America’s Forefathers in the Faith Didn’t Retreat From the Public Square
The fact that America was established by Christians on a religious mission may come as quite a shock to the millennial generation.
But even the church in America has lost the vision of America’s Founders, men and women who wrote things like this: “We do hereby Dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth … .”*
Having capitulated to the 1963 removal of Scripture from public schools, Christians are now “disarmed”—(His Word, and “prayer and tears” are the nuclear weapons of heaven). By controlling public education, secularism succeeded in imposing anti-Christian views, values, politics and laws on the last two or three generations of America’s future citizen-leaders. Secularism aims to ensure that America’s youth will be completely engulfed in its false doctrine and worldview.
In contrast, America’s Founders perceived that they were part of a larger plan of divine orchestration. They believed they were bringing the kingdom of God to all the Earth. Unlike the church in the last century, America’s forefathers in the faith did not retreat from the public square. As one historian writes, “They did not turn civil government, the making, enforcement and adjudication of laws over to Satan and those who serve him. They did not surrender the ministry of civil government to those who are in rebellion against God.”** No, the Founders recognized that freedom and liberty depend upon virtue and virtue depends upon Christianity.
It’s worth revisiting the truth spelled out by M. Stanton Evans in his seminal work, “The Theme Is Freedom”: “It was Christianity—not paganism, ‘religious neutrality’ or secularism—which produced freedom and justice in the West and in America.”***
How bare the cupboard stands today without national leadership advancing the religious mission that established America. What easy prey we have become, “tossed here and there by waves and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, by craftiness with deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:14).
Take, for example, President Barack Obama’s presentation at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., last month. Although he peppered his speech with references to God, his message had not a single thing in common with traditional Christianity. His performance advanced the notion that to be a good citizen, an upstanding member of the community, one has only to convey a secular orientation and perspective. His bottom line? Each American should voluntarily adjust and bring their ideas, beliefs and actions into line with secularism.
Surveying the burnt rubble and decay of a nation that has surrendered its moral distinctiveness as “One Nation under God,” America’s Founders would be nauseated.
Even Thomas Paine wrote, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
Spiritually we must apply a counteractant to save America. We must learn to go on the offensive again, using the weapons of heaven—the Word of God and the “prayer and tears” of His people. These are the weapons of heaven that tear down spiritual strongholds.
As C.H. Spurgeon said, “The strongest battalions melt like snowflakes when God is against them.”****
But where do we begin?
“We must humble ourselves and recognize that America’s problem is us—you and me. We cannot cure our own miseries because our disease is something we have chosen as, step by step, our nation has walked away from God. Our leaders, the government, the courts we see today are products of our desire to rule ourselves. What we have is what we asked for. We need to pray more and complain less. There are two reasons that we have the leaders that we do: (1) We voted them into office and (2) when God wants to judge a people, He gives them unjust rulers. The proper response should be: Yes, we have gotten exactly what we deserve. God gives corrupt people corrupt leaders.”*****
Pastors and pews must focus on the local level—school board, city council, mayor, etc. … There we will begin to build in the public square. As David Barton wrote, “We have to make sure and keep their focus not on the national or on the statewide level, but on the local level, and begin to build the assembly from the bottom up, not from the top down. In the first four battles of the American Revolution, nobody ever asked George Washington what to do. They all defended their own home turf. Throughout the American Revolution the national battles were won because everyone was winning their local battles.”
Men and women of Issachar, who know the times and know what to do, must bring biblical values to the public square—their backyards, their local community.
We simply need a Gideon or Rahab to stand. {eoa}
* Jamestown Founder Robert Hunt
** B.F. Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States
*** Ibid.
**** Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
***** Keith Krell, Daniel Commentary
