anti-Christian?

A. Christians feel more pressure, as reflected in popular hoaxes:

B. A strong secularizing trend has been building for years.

IV. Separation of church and state.

A. Our government cannot establish a religion.

B. Our government cannot hinder the free exercise of religion.

C. Baptists believe in religious freedom.

V. America is founded on values.

A. Many of those values were religious, even Christian.

B. We do not want one religion to dominate the others.

C. There needs to be a foundation.

VI. Pray for America.

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For nearly a decade, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, an excellent group on the University of Virginia campus headed by respected Christian sociologist James Davison Hunter, has been conducting a “Survey of American Political Culture.” This survey measures changes in the “ideals, beliefs, [and] values” that “bind [Americans] together and direct their common actions.”

What emerges from the latest installment of the survey is a portrait of a culture that wants to have it both ways and doesn’t understand why that’s not possible.

According to the survey, “most Americans seek some balance or tension between commonality and diversity.” They want both a shared moral consensus and the freedom to choose their own values.

For example, 60 percent of respondents envisioned a future where “Americans will be more unified in their moral commitments.” Seventy-one percent saw Americans becoming more, not less, religious. And an overwhelming number aspired to an America where the “lines between good and bad will be firmer” and to a society where people “stand strongly behind their personal convictions.”

That SOUNDS good. But, at the same time, 60 percent of the respondents said that, in the future, “American families will take many forms.” That’s right — 60 percent do not support the most important moral commitment to the traditional family. And the respondents’ ideas about a more religious America did not include the religious tradition that created our way of life: Christianity. Three-quarters of them preferred a “mix of people of many faiths.”

The survey results may seem schizophrenic but, in one sense, they are understandable. What they are is an illustration of Americans’ confusion over what it takes to make a good society.

Take the attitudes towards religion. The results reflect the shift away from traditional religion, like Christianity, to what Americans have come to call vaguely “spirituality.” This shift enables people to enjoy the emotional and psychological benefits of religion without any restrictions on personal freedom.

The problem is that’s there no evidence that this kind of religion can build the kind of society for which the respondents yearn. On the contrary, the “firm line” they desire between good and bad comes from people subordinating their own opinions and desires to the requirements of their faith. As James Davison Hunter points out, it’s this submission and accountability to religious tradition that is the real source of morality.

Similarly, the authority of the family to teach and reinforce moral standards is undermined by the insistence that it can take any form we choose. Like religion, the family’s power to teach is rooted in the belief that it is the individual who must conform to its requirements and not the other way around. This binding of conscience is where the power to “stand strongly” comes from.

Thus, a future in which the traditional family and religion play less of a role is a future where moral commonality is less, not more, likely. Helping people to see this and other flaws in their thinking is one of the primary goals of good apologetics and of BreakPoint. People have to be made to see where postmodern thinking leads: It promises moral freedom, but produces moral chaos.

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

Read the spring 2003 issue of INSIGHT (http://www.virginia.edu/iasc/SPRING03INSight.pdf), the newsletter of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture that includes findings from the study mentioned in this BreakPoint commentary. (Free ADOBE ACROBAT READER required.)

Learn more about the INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN CULTURE and its “SURVEY OF AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE.” (http://www.virginia.edu/iasc/surveys.html)

“THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE FAMILY“ — At the April 4-6, 2003, BreakPoint conference, “Christians in the Marketplace,” held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Jennifer Roback Morse spoke about the “laissez-faire family” — the government’s approach to this foundation of society.

J. Budziszewski, “‘LITTLE PLATOONS’: GOD’S DESIGN FOR OUR RELATIONSHIPS,” BREAKPOINT WORLDVIEW, March 2003. (http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/OnlineFeatures/Little+Platoons.htm)

James Davison Hunter, THE DEATH OF CHARACTER: ON THE MORAL EDUCATION OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN (Basic Books, 2001).

Robert George, THE CLASH OF ORTHODOXIES: LAW, RELIGION, AND MORALITY IN CRISIS (ISI Books, 2001).

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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Sermon that looks at Rev. Falwell's assessment of blame for terrorist attack.

WHO MADE THIS HAPPEN?

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I. Overdosing on disaster.

