PART 32
By
Pastor Roger Anghis
December 18, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
Return To America’s Exceptionalism
Our Founders established a nation of people that were not dependent on government to supply their needs. They were independent men and women determined to prosper or fail on their own merits. The foundation of their belief in their right to be self-governed, right to property, freedom to do whatever they want to make a living, be who they wanted to be was all grounded in the Bible.
All our history is the result of a nation that lives and governs itself based on Christian principles. That history produced an education system that was second to none in the world. That history includes a nation that has been the most innovative in the history of the world concerning technology of all kinds. America has been so ingenious that in the early 1970’s with only 6% of the worlds farmable land our processes, equipment and innovations in farming allowed America to not only feed itself, but we feed the world too. Compare that with the former USSR who has 30% of the farmable land and can’t even feed herself. When American’s decide to do something, we do it. In 1961 President Kennedy made a commitment to put a man on the moon. At that time there was over one million components that had not been invented that was needed to make that happen. But in the summer of 1969, we put a man on the moon.
Our nation, for the most part, has always had a man of courage at its head. Our leaders have always believed in the greatness of America and believed that it could overcome any obstacle that it may face. When this nation began Washington believed that as long as we adhered to our Christian principles we would be strong. He believed that patriotism was vital to national strength. In his Farewell Address he stated:
The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more that any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits and political Principles. . .
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensible supports.[1]
He believed that America could overcome all things because of its foundation in God.
James Madison, our fourth president, also believed in the greatness of America. He authored 29 of the 85 Federalist Papers and in #39 he stated:
That honourable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.[2]
In 1778 he made this statement: We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for Self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to The Ten Commandments of God.[3]
Abraham Lincoln proved that America depended on God’s guidance in the daily affairs the nation. He told Noah Brooks:
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day.[4]
Lincoln furthered the tradition of relying on God’s direction when he stated to the House Judiciary Committee chairman, James Wilson in June of 1862:
I trust that He shall further open the way; I will be ready to walk therein, relying of His help and trusting in His goodness and wisdom.[5]
A few weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg, in June of 1863, a college president asked Lincoln if he thought America would survive the Civil War. Lincoln’s response:
I do not doubt that our country will finally come through safe and undivided. But do not misunderstand me. . . . I do not rely on the patriotism of our people . . . the bravery and devotion of the boys in blue . . . or the loyalty and skill of our generals. . . .But on the God of our fathers, Who raised up this country to be the refuge and asylum of the oppressed and downtrodden of all nations, will not let it perish now. I may not live to see it. . . I do not expect to see it, but God will bring us through safe.[6]
Lincoln depended on God as all Presidents and the people before him had done. It was this reliance on God and His hand working on our behalf that molded and formed America’s government and society. That has been slowly taken away from us to where it is no longer ‘constitutional’ for our leaders to publically seek His face and guidance, something that our forefathers did on a daily basis.
George Washington is quoted in James K. Paulding’s A Life of Washington stating:
It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe, without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the universe without a Supreme Being. It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.
Religion is as necessary to reason as is reason to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to.[7]
This
statement gives foundation to the fact that our Founders were, without
a doubt, a Christian people who depended on God for their every need
and direction. They were not the deists and atheists that the modern
historians suggest. It was their devotion to the God of Christianity
that molded this nation into a nation of entrepreneurs that became the
most innovative in history.
President Teddy Roosevelt declared in 1909 an ominous warning about
the future of America if it faltered from the path our Founders began:
Progress has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled difficulties. Thus, the measure of our civilization will not be that we have done much, but what we have done with that much. I believe that the next half century will determine if we will advance the cause of Christian civilization of revert to the horrors of brutal paganism. The thought of modern industry in the hands of Christian charity is a dream worth dreaming. The thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare beyond imagining. The choice between the two is upon us.[8]
Roosevelt
also believed that the principles of the Bible were closely woven into
not just our social life but our government as well and that it would
be disaster to try to separate them. He declared:
Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teaching of the
Bible are so interwoven and entwined within our whole civic and social
life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure ourselves
what that life would be if these standards were removed. We would lose
almost all the standards towards which we, with more or less resolution,
strive to raise ourselves.[9]
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All of our leaders have always believed in America and the free market system that made America great. Today’s leaders are not like that. We have former presidents and vice-presidents that will travel to foreign soil and talk America down. They have stated that America is arrogant. When the leader of a nation believes that the nation he leads is not a great nation he will begin the seeds of destruction within it.
