One Nation Under God? - What's Wrong With Our Nation
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
These are not my words. In fact, these words were first proclaimed over 140 years ago by President Abraham Lincoln.1 If he were alive today, Abraham Lincoln would be shocked about how worse the situation has become in the United States of America.
Mere mention of God by a public official can bring an onslaught of complaint and derision by the liberal press. For example, Lt. General William G. Boykin, a decorated U.S. Army officer, was castigated for remarks he made about Islam and Christianity.2 Boykin, an evangelical Christian, was quoted discussing a 1993 battle with a Muslim militia leader saying, "I knew my God was bigger than his." Two liberal senators, John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., then urged a probe be conducted into whether Boykin displayed what they called "inappropriate behavior." Previously, Boykin, got in trouble for his statements on why the Sept. 11 attacks weren't worse than they could have been. He said the hand of God stopped two more airplanes from crashing into landmarks in this country. That statement set editorial writers at major newspapers into a frenzy.
In a nation where the freedom to murder unborn persons is a cherished "right," the freedom to express one's religious views is politically incorrect. Christians must not bow to political pressure to be silenced, since acquiescence to this censure will eventually lead to our loss of freedom to express religious convictions altogether.
Lest we think that we are the first generation to abandon God, a previous generation had the same problem:
I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. They have acted corruptly toward him; to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation. Is this the way you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you? (Deuteronomy 32:3-6)
Regardless of these transgressions, God is willing to forgive us. If we return to Him, He will return to us and be our God.
"From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 3:7)
References 
- Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
- Keith Peters. 2003. Flap Over General's Comments Tied to Christianity, Focus on the Family.
Reflections
We are what we think.
- 01/15/2019 04:00 PM
Scientific Discovery and God: The Universe, Part 1
How did the universe come into being? The last century has revealed a stark contrast between what secular scientists expected to find regarding the big “origins” questions and what scientific research actually uncovered. In part 1 of this series, I’ll discuss how this contrast played out concerning the origin of the universe. In future installments I’ll consider, in turn, the origins…
() - 01/08/2019 01:00 PM
Addressing Skeptical Challenges, Part 2
I’m not sure if the internet and social media as a whole are either an intrinsic good or an intrinsic bad, but as technologies they do afford opportunities to discuss Christian apologetics issues. In part one of this series I responded to an objection by a skeptic who raised questions about what I wrote in “The Historic Alliance of Christianity and Science.” Here in part two I’ll address his other major objection…
() - 01/01/2019 01:00 PM
Addressing Skeptical Challenges, Part 1
Social media and the internet allow ample opportunities to discuss the truth claims of historic Christianity. A while ago I interacted with a skeptic who had some questions about an article I wrote, “The Historic Alliance of Christianity and Science,” in RTB’s former magazine Facts & Faith (vol. 12, no. 3).1 The skeptic viewed belief in God as nonsense in light of the problem of evil,…
() - 12/25/2018 01:00 PM
God’s Existence Best Explains Life’s Most Profound Realities
Can we justify concepts like logic, moral values, and universals from a naturalistic, atheistic perspective? Or do we need a transcendent grounding like historic Christianity’s explanation for these meaningful realities? Using a type of abductive logical reasoning (referred to as an inference to the best explanation), I’ll illustrate how five profound realities are plausibly explained by Christian theism. Accounting for Five Meaningful Realities…
() - 12/18/2018 01:00 PM
The Difference between Mystery and Contradiction in Theology
The God of the Bible is infinite and eternal while human beings are finite and temporal. That means humans can never fully comprehend or exhaustively understand God.1 Yet those profound limitations do not mean human beings can’t know God or enjoy a personal relationship with him. Also, because many, if not all, of the things Christians believe about God involve mystery, it does not mean those beliefs…
() - 12/11/2018 01:00 PM
Virtue to Face the Challenges of Life
I have been very afraid at least four times in my life. On one occasion I fought a man who had attacked my wife in a dark alley late at night. On another, my daughter Jacqueline was extremely ill with a mysterious virus. A similar experience took place when my son Michael was struggling with serious health problems. And lastly, I was…
() - 12/04/2018 01:00 PM
Approaching End Times Prophecy with Care
One of the most controversial topics that the Bible addresses is eschatology. This theological term literally means the study of last things—popularly known as end times. Scripture speaks of both humankind’s past origin in creation as well as our future destiny in consummation. Yet rightly interpreting and properly understanding what the Bible teaches about the end of the world has proved difficult and controversial in…
() - 11/27/2018 01:00 PM
Take Up and Read: Nicomachean Ethics
I am writing this ongoing blog series on Reflections to encourage Christians to read more vigorously and enrich their lives with Christian classics in such fields as theology, philosophy, and apologetics. Hopefully, a brief introduction to these Christian texts will motivate today’s believers to, as St. Augustine was called in his dramatic conversion to Christianity, “take up and read” (Latin: Tolle lege) these…
() - 11/20/2018 01:00 PM
How JFK and C. S. Lewis Influenced My Life
Two men I’ve been reading about for virtually my entire life but for very different reasons died on the exact same day. For more than 50 years, I have been learning about the life and thought of both President John F. Kennedy and Christian thinker and author C. S. Lewis. What follows is a brief biography of these two twentieth-century…
() - 11/13/2018 01:00 PM
Take Up and Read: C.S. Lewis’ Case for the Christian Faith
I am writing this ongoing blog series on Reflections to encourage Christians to read more vigorously and enrich their lives with Christian classics in such fields as theology, philosophy, and apologetics. Hopefully, a brief introduction to these Christian texts will motivate today’s believers to, as St. Augustine was called in his dramatic conversion to Christianity, “take up and read” (Latin: Tolle lege) these excellent…
()
http://godandscience.org/doctrine/onenation.html
Last Modified November 12, 2007
Top of Page 
Back