II. Reasons for national disasters in the Bible.

A. Book of Judges: sin, judgment, prayer, judge (a general)

B. Categories of divine punishment in Deuteronomy 28:15-25.

C. Relevant points.

D. How did they know what caused a disaster?

III. Meaning of current disaster to a Christian.

A. Most basic meaning: Moslem terrorists made it happen.

B. Deeper spiritual meaning requires a prophet.

C. Did America's social decay play a part in tragedy?

IV. The morality of a nation matters.

A. Jesus pointed to repentance of pagan Nineveh.

B. America is religious, but shallow.

C. America should repent.

V. Not a judgment but an opportunity.

A. America has always stood for something special.

B. We have principles that have endured.

C. Our ultimate strength is our freedom and values, not our army.

VI. America will come out ahead.

A. America is more united than ever.

B. America is stronger than our enemies think.

C. America is more moral than our enemies think.

D. Are YOU making America more united, strong and moral?

One legacy of the Puritan settlement in North America is the genealogy of the "City on a Hill" ideal. John Winthrop, Governor and leader of the Massachusetts Bay Company, referenced the biblical term in a 1630 sermon he gave to his fellow Puritans on route to their new homes abroad. In his famous invocation he pronounced, "wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill."(fn.1)

Since Winthrop’s time, the term "City on a Hill" has come to inherit a special meaning for the way some have conceptualized the birth, growth, and success of America. Today, the allegory of America as the world’s City on a Hill encompasses a broad range of concepts, from freedom of religion to racial reconciliation. This appropriation of Winthrop’s famous reference, however, sheds little light on what his words might have meant to the Puritans he addressed in 1630. When we view the Massachusetts Bay Puritans not with our systematic categorization of Puritans as "good" or "bad", but with an interpretive eye that looks at the political and cultural factors that influenced the Company’s venture, we see clearly that the Puritans’ settlement did not occur in a historical vacuum. The Puritans’ City was not intended to be a birthplace of the new nation America, but rather a new community of reform - their own model society - centered around the tradition of old England and around the doctrine of their Puritan faith.

The creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company occurred in a capricious political and social environment. The term "Puritan," first used in the 1500’s, originally referred to a minority following within the Church of England.(fn.2) The Puritans were known to be staunch reformists who distrusted the hierarchical nature of the Church, and who sought to reform the Church by following in the steps of the Protestant Reformation leader John Calvin.(fn.3) They believed in strict adherence to biblical teachings and the importance of a personal relationship with God. In early 17th-Century England, questions of authority came to a head with the Stuart James I on one side of the debate, and an increasingly Puritan-minded Parliament on the other. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, who with much skill had successfully leveraged her toleration for the growing Puritan movement, James I and his successor Charles I flexed their commitment to royal authority in their clashes with a Puritan-backed Parliament. After the departure of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a civil war broke out in the mid-1600’s between the faction loyal to the crown and those who sided with Puritan interests.

The Puritan movement itself can be characterized as a dynamic bed of change. During Winthrop’s time, Conservative Puritans occupied one end of the spectrum. These Puritans wanted to model the Church of England after Scotland’s Presbyterian church. Separatist Puritans, who eventually split with the Church entirely, occupied the opposite end. And in the middle of the spectrum stood Puritans who believed earnestly in reforming the Church of England, their true church, yet did not see fit the conclusion of completely separating with the Church. It seems that Winthrop and his followers took this middle position.(fn.4)

These political and social forces of early 17th-Century England converged upon a devout Puritan named John Winthrop and the soon-to-be settlers of the Massachusetts Bay colony in a profound way. In 1629 Winthrop learned about the Massachusetts Bay Company, a new trading venture that had received rights to a plot of land in North America and authority from the King to establish a settlement there. The charter was unusual for its kind because it did not include the standard requirement of having the company headquartered in England. This meant that the company could establish itself as a self-governing group, with its board of directors, shareholders, and offices all physically located right in its midst. Taking advantage of this special opportunity, in 1630 the company departed for North America with charter in hand.

A number of prominent Puritans controlled the Company, and among the several hundred that eventually departed were educated Englishmen and Puritan ministers, but these Puritans had been neither the dissenting voices in Parliament, nor the leaders of the Puritan movement. Rather, the leaders and members of the group were men and women loyal to the crown who had been given an opportunity, finally, to accomplish what they could not in a tempestuous England - a society based on a Puritan-inspired reformed Church of England. Their "Citty upon a Hill" would be a model society built for the sake of their brethen at home, a community which once realized could be taken back home to England. In the same sermon in which he referenced the City on a Hill, Winthrop also encouraged the group to act as one community, to "mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes having before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke."(fn.5) Above all, their City on a Hill would be a community - if they succeeded, they would succeed together; if they failed, they would fail together. What they faced when they arrived in North America was a cultural and physical wilderness hardly imagined, and which critically shaped their latter generations.

Popular history tells a paradoxical story of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans: that on the one hand, as persons they were an overly strict and inherently hypocritical; but that on the other hand, they were the forefathers of America’s City on a Hill legacy. We might take this paradox for granted because it of its easy categorization, but as interpreters of the past, we need to uncover the reality behind the fallacies. Winthrop’s reference to the City on a Hill has trickled down to successive generations as a plethora of meanings, some of which are laughed at as outdated ideology, and some of which are respected fervently. Whichever may be the case, we can understand Winthrop’s sermon on that day in 1630 as having had a profound meaning to those who sincerely received his commission and made it their own.

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Footnotes:

1. "John Winthrop's City on a Hill, 1630," From Vincent Ferraro's website, www.mtholyoke.edu, September 1, 2000.