Our nation has been the only nation in the world, ever, that has kept most of the world free. We are the most generous nation that has ever existed and it is our free market system based on God’s principles that has provided that wealth. Our nation has natural resources that can make us independent of the world, but today’s politicians will not let the people access those resources. Some have proposed that ALL off shore drilling for oil be permanently banned. We send billions of dollars to nations that hate us instead of spending that money here accessing our own resources, creating jobs for American’s and keeping the wealth here that God has given America.
We no longer are allowed to seek God in government or our schools as our Founding Fathers did as it has become ‘unconstitutional’. Effectively we have been cut off of our source of wisdom needed to maintain our exceptionalism by our own government. Our leaders have become defeatist. They believe that America should become a member of a world government and give up our sovereignty, our property rights, our guns and most of the freedoms that our Founding Fathers died for. John Quincy Adams once stated: Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope that you will make good use of it.[10] Many generations did make good use of it, but we have generations today that do not know what that cost was. They have never been taught the roots of our freedom and what they have been taught has been half truths and outright lies.
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We have been exceptional because we based our government and our daily lives on the Word of God. We lived by God’s principles. We have been compassionate towards others and that has brought God’s blessings to us. Biblical principles are the foundation of America and I believe that God will do whatever He needs to do to save America, at least until we see Jesus again for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Until then we must rethink how we live and make the decision to return to the principles that made us exceptional. Scripture tells us in 2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. . .”[11] God is still willing to do great thing through America if we are willing to return to our roots. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”[12]
Does this generation have what it will take to return to the principles that made us exceptional? Does this generation have what it takes to turn back to God and ask Him to forgive our nation, or will we see America fade from history because of apathy? Only time will tell. As for me and my, we will serve the Lord.
� 2011 Roger Anghis - All Rights Reserved
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Footnotes:
1.
George Washington, September 19, 1796, in his farewell address. Address
of George Washington, President of the United States, and Late Commander
in Chief of the American Army. To the People of the United States, Preparatory
to His Declination. Published in the American Daily Advisor. Philadelphia,
September, 1796
2.
James Madison, Federalist Papers #39. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton,
John Jay, The Federalist on the New Constitution Written 1788 (Philadelphia:
Benjamin Warner, 1818), pp. 203-204.
3.
James Madison. 1778, attributed. Frederick Nymyer, Progressive Calvinism,
(January, 1958), Vol. p. 31
4.
Abraham Lincoln. In a statement to Noah Brooks. Tryon Edwards, D.D.,
The New Dictionary of Thoughts – A Cyclopedia of Quotations (Garden
City, NY: Hanover House, 1852; revised and enlarged by C.H. Catrevas,
Ralph Emerson Browns and Jonathan Edwards [descendent, along with Tyron,
of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), president of Princeton], 1891; The
Standard Book Company, 1955, 1963), p. 486
5.
Abraham Lincoln. Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln, Theologian of American
Anguish, p. 126
6.
Abraham Lincoln. June 1863, in a discourse with a college President
just weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. William
J. Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, The Christian (NY: Abington Press, 1913),
p. 109-110
7.
James K. Paulding, A Life of Washington, 2 vols. (1836).
8.
Theodore Roosevelt. 1909, Noah Brooks, Men of Achievment- Statesman
(NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904), p., 1904), p.17
9.
Theodore Roosevelt. Charles E. Jones, The Books You Read (Harrisburg,
PA: Executive Books, 1985), p.117
10.
John Quincy Adams. Statement. Robert Flood, The Rebirth of America (Phiadelphia:
Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation, 1986), p. 16
11.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. electronic ed. of the 1769 edition
of the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA : Logos Research Systems,
Inc., 1995, S. 2 Ch 16:9
12.
The Holy Bible : King James Version. electronic ed. of the 1769 edition
of the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA : Logos Research Systems,
Inc., 1995, S. 2 Ch 7:14
� 2011 Roger Anghis - All Rights Reserved
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Pastor Roger Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches that was restricted in 1954.
President of The Damascus Project, TheDamascusProject.org, which has a stated purpose of teaching pastors and lay people the need of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States. Married-37 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.
Web site: RestoreFreeSpeech.org
E-Mail: editor@restorefreespeech.org
