Last week, sports columnist Mike Bianchi, who writes for the Orlando Sentinel, wrote about former head coach Bobby Bowden. Bianchi was writing about a recent decision by the Orange County School Board to not allow volunteers (or any school officials such as teachers or coaches) to lead prayer with any sports teams. Bianchi’s column was to make the point that a coach like Bobby Bowden would not be able to keep his job….or even get hired…in today’s America.
That single idea is the core of our crisis as a country. For some people and groups, the promise of the first amendment as it relates to faith and religion, means that it is their duty to stamp out all connections to God wherever those connections may be found. They have twisted the ideas and hopes of our Founders in ways that none of those men would have ever dreamed or wanted….even the supposedly (and erroneously believed) anti-Christian Thomas Jefferson.
It’s no secret, and I do not try to hide at any time, that I am a Christian. So, my opinion, just like everyone else, is bent or guided by my own views through my values. Were I an atheist then I’d see the world through that set of values. Those values do not make me right, but at the same time, that my opinions may differ from yours doesn’t automatically make me wrong.
Clearly there is something wrong, perhaps even ill, in our country. I can agree with many that we have several problems that each has various causes. Yet for me, with any serious observation of our country and its problems, a root foundational cause is that we have allowed some people or groups to rid us of our historic connection to the Christian God.
God is the answer!
I won’t spend many words here defending this idea that our nation has a historic connection to the Christian God, but I could. Those that think otherwise have to bend and twist and struggle to create a semi-plausible reading of history to get there…and even then, with the use of simple historic documents, their hypothesis is shredded. Realize, as I have said here before, I am not saying that we were founded as a Christian country. Nor am I saying that everyone was a Christian, or even that those who claimed to be Christians were being truthful or faithful to the views of Christianity. And yes, I know all to well the many failures of the country…something that no one should try to dodge. We are, after all, just humans who sin and err (or at least I do, every day), so a group of us humans would also make mistakes and errors.
That fact of our errors or that not everyone was a Christian in NO WAY UNDERMINES the fact that our country existed for decades from our founding in the 1600s as a civic entity with a close tie to the Christian God. Our Presidents, including the aforementioned Jefferson, acknowledged God as critical for our success. The many strands of the Christian faith permeated the country. Most of our early colleges were founded by these various denominations. Men like Bobby Bowden, and women like my godly mother who taught kindergarten for 30 years, were people who openly shared their faith with their students and peers. Generation after generation, our country remained strong because through childhood and school, the values of our nation were taught. Those values were strongly influenced by Christianity. In all walks of life, imperfectly of course, the citizens of the country stood with God. Even those who were open in their disdain for God knew that no one would harm them or force them to join Christianity, and yet that the idea of faith was deep even in their lives. They knew of truth and honor and a myriad of other values like sacrifice and physical effort because of what they were taught, and that those values were deeper than just some human invention.
Our Presidents like Franklin Delano Roosevelt would call the country to pray. Men like Abraham Lincoln would urge the country to lean on its deep roots of faith and let the Christian virtues guide us even in a bitter conflict among brothers. The leaders of movements like the Abolition Movement, the Progressive Movement or the Civil Rights Movement were almost exclusively Christian, eager to use their own wealth and time to try and make the country a better place.
Somehow, in the 1960s though, something happened. Slowly, inexorably, and with determination, groups began to push us away from our historic roots. And they were successful. OK, sure, as some like to point out, God isn’t going anywhere and anyone can pray at any time. That dodge is missing the point and I am confident that most who say that knows it. As a nation, from an open stance of action and policy, we moved away from God, pushing Him officially from our schools and lives.
Look around today, then, at our ills. Great incarceration. Rich people who are largely unconcerned with their poor workers. Road rage happens all the time. People with very short fuses fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. We have successfully eliminated any deep concern with life, whether through killing babies when they are a mere weeks alive or through wanton shooting just because a teen doesn’t look right to you. We no longer keep our word. We don’t understand the concept of honor or shame. We speak to one another, especially in writing on the Internet, in the most egregious and impolite ways.
We are a mess.
And yet, when we look for solutions to things like poor effort in schools or economic malaise or low standards of excellence in the work place, we refuse to look at the one place with an answer. God.
Sure, I can hear some of my non-Christian friends snickering at crazy Carl because I would actually suggest that we might have better students were we more connected to the Christian God. Or, that God could actually have a positive impact at decisions we make with our national wealth. And yet, sure enough, I do believe that. Pick me a topic, let’s chat and I can promise you that at the end, a core aspect of the solution will be a return to God in the center of our nation.
Don’t believe me? Give it a try. I’m right here. Let’s chat.