2. "Puritans," The World Book Encyclopedia, 1988.

3. Kai Erikson, WAYWARD PURITANS (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1966) 36.

4. Erikison 39-40.

5. "John Winthrop's City on a Hill, 1630."

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Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once wrote that America has created three great inventions:

The first, according to Vonnegut, is the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution, essential to our democratic system.

The second is Robert's Rules of Order, which an Army officer created in the 1860s. Major Robert was a member of the First Baptist Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was asked to chair a meeting of the congregation. The meeting went on for 13 hours, and Major Robert vowed that he would never again chair a church meeting without a rule book to guide him.

The third great American invention, according to Kurt Vonnegut, is the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. These steps, Vonnegut feels, rank right up there with the Bill of Rights and Robert's Rules of Order as the three greatest inventions created by our nation.

The American Civil Liberties Union is waging an aggressive campaign to expunge the American public square from all things religious, and specifically all things Christian. The most recent casualty in the group's crusade is a cross displayed on the official seal of Los Angeles County.

A tiny cross is one of several symbols displayed on the southern California county's seal. Its inclusion is intended to commemorate the role Christianity played in the founding of the area. But the most prominent figure on the seal is the goddess Pomona -- the Roman goddess of gardens and fruit trees –- which apparently is not offensive to the ACLU.

The ACLU maintained the presence of the small cross made non-Christians feel “unwelcome” and it threatened to bring a lawsuit against Los Angeles County if it was not removed. County commissioners caved, voting 3-2 to remove the Christian symbol.

What is most disturbing about the ACLU's scorched-earth policy against Christianity is that the group maintains it is carrying out the will of America's Founding Fathers. The group asserts that the First Amendment's clause pertaining to religion mandates a public square that is solely secular.

Is the ACLU correct? Did America's founders intend to have a nation in which religious references were not to be seen or heard? Their actions indicate otherwise.

In his book, “On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding,” American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Novak highlights several events that took place during the formative years of the United States that “constitute mighty obstacles to a merely secular interpretation of the founding.”

One event took place at the opening of the First Continental Congress. As delegates arrived in Philadelphia they learned that Charlestown had been attacked by British soldiers. In response, they voted to begin their meeting with prayer.

A local clergyman prefaced his prayer by reading Psalm 35 aloud, Novak says. John Adams wrote to his wife and described the event. He indicated, “[I] had never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. I never saw a greater affect upon an audience.”

Adams continued, “It seemed as if heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning. ... It was enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave pacific Quakers of Philadelphia. ... I must beg you to read that Psalm.”

Also included in Novak's list of events indicating the religious nature of the founders is an incident that took place five months after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

America was suffering under the effects of war as well as a devastating drought. In response, writes Novak, “Congress set aside December 11, 1776, and decreed that the separate States should organize a Day of Fasting and Repentance.”

Included in the decree was the admonition “to implore of Almighty God the forgiveness of the many sins prevailing among all ranks, and to beg the countenance as assistance of his Providence in the prosecution of the present just and necessary war.”

Novak also details George Washington's training of his troops for battle with the British. He indicates that the general “gave orders that each day begin with formal prayer, to be led by the officers of each unit.”

Washington believed that “the Continental Army must secure God's blessing on their efforts every day, by every means within their power.” Further the general maintained, “Nothing else could guarantee success. There was no other hope.”

The aforementioned events are only a sampling of many recounted by Novak in the book. They are but a small portion of a significant body of evidence that indicates the ALCU is dead wrong in its assertion the founders wanted religion absent from the public square.

The Founding Fathers would consider the removal of a tiny cross on a county or city seal preposterous. If America's founders were alive today, they likely would hold the ACLU in the same regard as they did King George III.

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A close friend of ours was in China recently on family business. In the process, he had a wonderful opportunity to worship with some Chinese believers in a Sunday church service. It was a not-to-be-forgotten experience. They pointed him to something he didn't even know existed in China - a Christian bookstore. It was the only one in this large city. It's hard to find, and it's stuffed into this very small space on the fourth floor of a nondescript building - but it's a Christian bookstore in China. Our friend commented in an e-mail about the small number of Christian books that were available there in Chinese. In addition to books, they also had a small selection of Christian bookmarks and refrigerator magnets with verses or inspirational thoughts on them. There was one fridge magnet that our friend absolutely could not, and cannot, get out of his mind. Here in the midst of this great city in this great land where Christians have paid such a price to follow Jesus was a magnet that simply said, “Pray for America.” The only comment our friend had was this: “How humbling.” I guess.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “So Rich, So Needy.”

If you're an American Christian, you probably think of China as a place we need to pray for - and it is. But in China, apparently they think they need to pray for us, and indeed they do. Their faith is passionate there; ours is often so casual and powerless. What for Chinese believers is a passion is for too many of us more of a profession, a bunch of religious activities or a religious business. We have so much, and yet in terms of spiritual power and passion, we seem to have so little. They have so little and yet, in many ways, they have so much. I'm glad and I'm humbled that they're praying for us.

