Many of our leaders are attempting to rewrite American history and reinterpret the motivations and intentions of our Founding Fathers. They believe that America is great because wise people with good morals and values have made good decisions and that God had little or nothing to do with the success of our country. It’s the lie of humanism.
I have long felt there is a need to counter the increasing secularization of society at home and abroad. I do this primarily by teaching God’s Word. When the Word is taught without compromise, it is very countercultural to today’s secular, immoral society. I seldom get away from the pure teaching of the Word, because that’s all I know.
Worldwide humanism has taken its toll, even among us Christians. We are constantly being told that religion, or faith, has no place in today’s modern, “enlightened” world. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the influence of true Christianity that has given the West its dominating influence in the world and the vast majority of the scientific advances.
America, in particular, has such a rich Christian history that it’s ludicrous to try to explain it away or attribute to human wisdom the tremendous blessings those Christian roots have produced. The secular humanists who are trying to exclude all influence of Christianity in the public arenas are burying their heads in the sand of ignorance and denial.
Therefore, I want to spotlight these truths, supported by historical facts, in a way that will help people see the truth about what made America great. Satan preys on ignorance (Hos. 4:6). Christians, as a whole, are grossly ignorant of their godly Christian heritage. They have slowly been indoctrinated and deceived into accepting many of the same erroneous beliefs that unbelievers have.
So I am purposely rerunning two weeks of programs on television that I made last year with David Barton. I think they are timelier than ever. I urge you not only to view them again, but also get the materials offered, and study them until you are informed enough to defend your Christian beliefs in the face of a cultural war that’s raging. More is riding on this than most Christians realise.
The materials David Barton has produced are so detailed, and they show so much evidence to support Christianity in America that they are excellent tools for sharing these truths with others. For anyone that watches them, they would make great content for Bible studies, Sunday school groups, or for personal study.
I was overwhelmed by David’s presentation. Having been brought up in the “belt buckle” of the Bible Belt, I thought I was spared from the secular bias in my education, but I wasn’t. I was shocked to learn how much of our history was misrepresented to me.
David Barton is a leading expert of American Christian history. He has one of the world’s largest private collections of early American documents relating to the founding of our nation. The Lord has raised him up to remind the world that it was God who birthed this nation and the principles it stands for. I must say he’s doing a great job.
People often tell me they are intimidated by my knowledge of Scripture. That’s how I felt around David. He quotes historical facts like I quote scriptures. To prove the truth of his statements, he displays original documents in much the same way that I use scriptures to prove the truth of what I teach, and he totally convinced me. I never realised just how much I didn’t know. In fact, it made me mad because I was not only ignorant, but I had been lied to about much of American Christian heritage. I came away with impressions from the taping that are too numerous to relate in this letter, but I want to highlight a few. I was against being “politically correct” before, but even more so now. Being politically correct is so pervasive in our nation today that it has paralyzed many from speaking out against evil. That isn’t the way this nation started. Christians boldly proclaimed the truth, not only in pulpits, but in the public square.
For instance, I was shocked to learn that George Washington openly dealt with homosexuality among his troops when he was a general. The term “drummed out” actually came from George Washington’s treatment of a homosexual. He had this man publicly humiliated and marched out of the army to the beating of drums as all the other troops watched. The man called “the father of our country” publicly humiliated homosexuals for such shameful behaviour. How would the homosexual activists respond to that type of treatment today? On the issue of slavery, I assumed that America embraced slavery until our Civil War, when the slaves were freed. That is not accurate at all. Two-thirds of the Founding Fathers were opposed to slavery. They took steps to eliminate it at the founding of this country. However, they compromised because they needed the southern slave states’ support if they were to defeat the British and gain their independence.
Boston integrated their schools in the 1780s. Blacks were elected to legislative positions in the North in the early 1800s. Since the very beginning, there was a movement, involving large numbers of people, to stop the slave trade and free the slaves. But the Democratic Party of the 1800s staunchly opposed all the abolitionists’ attempts.
Upon the surrender of the South at the end of our Civil War, the vice president of the Confederate States organised the Ku Klux Klan to oppose the integration of Blacks into our society, with the full support of the Democratic Party. This, coupled with the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, severely limited the opportunities of freed Blacks in American society until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s.
I learned that although ungodly people have certainly done shameful things to Indians and Blacks in America, there were also very godly people fighting against all these injustices since the very beginning. The unjust label of “bigot” that had been attached to conservative Christians has shamed many into silence and paralyzed many from standing for truth.
How could this nation have changed so radically? David Barton made it very clear that the majority of the blame lies with the clergy. Sermons on freedom, principles of godly government, and social interaction formed the basis of our Constitution and laws. You can read them. In that day, all sermons were printed out, and the preacher read his sermons.
Preachers back then were social activists. But as the controversy over slavery heated up, the fundamentalists and evangelicals arose. They promoted a philosophy that said the church should stick to the fundamentals of eternal salvation and evangelism and leave politics alone. The withdrawal of Christians from commenting on the current issues in society left the ungodly with the upper hand in public debate.
Next, our judicial branch of the government has been rewriting the Constitution, not just interpreting it. David spoke of a case he argued before the Supreme Court on praying at public school functions. He gave many examples of the signers of the Constitution and the writers of the First Amendment who publicly prayed and preached at school functions.
However, this will shock you: One of our current Supreme Court justices said that obviously our Founding Fathers didn’t understand what they had written in the Constitution, or they were hypocrites. The Court came out against the very thing the Founding Fathers supported.
This blatant activism on the part of liberal judges has given special interest groups the upper hand. They have forced us as Christians into an inferior position that limits our ability to influence our generation as the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13). The devil has tried to silence us, and it’s time we speak out.
I’m not talking about hate and condemnation. That goes against what Jesus taught (Luke 6:31). But it’s the truth that sets us free (John 8:32), and the church is God’s guardian of truth. We have to speak out against the ungodliness in our world in a greater way and counter the darkness that is trying to put out our light.
This impacted and motivated me in a profound way, and I believe it will do the same for you. I strongly encourage you to get copies of the television programs David and I made last year, which we call God and Country. They are available on DVD, or you may view them by going to our website: www.awmi.net/tv/2009 and clicking on “Week 26” and “Week 27.” Be sure to watch the actual airings of this special two-week series starting June 21. Tell your friends to watch. They will be glad they did.
I encourage you to get David Barton’s The American Heritage series. You need to know, and help your friends and family know, the truth about America’s godly heritage. This series is a compilation of twenty-six, thirty-minute videos that cover a vast range of topics, but all are dealing with the godly heritage of America.
Finally, Jamie and I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the faith and confidence you express by supporting and praying for us as we share the Gospel with the world. Through Charis Bible College and all our other outreaches, we are making a huge impact. We have now embarked on building a Bible college campus that will enable us to train up many more godly leaders to take the truths of God’s Word around the world.
I’m not just cursing the darkness. With your help, we are turning on a light and leading millions to a new or deeper relationship with the Lord. We are making a difference. Thank you for doing your part.
We love you,
Andrew & Jamie
God And Country
Many Christians know very little about how to restore America to its godly heritage. But you can't restore something if you don't know what it originally was.
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