The Meaning of America at the Semi-quincentennial

I am not 40 years old yet: too young to have a frame of reference for America's bicentennial. From what my historical perspective can see, the present level of partisan division and bitterness is leading to a loss of common cause that threatens to shake the country apart. Visiting World Cup fans seem to appreciate America better than many Americans.

Before getting busy this past season with graduation events giving way to the celebration of the 250th, I started covering sports games with a monologue on how that form of entertainment has always brought people and families together. Rivalries getting out of hand aside, sports have been about surrounding culture as much as the games themselves. If people of all creeds can be united in their love of a game, could they likewise be united in love of their country?

Something spectacular happened 250 years ago, likewise among men of different causes and creeds. It was not in their own strength or resolve; whenever they tried, they reached deadlock. The ebb and flow of the Revolutionary War through the Constitutional Convention occurred in such a manner that it could only have been possible with the blessing of God.

The type of government the Founding Fathers gave us, and the type of society they intended for it to be compatible with, reflects their conviction that Man is neither naturally free nor good but attains both via reliance on God. With so many of our people and institutions having turned their backs on God, I find it probable none of those who composed the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution would be surprised at the result. As anyone of faith knows firsthand, a life lacking God as its foundation is going to be driven by other motivations rooted in self-focused impulse.

The moral and social distortions that come from focus on Man rather than focus on God logically follow. Keeping law & order is good, and government is the institution ordained by God with that role, but the aspiration for the power involved leads to the conscious quest to replace dependence on God with the institutions of Man. Learning is good, and it was Bible-believing Puritans who developed the modern public and university education systems, but replacing the humility of service to God with the hubris of human intellect invites the temptation to influence the future by exerting direction over what to train the next generation to accept as factual instead of encouraging them to think for themselves. Helping the needy is good, and every system of objective morality understands its virtue, but absent the perspective of motive of means and accomplishment of ends it easily becomes a cause hijacked by those greedy to exploit people's consciences towards their own gain.

Those who bled so that we could have a United States of America today understand that freedom has a price. Most understand this, but what is not discussed as much as it should be is what freedom is for. It is one thing to not be subject to the whims of a monarch who commands power over your life or death and takes of your labor for his services at any time...and yet the godless seem inclined to do exactly that by making themselves such monarchs (if they believe they have the direction in life to accomplish this) or granting such power to charismatic promise-makers (if they lack for managing their own lives).

The tomb of Oliver Cromwell is inscribed "Christ, not Man, is King." His cause against monarchial rule paralleled the American Revolution in many ways; the problem was the system that replaced the throne in England was not sustainable by those who entailed it, and the resultant chaos first led to republican tyranny then a return to royal order. Early America nearly suffered the same fate several times, and each time it was exceptional men of character who led the country through.

Prior to the Revolution, Reverend George Whitefield was committed not to any political or social cause, but to getting the Gospel to as many as possible. Rejected by the Church of England (as had Puritans in the prior century), he took his evangelism to the American colonies. The first Great Awakening laid the foundation for the cause of liberty in the American Revolution, a second Great Awakening preceded the cause of liberty in the Civil War; there are those who pray for a third Great Awakening to set foundation for the cause of liberty against the encroachment of today's dark alliance between Socialism & Islamism.

The election of Donald Trump manifested the pushback against this encroachment, yet is doomed to fail as the Revolution would have been if what is defeated cannot be replaced with something built on firm spiritual foundations. President Trump and his ego have proven less than the capable leadership for the necessary foundations of revolutionary change, though still serves better than any viable alternatives as a means towards this positive end. It truly is amazing how much the POTUS has publicly called upon the name of the Lord, though his sincerity is difficult to measure (the weight of his known personal sins are no help), but it is a step in the right direction towards understanding what David wrote about in Psalm 11 and why Benjamin Franklin invoked Psalm 127:1 at the Constitutional Convention.

On a more intimate level, may it be that the celebration of America's milestone birthday be done in the company of family and friends. The Founding Fathers understood liberty exercised in the sense not only with reliance on God for life's needs, and its abuses restrained by Judeo-Christian morality, but also that family be the building block of society: parents are supposed to care for children, children for their aging parents, neighbors for each other, and the burden only shift to general society to cover those who have no one else (widows & orphans). Freedom is risk, always has been, but not one any should have to bear the burdens of alone.

How these exceptional ideas have grown less novel over a quarter-millennium make them easier to take for granted today. It seems so easy, particularly as reliance upon God has been displaced by reliance on social services more and more, to go with the flow in leaving the shouldering of these burdens on those who either volunteer for them or are compelled to pay the taxes to support them. Galatians 6:7 says this folly will only last so long, and that is part of the price of freedom: the consequences of choosing wrong do not have to be imposed by God because Man will be doing it to himself.

This is what America means: what its foundations entail. The more Man tries, in his own hubris, to act as if he has no need for God, the more he will only prove his own limits. Israel is a nation blessed because they are specially chosen by God; America will only remain blessed so long as it is a nation that specially chooses to trust in and follow God's way.

I pray for America to return to trusting in God because that is how much I love my country. May this truly be a happy 250th for the American people because they get to enjoy the rewards of choosing right. If our nation's future is to include a new revolution for the cause of liberty, may enough of us be like those of exceptional character and trust in God to literally make all the difference in the world.