If you're an American Christian, I hope you're praying for us, too. It's hard to read the description of the Laodicean church in Revelation 3 and not see us American believers in those words: “You are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm ... I am about to spit you out of My mouth. You say, 'I am rich' ... but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” We live amid the greatest spiritual wealth in the history of the Christian church. We've got Christian everything: books, videos, conferences, seminars, celebrities, buildings. And yet with the largest Christian subculture in the history of the Church, we've lost our culture for Christ. And we are the “12:48 People” who live under the judgment of our Master's words in Luke 12:48, “To whom much is given, much is required.”

So the call of 2 Chronicles 7:14, our word for today from the Word of God, must be a call to you and me. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” The destiny of a nation depends on what God's people do. Not the politicians or the secular humanists or the abortionists. As we go, so goes our nation. And we need to be going to our knees for ourselves - repenting of our proud self-reliance, abandoning the faith we have in programs and depending on prayer instead, seeking to know God - to touch His face - not just to know more about God - and to admit our compromises and our sin and abandon it.

From there, we have to realize the responsibility we each have as a Christian from the strongest, richest, most resourced Church in our world. For God has always judged the true righteousness of His people by their love and commitment to three groups of people: the poor, the victims, and the lost. Is that what we're about? Is that what you're about? Somewhere in China today, they're praying for us. Let's be part of the answer to their prayers!

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

*

Jean-Francois Revel, one of Europe's greatest defenders of human liberty, died Saturday in Paris, at age 82. As a younger man, Revel had been attracted to Marxism and socialism. Like a generation of his fellow French philosophers, Revel thought America to be decadent and repressive. Yet, when he actually visited the United States, he found a very different reality. He was never uncritical of the United States, but he saw America as the shape of the future, even as he saw Europe losing faith in democratic values.

Revel was one of the first to see the deep evil of the Soviet Union, and he called on the great democracies to defend liberty in an increasingly dangerous world. His death marks the passing of a generation of leading European intellectuals who had been shaped by the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century. To mark his death, here is an article I wrote in Revel's honor in 2003:

“Democracy may, after all, turn out to have been a historical accident, a brief parenthesis that is closing before our eyes.” With those words, French philosopher Jean-Francois Revel sounded an alarm as the ramparts of democratic conviction were under attack by the political left. Revel, one of the most important conservative thinkers in France, saw European intellectuals and the political left in America undermining the very foundations of democracy.

“Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is needed to counter them,” explained Revel. “It awakens only when the danger becomes deadly, imminent, evident. By then, either there is too little time left for it to save itself, or the price of survival has become crushingly high.”

To any insightful observer of the European scene in the early 1980s, Revel's analysis was prophetic. Leftist intellectuals were pointing to the United States as the source of all oppression in the world, while praising the Soviet Union as the liberator of human kind. In HOW DEMOCRACIES PERISH, Revel aimed his sights at the self-destructive hypocrisies of liberal thought. As he knew, the very intellectuals who should have been supporting the United States were instead hoping for its downfall. “What we end up with in what is conventionally called Western society is a topsy-turvy situation in which those seeking to destroy democracy appear to be fighting for legitimate aims, while its defenders are pictured as repressive reactionaries.”

As Revel lamented, at times the democracies seemed to find strange comfort in calls for their own destruction. As he observed, “Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another is power [?] is working to destroy it.” Were democracies doomed to self-destruct?

Jean-Francois Revel is well known as a shining light of reason in the French academy. Long a columnist, editor, and director of L'EXPRESS, Revel is also the author of a multi-volume history of philosophy. He sprang to Western attention with the publication of his controversial book, WITHOUT MARX OR JESUS. Revel's later volumes would include THE TOTALITARIAN TEMPTATION and DEMOCRACY AGAINST ITSELF.

Throughout his career, Revel has been known as a stalwart defender of democracy. He does not take this matter lightly, for he understands all too well that the basic structure of government determines the achievement or loss of human freedom within a society. In DEMOCRACY AGAINST ITSELF, Revel argued that “every society which has worked more or less well, which achieved any sort of viability, and which produced civilizations men found tolerable, have been -- or are -- societies that in some sense are democratic.”

Of course, the alarm sounded by Revel in HOW DEMOCRACIES PERISH was overtaken by history with the fall of the Soviet Union and the remarkable events of 1989 and 1990. As Revel later reflected, the good news revealed in the fall of the Soviet Union was the fact that its internal weaknesses were even greater than the self-hatred of the secular left in Western democracies.

Now, twenty years after HOW DEMOCRACIES PERISH, Revel looks to the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks and asks the fundamental question: Why do so many Europeans hate America?

This is not a question of merely academic interest. Revel senses that something fundamental is revealed in the way the European Left has responded to America's status as the world's only super power.

