cover of Are We a Christian Nation?

Are We a Christian Nation?

Are We a Christian Nation?

Grace Church Albion IN

0 followers

00:00-32:45

Transcription

The speaker discusses the importance of understanding America's Christian roots and the concept of Christian nationalism. They argue that America is a Christian nation based on survey data showing a majority of Americans identifying as Christian. They also highlight the role of Christianity in the country's founding and the decline of religious influence in education. The speaker suggests that reclaiming Christian principles in education and challenging the separation of church and state could help address current issues. They reference the origins of Ivy League institutions as being rooted in Christian organizations and discuss the historical significance of churches in the fight against British control. The speaker emphasizes the need for churches to regain their influence and stand as a threat to the government. probably learn a few things this morning. I know throughout Sunday school we had studied David Barton. I don't know if you've ever heard of him through the Wall Builders Organization. We learned a lot about the Convention of the States, which we're going to learn about here in a little bit, but such an important thing for every American, every Christian American specifically, to understand where we came from and where we need to be going as a nation. So we're going to try to answer the question. I think you'll have the answer after this. Are we a Christian nation? Are we a Christian nation? Were we a Christian nation and no longer are a Christian nation? Well, what does the word Christian mean anyway? It means belonging to the party of Christ. The word IAN, the last part of the word Christian in the Greek means belonging to the party of. We don't often think of that. We think of Republicans, Democrats, we belong to that party, you know, we may trust in that party to get us to where we need to go, but we trust in the party of Christ to get us to heaven. We trust in the party of Christ to deliver us from life to death and to give us purpose and meaning in life, but ultimately we trust in Christ and his position, and that's what that word Christ means. It's his position as Savior, as King, and as Messiah. We have this chart from the Pew Research Organization that shows you when people were surveyed, what religion are you? Are you atheist? Atheism is very low, but the majority of America shows that we are a Christian nation according to that chart. Indiana, 72% Christian. We'd like to see 100%, but you know down in the Bible Belt, Tennessee, all those areas you get up into the 80s, but even in California, you would not think this, but 63% Christian. They don't want us to know this because we are the majority. We need to realize that we're the majority. Yeah, the problem has not been the secular world. The problem has been weak Christians, pastors that don't teach the truth, but ultimately should we be a Christian nation? You hear this derogatory term called Christian nationalism. We don't want a theocracy or a dictator like the King of England, and that's where the founders, they had that in mind. It was fresh for them, the fact that the King of England had a one-denomination party that you better follow or else, but according to NPR, as long seen as a fringe viewpoint, Christian nationalism now has a foothold in American politics, particularly in the Republican Party. According to a new survey from Public Research or Religion Research Institute at the Brookings Institute, it says this, the reality is that a lot of these folks, especially these adherents, are very militant in this belief that God has given them a mandate to rule over the nation, so they're trying to paint us as violent and enemies. He said, and so far for them, I think that compromise is a sign of weakness and the GOP needs to understand what they're dealing with. According to the survey, adherents of Christian nationalism say that they will go to great lengths to impose their vision on the country. Jones with the PRI said that they found adherents are far more likely to agree with the statement, true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country. Maybe, you know, if they walk in here and shut down our church and say you can't worship anymore, maybe we get to that point. We don't want that. But our founders knew that they had to have that, unfortunately. So we're going to look at our founding. Was our founders Christian, primarily? I'd say yes. On April 18th, 1775, a British soldier came up to John Adams and John Hancock, a couple of the signers and others, and they demanded that they disperse in the name of the George the Sovereign King of England. And Adams responded very kindly, we recognize no sovereign but God and no king but Jesus. This was war because England demanded that they follow their national religion of Catholicism and really a dictator, a theocracy type of idea. And John Adams says no, we don't want that. In an October 13th, 1789 address to the military, John Adams said this, we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Why do we have this function today? Because of this runaway government that is not religious, that is not Christian, that doesn't have the principles that we were founded on, and that's why it's starting to get a little shaky. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams said this, the general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. So what achieved our independence from Great Britain? The principles of Christianity. So what's the problem today? Why are we so far away from our original founders idea of what it means to be free in a nation, not a single denomination, but freedom to worship Christ? Now other religions were never mentioned, but Christ specifically, depending on the denomination, they wanted to be able to worship in different denominations, that's fine, and they didn't want a national denomination. But education, education has been our biggest problem, and Noel Webster would not be happy today. He says, education is useless without the Bible. The Bible is America's basic textbook in all fields. God's Word contained in the Bible has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct. They've slowly taken God out of the schools, and they even took God out of the Webster's Dictionary. I encourage you guys look up Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Almost every definition has a Bible reference, a biblical foundation, just for the definition of a word. Amazing how far we've gone. We use this McGuffey Reader, or called the Eclectic Reader as well, which was used in school for levels grade one through six, and it was used all throughout the early 19th century to the 20th century, all the way until 1960s. So in the 1960s it was finally taken out of schools for good, but there's a lot of things that were in this book that was the main textbook for public schools, if you can imagine this. Let's look at some of these quotes that they taught from this book to the kids. It says, let God have the thanks of your heart for his kindness and care, and pray for his protection during the wakeful hours of day. Never do anything that you would be afraid or ashamed that your parents should know. Remember, if no one else sees you, God does, from whom you cannot hide even your most secret thought. Third lesson, at night before you go to sleep, think whether you have done anything that was wrong during the day, and pray to God to forgive you. If anyone has done you wrong, forgive him in your heart. Biblical principles right here. And four, trust in the Lord and he will guide you in the way of good men. The path of the just is the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. And finally, we must do all the good we can do, can to all men, for this is well pleasing in the sight of God. He delights to see his children walk in love and do good to one another. They were required to memorize these, so that was part of their test, is to memorize all these. And this is just a fraction of all the quotes I could go on forever, and all the precepts and concepts throughout these. And when they taught the alphabet, you know, A was for Adam, and every letter was a representative of something in the Scriptures. And there's nothing in the Constitution that says, oh, we're not going to do that anymore. So I challenge, if you're a teacher, go ahead and try it. Try to teach it. If you want to be a little bit brave, try to teach it. Get some attention. Go to court. Get up to the Supreme Court. They're going to have to overturn the separation of church and state. That is one way that we can possibly get to the root of the problem and overturn this thing. You know, Puritans in 1636 established Harvard College. You might recognize that name. It's been in the news lately. They've gone pretty woke lately. But they started that shortly after arriving in Massachusetts Bay, and their mission statement was clearly Christian. It says, everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. This was their mission statement. This was the foundation of the organization. Well, the secular world did not want that, so they don't want you to know that. But that's quoting from John 17.3. But to go even a step further, so that was done in 1642. To go even a step further, they decided to come up with a motto in 1650, and their motto was, In Christi Gloriam, for the glory of Christ. And almost all Ivy League institutions had similar beginnings. We see that the Kinetic Congregationalists started Yale. A church organization started Yale. The pro-awakening New Jersey Presbyterians started Princeton. Devout Rhode Island Baptists started Brown. And mission-minded New Hampshire Evangelicals started Dartmouth. So you can see that all these were started by church organizations. But the British knew, going back before 1776, the British knew what the biggest threat was to maintaining power and control and tyranny, and that was the churches during this time. Does our government think our churches are our biggest threat right now? I think they've almost conquered us. I don't know that we're much of a threat. We need to be. They targeted churches because they were the biggest threat. And according to this B.F. Morris guy, I don't think I have this quote up there, but just listen to this. The ministers of the revolution were, and this was written in 1864, like their Puritan predecessors, bold and fearless in the cause of their country. So talking about ministers themselves, and we're going to talk about the Black Robe Regiment here in a second. But no class of men contributed more to carry forward the revolution, ministers, and to achieve our independence than the ministers. By their prayer, patriotic sermons, and services, they rendered the highest assistance to the civil government, the army, and the country. Saying that pastors led the revolution, and without them it wouldn't have happened. B.F. Morris, historian from 1864. Do we even know that there's a battle going on? Do we even know that our Christian foundation has been ripped out from under us? Do we even know that we can and should be teaching the Bible in school today? Not freedom of all religions. That's