As we celebrate our 250th year of independence, America stands on a dangerous precipice today. For decades, many colleges have indoctrinated students with the belief that our country was fatally flawed from the beginning. Our founders have been branded as racists, and our economic system has been portrayed as inherently oppressive.
Today, those who don’t know history are falling for socialistic and even communistic propaganda. And in some cities the Judeo-Christian foundations of our nation are being replaced with the lies of Islam, secularism, or anarchy. Some of the new breed of socialists are even promising to get rid of Western Civilization.
If you’re paying attention, you should be alarmed! As the psalmist rightly asked, “When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). Although entire books have been written to address this question, we would do well to remember the famous warning of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
I’m convinced that gratefully honoring our past is a key to moving forward toward a more harmonious future. However, we will be unable to repel the onslaught against our traditional values unless we understand and treasure them. It’s clear that lukewarm allegiance will be insufficient to defend against the radicalism of our nation’s enemies.
Like many root issues, this is discussed in the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). Although each of these commandments is important, there is one that uniquely includes a special promise to those who observe it: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (v. 12).
My parents weren’t perfect, and I’m sure yours weren’t either. Yet this verse commands us to show our parents “honor.”
Don’t you wish there was an exception clause to this? Wouldn’t it have been fairer to say, “Honor your father and mother if they are worthy of honor”?
Yet, no exception is provided here. And other Scripture passages even warn of dire consequences to those who don’t comply: “If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness” (Proverbs 20:20 NIV). I’m concerned that many Americans are in danger of falling into this very trap.
If you’ve paid any attention to the news in recent years, you’ve seen rioters tear down or deface statues of our founding fathers. First, statues of Christopher Columbus were targeted across the nation. Then lawless people started going after George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Shockingly, not even Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, was spared.
While I’m not defending Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln as faultless leaders, someone needs to point out the grave danger we face in dishonoring such “fathers.” While we’re promised a long, prosperous life when we choose to honor our parents, I believe our nation’s longevity is imperiled when we allow the blatant dishonoring of our forefathers.
Even if your upbringing was far from perfect, hopefully you would be upset if someone badmouthed your father and mother. But no one seems to care when our nation’s founders are trashed by angry mobs or even by elected political leaders. We’ve sat idly by while our history is unfairly judged by those who only focus on our leaders’ flaws. And even those of us who still cling to a remnant of patriotism are often too timid to buck political correctness and stand up for the positive aspects of our heritage.
I guess we should have seen this precipice coming. Just a few years ago, Nike bowed to Colin Kaepernick’s demand to cancel its new line of Fourth of July sneakers featuring the Betsy Ross American flag. Somehow Betsy Ross was a racist just for making a flag that honored the union of our first 13 colonies.
Our Choice
We each have a daily decision to make: Will we gratefully focus on the positive things of life or grumble about the negative things? Will we see the glass as half full or half empty? Will we honor our past and present leaders for the good things they’ve done, or become smug, cynical faultfinders instead?
This doesn’t mean whitewashing our history or ignoring injustice. But it does mean rejecting the false premise that injustice is pervasive — everywhere and in everyone.
If you’re waiting for the world to be perfect before you can experience true joy and peace, you may be waiting a long time — at least until Jesus returns and sets up His earthly kingdom. Instead of waiting until the world changes, God is calling us to experience peace that “surpasses all understanding” even in today’s broken world (Philippians 4:4-9).
It saddens me to see so many people engaging in angry rampages against our founders, our Constitution, and our heritage. And it angers me when politicians exploit people’s legitimate pain in order to gain control and bring about division.
While I’m empathic to those who truly have suffered from racism or injustice of some kind, many of the divisive politicians have lived lives of luxury and privilege. They are stoking the flames of envy and resentment for their own ends, not for the good of their constituents.
Unhappy people are easy to manipulate and exploit. It doesn’t take much to convince them that some external adversary is the cause of their internal frustrations. This is certainly not a pathway where wounded people can find healing.
Some of my Christian friends have unwittingly tended to justify this kind of destructive thinking and behavior. At the risk of losing some friends for saying so, let me point out that we violate Biblical principles at our own peril. Isaiah 5:20 (NLT) warns:
“What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.”
One of the principles most of us learned from our parents is that “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Put another way, evil can’t be remedied by more evil. Tempting as it apparently is for some people, lawlessness is not the solution to national problems.
Self-Evident Truths
Despite all of our sins and imperfections, there has never been another nation with such lofty aspirations as America. Perhaps that’s why our shortcomings are so horribly painful.
Right from the beginning, our forefathers made a bold declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Hypocrisy is a terrible thing. And it’s tragic that those who proclaimed such noble principles could at times have displayed incredible blind spots in their own lives.
But it’s hazardous to judge our forefathers by today’s standards. By cutting ourselves off from the unpleasant parts of our history, we risk finding ourselves adrift on a dangerous ocean of relativism and rebellion. And we become easy targets for our nation’s enemies.
To their credit, our founders recognized that human equality was ultimately a gift, not from government but from our Creator. By pushing Him out of the discussion, it’s no wonder that we’re struggling to recapture that grand ideal today.
Happy birthday, America! You’re still worth fighting for.