Revel is blunt. The ascendancy of the United States, set over against the relative decline of Europe, has given birth to an intense hatred in some European corridors. Most particularly, Revel locates the root of this poisonous anti-Americanism in France. As he comments, “It is in France that this loss -- real or imaginary -- of great-power status engenders the most bitterness.”

The virulent anti-Americanism that erupted on the streets of Europe in the aftermath of America's military action in Afghanistan and Iraq did not emerge from a vacuum. Revel's interest in anti-Americanism is rooted in his own experience as an French intellectual who actually visited the United States. When Revel first visited America in 1969, he discovered a land very different from what he expected. Having planned to write a book on the problems of the United States, Revel instead wrote a treatise criticizing the irrational anti-Americanism of the European Left. Now, he has done it again -- and this new book may be even more important.

In ANTI-AMERICANISM, just released by Encounter Books, Revel considers this toxic pattern of European hatred towards the United States. He identifies one core issue as a sense of European loss. Revel cites Hubert Vedrine, the French minister of foreign affairs, who rejected the word “superpower”, and instead substituted a term of his own invention: “hyperpower.”

As Revel notes, since the Greek prefix “hyper” has exactly the same meaning as the Latin “super,” Mr. Vedrine is merely seeking to score political capital in his own nation and in the larger European neighborhood. As Vedrine stated, “We cannot except a politically unipolar and culturally homogenized world, any more than the unilateralism of the single hyperpower.” Exactly what Mr. Vedrine meant by this, no one seems to know. Nevertheless, it is an example of French hyperventilation posing as foreign policy.

Revel sees the problem as much worse than hyperbole. If America is dominant, Revel asks, then why is this so? He will not allow Europeans off the hook. “Europeans in particular should force themselves to examine how they have contributed to that preponderance. It was they, after all, who made the twenty century the darkest in history; it was they who brought about the two unprecedented cataclysms of the World Wars; and it was they who invented and put into place the two most criminal regimes ever inflicted on the human race -- pinnacles of evil and imbecility achieved in a space of less than thirty years.”

The United States is far from perfect, Revel acknowledges. Nevertheless, he suggests that any criticisms should be directed at real problems, and should not take the form of irrational rantings.

According to Revel, the European Left enjoys its fantasy of America as “the worst society that ever was.” According to this cartoon of reality, America is a society that is entirely under the control of money-grubbing plutocrats. Everything is for sale and the entire culture has been commodified. The problem is not just George W. Bush, for the European Left is convinced that every recent American president “has been in the pockets of the oil companies, the military-industrial complex, the agricultural lobby or the financial manipulators of Wall Street.” But, in the French view, George W. Bush is just the worst of the lot -- at least as yet.

The European Left is also convinced that America is primarily marked by poverty. As Revel describes the Leftist fantasy: “Hordes of famished indigents are everywhere, while luxurious chauffeured limousines with darkened windows glide through the urban wilderness.” These same thinkers are convinced that violence reigns throughout the United States, and that gunshots commonly ring through even the most peaceable neighborhoods. As Revel acknowledges, European rants about America's lax gun laws would have more credibility if the same weapons were not easily available for purchase through the black market in virtually every European city.

If this picture of America is true, the pattern of immigration from Europe to the United States throughout the twentieth century was absolutely irrational. “If the picture of American society drawn everyday by the European press is accurate, then we must believe that those tens of millions of immigrants from all parts of the world, and especially those who came from Europe between 1850 and 1924, were all deluded fools. Otherwise, why did they insist on staying in the American capitalist jungle with all its evils and not return to the lands of peace, plenty, and liberty they came from? Lost in a hellish cultural wasteland, why at least didn't they write to their families and relations basking in the paradises of Ukraine, Calabria and Greece warning them not to come to America?” Clearly, Revel does not mince words.

This virulent anti-Americanism is not a matter of mere sociological interest. As Revel understands, this explains why the United Nations Security Council has become so ineffectual and why the United States has been forced to act unilaterally. As he explains, “Europeans' voluntary blindness with regard to these radical changes renders any American attempts at dialogue fruitless; as a result, America has no other option but to make unilateral decisions. How can you discuss a problem with people who deny its very existence?”

Jean-Francois Revel is a brave man who has lived through some of the most tumultuous decades of human history. Though a realist, he is not without hope. He has sounded the alarm more than once, only to have the Left ignore his cries. ANTI-AMERICANISM is Revel's latest attempt to call the trendsetting intellectuals of Europe back to sanity. Good luck, Professor Revel. This is no easy task.

Revel's prescient warning to the European Left should also serve to educate thoughtful Americans about the challenge we face in Europe, which may be as daunting a challenge as that posed by Islamic terrorism. Something sick lies at the heart of Western civilization. The democracies that will surely perish will be those who cannot tell the difference between good and evil, survival and ruin, freedom and tyranny. Or, perhaps more to the point, the greatest danger faced by democracy are those who deny that there is any real difference after all.