not what they demanded. They demanded freedom of denominations, of Christianity specifically. We see another attack from the case Engle and Vatalli. It's been a slow fade in 1962. This is really a big one because that one was where they took prayer out of schools. They couldn't have public prayer sponsored by the school anymore. And ever since then, this issue of separation of church and state was really cemented in the 60s. And anything that goes to the courts now, they just refer back to the 60s rather than back to our Constitution and our founding like they should be. But the problem is they misused Thomas Jefferson's quote. It says this, erecting the wall of separation between church and state is absolutely essential in a free society. So, okay, well we can see what he's saying there, right? We need a little bit of context to understand what he's saying there. Was he actually saying that the church and the state should have nothing to do with each other? Emerson versus the Board of Education in 1947, there's a 5-4 decision that kind of cemented this idea of separation of church and state. Quoting this, Justice Black said, the First Amendment was erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. Let's go to the, is there anywhere in the Constitution that says there should be a separation of church and state? There isn't. It was just simply a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote. And even that letter has been taken out of context. But we know that malicious judges will do anything to get their ideology through. They become activists. And unfortunately, our founders actually wanted the Supreme Court to be in the basement being lit by a candle, it was quoted. They didn't want them to have all the power that they have. But this was a letter to Danbury Baptist from Thomas Jefferson. We have a copy of that up there to show you the original. Actually, David Barton has the original, one of those, pretty amazing. But it was a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association because they were concerned that the government was going to mandate a denomination on them. Not necessarily religion or anything, but a specific denomination, like they have reminiscences of the King of England trying to force his tyrannical Catholicism on them. But at that time, they were being persecuted because they didn't belong to the specific denomination. So he was concerned. So he wrote Thomas Jefferson, good guy to write if you're having a problem, I guess, with the Constitution. So he wrote back and said, no, the government will not get involved in mandating a denomination. So we know that that was taken out of context completely, not the separation of church and state like you have in your mind. They were worried about a King of England type of denomination mandate. So argument two here, the Capitol building was used for multiple church services. Did you know that? So it was used for over 100 years as a church, the Capitol building itself. We have a picture of Statuary Hall there. Now this is not the original place where the House of Representatives met, but it's the earliest one we have because the British decided to come in after we defeated them and burned it down in 1814, burned our Capitol to the ground. So they built this new one and it's still there today. But in this very building, for 100 years, they had church services and almost every representative would show up to the service every Sunday. They made it a priority. So on Thursday, December 4th, 1800, a brief entry was made in this official record of the House of Representatives that said this, the Speaker informed the House that the chaplains had proposed, if agreeable to the House, to hold divine service every Sunday in the House of Representatives chamber. So who attended, of all people? So Thomas Jefferson, if he was an atheist, wanted to separate church and state, did not want the church to have any part of the state, who attended? Thomas Jefferson attended that service. He says this, another quote to prove that he was not all about not having the church be involved in the state. It was the other way around. The state should not be involved in the church, but the church absolutely should be involved in the state. He says this, and can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a convention in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God, that they are not to be violated, but with His wrath, indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. He knows, Thomas Jefferson, if he was alive today, he'd be like, you guys are testing the justice of God right now. We are pushing our freedom to the very limit. And that's why this Convention of the States is so important to bring back the power that we've given up as Christians. The power that they've given to the state has become overwhelming. And then argument three is our founders were Christian. Twenty-nine, in fact, get this, 29 of the 56 signers held seminary degrees. So they were all very detailed in their study of God's Word. And they also mandated countless days of prayer and fasting. Anytime they had an issue, we see it all the way up through Abraham Lincoln, let's have a day of prayer and fasting because we're in a lot of trouble right now. When we're in a lot of trouble, let's go to our Creator to help us through this trouble. And they depended so much on God, but people want to depend so much on government now. Government has become their God. So we have this proclamation by John Hancock to have this day of fasting and prayer. And at the bottom of that letter, you see that God, He says, God saved the