Forgetting That We Are Good
Bill Fortenberry
Any student of American political thought cannot help but notice the strong aversion to our nation’s Christian heritage that permeates the ranks of the young people in both of the major parties. One need only mention in any public forum the idea that America is a Christian nation to discover firsthand how strongly this generation opposes any such notion. But why is it so? There can only be one reason: ignorance. And who is to blame for this great ignorance? We are. We, the leaders of the conservative movement, are the reason that our President can say that America is no longer a Christian nation, and we are the reason that our own children agree with him.
Let me ask you, you who claim to remember our godly heritage, how would you respond if someone told you, as Isaac Kramnick did, that our Constitution is a godless and secular document? Could you point out to him the importance of the reference to the “year of our Lord” at the conclusion of that document? Would you be able to explain to him that there are at least forty-eight points in the Constitution which draw directly from the doctrines of the Bible?
What if you overheard someone teaching that our nation was founded not on Judeo-Christian values but on the writings of the enlightenment? Would you be able to correct him? Could you stand up in front of a group of people eager to hear and explain to them that the enlightenment authors who supposedly most influenced the American Revolution all claimed to be Christians? Do you have the necessary knowledge to teach them that the two most influential of those writers, Sir William Blackstone and John Locke, both emphatically insisted that all human laws must conform to the Divine laws revealed in Scripture? Could you tell them about the three books that John Locke wrote in defense of the Christian religion, or that the Baron of Montesquieu, another influential enlightenment author, devoted two entire books to the relationship between religion and the law as well as an additional book to the relationship between the Christian principles of morality and the law?
Did you know that the Treaty of Tripoli states that the United States of America “is not in any way founded upon the Christian religion”? The liberals know this. Do you have an explanation for them? Can you tell them that this statement was part of a letter from one Muslim ruler to another and not in any way an admission of secularism by Congress?
And finally, and most importantly, if we do not know the answers to these questions, how can we expect our children to learn them? The liberals have taken over our education system, and from grade school to graduate school, our children are incessantly pummeled with these very questions. How can they be expected to stand against such a bombardment unless we first arm them with the truth?
The prophet wrote many years ago that “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” How true that prophecy has become of this generation. So few of them have ever read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, even fewer have read the Federalist Papers or the works of Thomas Jefferson, next to none of them have ever read Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England; and I doubt that the number of those who have read the entire Bible is much higher. Is it any wonder that they are voting for politicians who have abandoned these foundations?
And all of this is our own fault. We have failed this generation, and we must rectify that failure. The same God who prophesied the destructive result of abandoning knowledge also stated in the same passage, “Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.” It is imperative that we take action immediately not just to spread the cause of conservatism, but to learn the reasons for and the proofs of that cause that we may be able teach others. If we fail in this task, future generations will view our demise and say not that America ceased to be great when she ceased to be good but that she ceased to be great when she forgot that she was good.
Let me ask you, you who claim to remember our godly heritage, how would you respond if someone told you, as Isaac Kramnick did, that our Constitution is a godless and secular document? Could you point out to him the importance of the reference to the “year of our Lord” at the conclusion of that document? Would you be able to explain to him that there are at least forty-eight points in the Constitution which draw directly from the doctrines of the Bible?
What if you overheard someone teaching that our nation was founded not on Judeo-Christian values but on the writings of the enlightenment? Would you be able to correct him? Could you stand up in front of a group of people eager to hear and explain to them that the enlightenment authors who supposedly most influenced the American Revolution all claimed to be Christians? Do you have the necessary knowledge to teach them that the two most influential of those writers, Sir William Blackstone and John Locke, both emphatically insisted that all human laws must conform to the Divine laws revealed in Scripture? Could you tell them about the three books that John Locke wrote in defense of the Christian religion, or that the Baron of Montesquieu, another influential enlightenment author, devoted two entire books to the relationship between religion and the law as well as an additional book to the relationship between the Christian principles of morality and the law?
Did you know that the Treaty of Tripoli states that the United States of America “is not in any way founded upon the Christian religion”? The liberals know this. Do you have an explanation for them? Can you tell them that this statement was part of a letter from one Muslim ruler to another and not in any way an admission of secularism by Congress?
And finally, and most importantly, if we do not know the answers to these questions, how can we expect our children to learn them? The liberals have taken over our education system, and from grade school to graduate school, our children are incessantly pummeled with these very questions. How can they be expected to stand against such a bombardment unless we first arm them with the truth?
The prophet wrote many years ago that “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” How true that prophecy has become of this generation. So few of them have ever read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, even fewer have read the Federalist Papers or the works of Thomas Jefferson, next to none of them have ever read Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England; and I doubt that the number of those who have read the entire Bible is much higher. Is it any wonder that they are voting for politicians who have abandoned these foundations?
And all of this is our own fault. We have failed this generation, and we must rectify that failure. The same God who prophesied the destructive result of abandoning knowledge also stated in the same passage, “Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.” It is imperative that we take action immediately not just to spread the cause of conservatism, but to learn the reasons for and the proofs of that cause that we may be able teach others. If we fail in this task, future generations will view our demise and say not that America ceased to be great when she ceased to be good but that she ceased to be great when she forgot that she was good.