If you listen to the historical revisionists, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were mostly agnostics and atheists, but if they had any religious inclinations, it was toward deism. Deism is the belief that God is a detached deity; He created the world, but He no longer intervenes in the affairs of men. So there’s no need to pray or rely on “divine Providence.” But wait a minute, isn’t that what they said in the Declaration -- “with a firm reliance upon divine Providence”?

In fact, if you carefully read the document the signers drafted and approved, you will find that they pointed to God no less than four times:

• “[T]he Laws of Nature and of Nature's God....”

• “[A]ll Men are created equal ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights....”

• “[A]ppealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions....”

• “[W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Our nation’s founding document was more than a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain; it was a Declaration of Dependence upon Almighty God.

Some secular fundamentalists might protest: “What about the men themselves? Weren’t they mostly deists, agnostics or atheists?” Let’s examine some of their words and deeds, and then be your own judge.

Why not start with the committee charged with drafting the Declaration? These five men were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. Let me admit up front that two of the most unorthodox Founding Fathers from a Christian perspective were Jefferson and Franklin. If we had to put a religious designation on them, it wouldn’t be deist, but probably Unitarian. In other words, both believed in a God who was providentially active in human affairs, but they didn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. Yet both promoted biblical Christianity for the new nation.

Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old when he wrote the first draft of the Declaration. He was raised as an Episcopalian, but came to disbelieve the divinity of Christ and the miracles of the Bible. He even produced his own New Testament with those miracle sections edited out. However, when he was appointed as a member of a committee to draft a seal for the newly formed United States that would capture the spirit of this new nation, Jefferson proposed a rendering of the children of Israel being led by God in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. When Jefferson became president, he authored the plan of education for the District of Columbia’s public schools, which included these two textbooks: The Bible and Isaac Watts’ “Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs” (1707). Jefferson also closed his presidential documents with the phrase, “In the year of our Lord Christ; by the President; Thomas Jefferson.”

Furthermore, he faithfully attended church services in the U. S. Capitol building, and even provided the worship service with a government paid orchestra. When the services grew too large, he began similar Christian services in his own Executive Branch, both at the Treasury building and at the War office. The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State would be particularly troubled by President Jefferson’s statement: “No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can 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.”

What about Benjamin Franklin? Well, Ben Franklin was raised as a Presbyterian, but never became a Christian and experienced several moral failures. Yet he was supportive of biblical Christianity. In fact, Franklin regularly attended worship at Christ Church in Philadelphia along with many of the Founding Fathers. In July of 1776, Franklin was also appointed to the same committee along with Jefferson to draft a national seal. He proposed a rendering of “Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the red sea, and pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters,” and having this motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

Franklin loved George Whitefield, the Great Awakening preacher. In the last letter Franklin wrote to Whitefield, he expressed a desire to join up with him: “I sometimes wish, that you and I were jointly employ'd by the Crown to settle a colony on the Ohio.... Might it not greatly facilitate the introduction of pure religion among the heathen, if we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly see in our Indian traders?” He dreamed of working with George Whitefield to demonstrate authentic Christianity!

It was Ben Franklin, the eldest member of the committee drafting our Constitution, who chided the delegates because they had not submitted their plans for a new government to God:

“In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection -- our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor.

“To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

“We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it' [Psalm 127:1a]. I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages....

“I therefore beg leave to move -- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

Here was probably the least religious of the Founding Fathers calling for prayer and quoting Scripture. Some said it was the turning point of the Constitutional Convention. Well, so much for the least religious members of the Declaration committee. What about the other members?

You have heard of John Adams, the nation’s second president. Yet he is also referred to as a deist or an agnostic or an atheist. However, consider his words as he reflected on the foundations of our nation in a letter to Thomas Jefferson some 40 years after helping him draft and then sign the Declaration. John Adams stated in that letter: “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were ... the general principles of Christianity.... Now 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.” The general principles upon which our nation was founded, said John Adams, were the general principles of Christianity. He doesn’t sound much like a deist, agnostic, or atheist to me.

What about Roger Sherman? He was distinguished as the only Founding Father to sign all four major founding documents: The Articles of Association, 1774; The Declaration of Independence, 1776; The Articles of Confederation, 1777; and The Constitution of the United States, 1787. He also was there for the debate on the Bill of Rights guaranteeing among other things our religious freedom. He seconded Franklin’s motion that Congress have a chaplain lead prayer, and supported Elias Boudinot’s motion to have a national day of Thanksgiving to God when the amendments to the Constitution passed.

As a member of the White Haven Congregational Church, Roger Sherman was asked to use his expertise in revising the wording of the congregation's statement of faith, which states in part: “I believe that God ... did send his own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind, so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the gospel offer.” Sherman even preached on occasion. One of his sermons was titled: “A Short Sermon on the Duty of Self-Examination Preparatory to Receiving the Lord's Supper.” Sherman also faithfully served as a deacon as well as church clerk and treasurer. The epitaph on his tombstone reads: “He ever adorned the profession of Christianity which he made in youth; and, distinguished through life for public usefulness, died in the prospect of a blessed immortality.”