people. That's about what we need. But here's just some quotes from that. It says, in times of impending calamity and distress, when the liberties of America are eminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies. With true penitence of heart and the most reverent devotion publicly to acknowledge the overruling providence of God, to confess and deplore our offenses against Him and to supplicate His interposition for averting the threatened danger and prospering our strenuous efforts in the cause of freedom, virtue, and posterity. Desire us at the same time to have people of all ranks and duties duly impressed with a solemn sense of God's superintending providence and their duty devoutly to rely in all their lawful enterprises on His aid and direction. Do you earnestly recommend that Friday 17th of May next be observed by the colonies as a day of humiliation? Humiliation. They used a different word there, didn't they? It's one thing to be humble, controlled strength. It's one thing to feel humiliated. You know, we should be a little bit embarrassed about where we're at right now because of our lack of action. We should be a little bit humiliated at the fact that we haven't served God the way that we should. So that's what he was doing here, and he says, through the merits and meditations of Jesus Christ, this is a government from the government, remember, obtained His pardon and forgiveness, humbly imploring, excuse me, to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies. Just one second, sorry about that. Talking too much. This is the most I talk all week, by the way. I'm a pretty quiet guy. That it may please the Lord of Hosts, the God of armies. I love that. The God of armies to animate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude because we know that we have the God of armies on our side, and is that limited? That's not limited. That's invincible. That's unlimited, invincible help and fortitude to guard and protect them in the day of battle and to crown the continental arms by sea and land with victory and success. Why do we have success? It wasn't about human strength. Just like that video we saw earlier, the Star-Spangled Banner, when that was written, we have success because of those people that were captive down in that boat, on that British ship, praying that that flag would stay standing, but also the sacrifice, the dead that held up that flag. The sacrifice. And somehow by a miracle, God gave us this nation. Somehow by a miracle. Sam Adams says this, you know him for his beer, mainly. I don't know how many guys drink beer. I don't see how many, but may every citizen have a proper sense of deity upon his mind and an impression of the declaration recorded in the Bible. Him that honoreth me, this is Samuel Adams saying this, I will honor him, but he that despises me shall be lightly esteemed. They knew how important it was to honor God first. So we know that our original founders, I mean this is just a scratch of the surface. If you want to see more, look up David Barton's videos, Wall Builders Organization, just phenomenal. Hours and hours of this type of information. But if we want to look at something more modern, we go to Eisenhower. He really accomplished more for Christianity than any president in recent years. He was president from 1953 to 1961. You might remember that he was responsible for the victory on D-Day, very bloody battle. And we know that he relied on God because at his inauguration, kind of surprised the crowd because he's like, you know what, before I go on, I'd like to say a prayer. So we have that sheet of paper there, that actual sheet of paper. Again, David Barton has this original one that he pen scratched real quick before his speech. He didn't expect it. He kind of just threw it in there. But it ends with, for thy glory. There's nothing more important than anywhere, anything that you do. If you're in the government, if you're working at your job, always remember that everything you do is for thy glory. And he knew that and he got started right away because he adds God to the Pledge of Allegiance. It wasn't in there originally. So it's on February 7th. There was a sermon of all things that was preached to Dwight Eisenhower. And the sermon suggested that they add the words under God to the Pledge of Allegiance. And he thought, well, that's kind of a good idea. Then every kid, you know, would remember God every day, right? When they say it in school. But the sermon was preached by Reverend George Dougherty. He's a pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. But he says this in this proclamation. From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty, to anyone who truly loves America. Nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth on each school morning to our country's true meaning, meaning putting God in the Pledge of Allegiance. In this way, we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage, in our history, and our future. In this way, we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons, which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace or in war. What's our most powerful resource? God. God is our most powerful resource in peace and in war. So he got started right away. And then he changed our national motto to In God We Trust. You might have seen that on dollar bills. You've seen it in many different places in 1956. But he passed this actually by a joint resolution in Congress in 1957. And pretty awesome that Congress actually endorsed this at this time. So we see that it was added to the House chamber. We see that another thing on the back wall there of