Robert Livingston was the final member of the Declaration committee. A graduate of King’s College (Columbia University), Livingston helped draft, but for some unknown reason, did not sign the Declaration. Yet he is also described as a “sincere and devoted Christian.”

In fact, of the 56 signers of the Declaration, about half were educated in schools established for the purpose of training ministers for the Gospel, and thus received degrees from what many today would consider seminaries. Several of the Founders also served as ministers, chaplains or were active in Christian service.

After our Founding Fathers approved the Declaration of Independence on July 2, John Hancock and Charles Thomson signed it to make it legal on July 4th. John Adams proposed that when America’s future citizens celebrated the Declaration of Independence, it ought to be done by recognizing God. He wrote his wife, Abigail, that the day should be “celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever.”

This week we celebrate the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When you celebrate, remember the words of John Adams and thank God for the blessings of liberty we enjoy in America, and for those 56 men who not only declared their independence from Great Britain, but their dependence upon Almighty God. Not bad for a bunch of “deists, agnostics and atheists,” huh?

________

Kenyn M. Cureton is vice president for convention relations for the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.

Independence Day, that chaos of flags, fireworks and watermelon, will be a little tentative this unique year. Those who fidget at seeing an American flag in church or hearing the national anthem sung once a year in worship will perhaps be more numerous and fidgety this year.

But I still join those who celebrate America. There are reasons to do so.

First, I’m grateful. Those who founded our country and who kept it through very difficult days have delivered to us a nation that has blessed the world. We are recipients of a nation that many long to join and only a few silly celebrities speak of leaving. I’m grateful for the liberty built into our nation and guarded by its founding documents. We benefit from those liberties each day. I benefit from it in writing this column. Whoever else may not like it, I don’t have to worry about the opinion of those in political power. That’s not true everywhere.

I also admire my country, not because it lives up to its ideals but because it has them.

Those high-minded aspirations are not forgotten but rather arise every time someone believes we are neglecting them to the detriment of our people. Some nations would be worse places if they were all they desire to be. America becomes better when it hews closer to its expressed values.

America is a place of hope because our ideals were drawn out of a mostly Judeo-Christian culture. Where we have repeatedly fallen short of those principles it has been reformers with Bibles in their hands who have clamored loudly for change. Listen to the rhetoric of abolitionists and civil rights activists and hear the biblical references.

But love for America is like my belief in God. I can give rational reasons for it that seem compelling but ultimately I love America (and believe in God) because I do. Others who love other home places don’t convince me as they sing the praises of their own countries. Perhaps people abandon their homes for rational reasons, but we don’t usually embrace our homes because of logic. Having a place you call home -- a place, not just a homestead -- is a gift of God.

Think of Israel, of Jerusalem. I’ve seen it and wouldn’t fight you for the landscape. It’s a harsh place, desert, a place of extremes and turmoil. A casual reading of Psalm 137 leaves me wondering, “Why the passion?” But letting the Hebrew children wander for a generation made them want a home of their own; anyplace sounds better than circling the Sinai. And Jerusalem was much better than the Judean desert. Maybe it’s relative but it’s so much more than that. The Promised Land was given as an imperfect image of the Perfect Land to come. Jerusalem has not been a city of peace for much of its history, but at its best it gives a peek at the heavenly city we will see one day. At its worst it makes us long for New Jerusalem and the return of its King.

So I love America because it is my home. Something would have to compel me to leave rather than convince me to stay. I recognize the meaning of Jerusalem is unique in the world, but I also think the gift of a home place can serve a similar purpose in anyone’s life. I have seen the best side of 10 foreign countries and the worst side of several. I didn’t long to stay in any of them, but I found people there who were happily at home. When people think of heaven they think of a place where they will be perfectly safe, perfectly at rest and perfectly “at home.” They long for “a city not made with hands” (Hebrews 11:10) but the concept of that city starts with the place God gave them.

G.K. Chesterton explores this so well in an essay in his book “Heretics,” critiquing Rudyard Kipling. His contention is that Kipling, a cosmopolitan Englishman, loved England because of her qualities in a similar way that he loves other places because of their qualities. Kipling saw England in passing rather than as the farmer hoeing his potato field saw it. The farmer saw England as his world and the globetrotting writer saw it as an admirable place in the world. Kipling was to Chesterton “the philanderer of the nations,” a man who loved something about many countries with a “because of” love but who never knew that first love, the “regardless” love.

Maybe you see the deeper point. Our country is troubled, and troubling -- no matter how it compares to another place. But it is the place from which I see the whole world. It is the place that taught me to love a home place. And America teaches me, at its best and worst, to long for the perfect country that will be my home forever.