that same House chamber was a picture of Moses. So knowing that, you know, the biblical foundation of the law was important to go back to and remember that. But I like the fact that not just because I'm a pastor, but that pastors were used in a pretty big way during this American Revolution. And maybe no one greater than John Peter Muhlenberg was our example. That's a picture I took when I got to go with David Barton. Actually, I got to meet him. I got to meet Ted Cruz with some of these other people. But I took a picture of this because he's one of my favorite guys, John Peter Muhlenberg. During the Revolutionary War, he preached this sermon. Ecclesiastes 3 1 says, There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, and finally, a time for war and a time for peace. We're fortunate as a generation to not experience the violence of war like our previous generations have. But John Peter Muhlenberg knew he had to be a sick feeling in his gut. It's like as if he was standing up here today, finished this sermon, and under, you know, they used to wear those fancy cloaks over their clothing. He takes off that cloak and underneath is his military uniform. He says, literally right after his sermon, he says, there's a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but there's also a time to fight and that time has not come. And then he walks off the stage and the congregation goes after him and they get in their uniforms and they go fight. And that was considered part of the Black Robe Regiment. It was so powerful of an organization of pastors that the British blamed the pulpits, they blamed the Black Robe Regiment for taking Britain out of America, for them being conquered. And John Adams recalled the Black Robe Regiment when he says, the pulpits have thundered. John Adams says, the pulpits have thundered. When I visited George Washington's place, when I got to go over to Washington DC, you often hear that, you know, he wasn't a Christian, he was an atheist or at worst a deist. But I tend to think that that was wrong because you go to his tomb, he wrote down specifically how he wanted his tomb to be laid out. He was laid out at a different place for a while and then he was laid in his final resting place here that he detailed on paper. And there's his tomb there. That blows my mind that that is George Washington in that box. Graveyards just are an amazing thing to me for some reason. But it didn't end there in that graveyard. It didn't end there in that tomb because right above him on that next slide, I just barely saw that. I'm like, I think that's a scripture verse. And what is a scripture verse in contrast to his dead body in that box? John 11 25 was written on that wall. He says, Jesus said to her, I'm the resurrection and the life. Talking to Martha. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? George Washington was not an atheist. George Washington was a believer in Christ. We've been lied to. It's just eye opening how much we've been lied to. We've always been about freedom that is found in Christ as a nation. That's the reason we have this miraculous nation that should have never been able to take on the most powerful military in the world. But somehow we did. The founders believed in Jesus. They were shaped and molded by the scripture. The British were literally attacking churches themselves because they were the hubs of the beginning of that freedom. But, you know, we're under attack today, too. It's time we take off our robes just like he did. Hopefully we got something on underneath. Put on that armor of God, not just standing around armor, not just going to church at a routine armor. Armor is not to be comfortable. He says put on the full armor. God, why do we need that within these walls? We need it when we go out onto the battlefield. And there's a battle going on right now. And we need to think bigger. We need to think about getting these teachers to start teaching God's Word in a school because there's nothing in the Constitution that will stop it. But Joshua 1.9 says, Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous, do not tremble or be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And it's not just do this. He says it's a command. He orders you as a military officer in the party of Christ as a Christian to not tremble, to not be dismayed, to go with you wherever you go. Even if it means that we're living now in a time of war, we go do that battle. We need to be prepared. We need to know our history. We need to really anchor ourselves in understanding the sacrifice, especially because that's our fuel. That's our motivation to go and defend what our founders had laid out. And what they laid out was Christ in the schools. Was God leading every part of government in through and out? Let's start having services back at the Capitol building. Let's think bigger. Let's dare us to take us to the Supreme Court. I think there's a time where we may be able to turn this around and call ourselves a Christian nation truly once again. So now this time we're going to shift over to the Constitution of States, our Convention of States. Such an important thing. And I'll let Gary explain the whole thing. I won't give anything away. But Gary Spielman is a representative and I think he was inspired by some of those David Barton videos that we had seen to get involved. You know, this is what we need to do. Get involved in things where we can make change. We may change, you know, whether it be small or big, we need to do what God has called us to do. And I think Gary has stepped up and done that. So we want to go ahead and welcome him to the stage.