The Bible is believed to be the most widely read and translated book of all time. But how do Americans view the Bible? A report released by the evangelical Christian research firm Barna Group in January 2013 aimed to answer that question. They interviewed 42,855 people nationwide to help them determine the most and least Bible-minded cities in America. Individuals who report reading the Bible in a typical week and who strongly assert the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches are considered to be Bible-minded.

Knoxville, Tennessee, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, tied for the most biblical city in the nation with 52%. Providence, Rhode Island, won the least biblical city with 9%. While the South had the strongest numbers, other stereotypically known Bible Belt cities fell to the mid-range rankings including Houston, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and San Antonio, Texas. Colorado Springs, Colorado, deemed the No. 1 “holiest city” by Men’s Health in 2011, has fallen to the middle of the pack.

Of the top 25 Bible-minded markets, only three have a population of greater than 1 million households: Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, Tennessee, and Raleigh/Durham, N.C.

Surprisingly the most biblical cities only scored 52%. That is just a little over half the people in those cities would be considered “open” to the Bible and conversely, 48% would be resistance to the Bible. As Barna puts it, “The least sanguine way to analyze the results would be to emphasize the lack of Bible-mindedness in America; in 91 out of 96 markets a majority of the residents are not Bible minded.”

David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, says that an optimistic way to view the low ratings would be to look at those cities with at least one-fifth Bible-mindedness — meaning those areas where at least one out of five adults are open to engaging and esteeming the Bible. Among some researchers, this proportion — 20% — is often thought to be something of a social or technological “tipping point” (for example, once one in five people had mobile phones, the momentum toward more people owning mobile phones began to grow exponentially). In this analysis, 83 out of 96 cities in the U.S. have at least 20% of their residents qualifying as Bible-minded. Christian leaders should recognize that most of the major cities in the nation continue to have basis for biblical engagement among a significant share of the population.

Those who think religion itself contributes to ignorance also found comfort in the standings. Brian Hill noted, "Without a doubt, the 10 top Bible-minded cities have high crime, divorce rates, domestic violence statistics, and child neglect/abuse cases. Cites at the bottom of the rankings, e.g., Boston, New Haven,CT and Providence RI will have among the lowest rates of the above problems."

Most Bible-Minded Cities

1. Knoxville, Tenn.

2. Shreveport, La.

3. Chattanooga, Tenn.

4. Birmingham, Ala.

5. Jackson, Miss.

6. Springfield, Mo.

7. Charlotte, N.C.

8. Roanoke/Lynchburg, Va.

9. Huntsville, Ala.

10. Charleston, W.Va.

Least Bible-Minded Cities

1. Providence, R.I./ New Bedford, Mass

2. Albany, N.Y.

3. Burlington, Vt.

4. Portland, Maine

5. Hartford/New Haven, Conn.

6. Boston, Mass.

7. San Francisco, Calif.

8. Phoenix, Ariz.

9. Cedar Rapids, Iowa

10. Buffalo, N.Y.

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The study was commissioned by the American Bible Society.

This article was adapted from the following sources:

http://cities.barna.org/americas-most-and-least-bible-minded-cities/

http://www.examiner.com/article/most-and-least-bible-minded-cities-america

http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20130128/NEWS01/301280311?nclick_check=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/most-and-least-bible-minded-cities-in-america_n_2571459.html

Things weren’t going well in 1893. The country had settled into a depression that put one in five Americans out of work. Still, Katharine Lee Bates, a young English teacher who had taken a summer teaching job in Colorado, scanned the horizon and saw hope. Her train ride from Massachusetts had passed through enormous wheat fields in Kansas. Later in the summer she had ridden a donkey to the summit of Pikes Peak. She was only on the top for 30 minutes, but she later remarked, “It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.”

After she returned to her hotel room that night, she remarked to friends that countries such as England had failed because, while they may have been “great,” they had not been “good.” She added that “unless we are willing to crown our greatness with goodness, and our bounty with brotherhood, our beloved America may go the same way.”

Based on her experiences on that trip, she wrote a poem that two years later was published in a church newspaper for their 4th of July edition. They paid her $5.

Churches loved the poem and soon it was put to music. The most popular tune, and the one we use today, was written by Samuel Ward, a church organist living in Newark, New Jersey. He wrote it on the cuff of a friend’s shirt.

By 1926 a strong push was made to adopt the hymn as the national anthem of the United States but President Hoover chose the “Star-Spangled Banner” instead. Many still prefer “America the Beautiful” and think it is an expression of patriotism at its finest. One writer has said it conveys an attitude of appreciation and gratitude for the nation’s extraordinary physical beauty and abundance, without being triumphalistic.

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Adapted from these articles:

“America The Beautiful: The “Almost” National Anthem of the United States,”

“America the Beautiful,” The Library of Congress: Performing Arts Encyclopedia,

“Her Hymn Endures,” Nick Charles, People magazine,