Another National Day of Prayer has come and gone. I hope you took time to reflect upon your own prayer life, as well as the corporate prayers of our nation. There can be no argument that we have much to pray about in these days of violence and the threat of more war. My own list grows longer each day.
I was first introduced to the Day of Prayer sometime in the mid-1980s when I was asked to be the speaker at the observance in the National Cemetery in Springfield. When I moved to Farmington sometime later to pastor a church, I participated in that city’s prayer observances.
Upon returning to Lebanon I began putting together an early evening inter-denominational community service after people got off work on the National Day of Prayer. It was held on the steps of the courthouse or in the lobby of the Civic Center where we brought in special singers and speakers or choirs from one of the schools. We invited city and county officials and law enforcement and first responders as our special guests. Pastors from various churches in town would pray for them and our state and national leaders. As time passed, my health precluded me from doing that, and I miss it so much.
My good friend and mentor, attorney Dee Wampler, has written a book about the place of prayer in our national history, and the intention of our forefathers that this be a Christian nation. His book is entitled “Standing On The Front Line” and with his permission I am using some of his research to give you some quotes to consider as we reflect upon the foundations of faith upon which this nation was founded.
When the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact 150 years before the Declaration of Independence the original Founders wrote: “In the name of God Almighty, we whose names are underwritten having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politic....”
In the Articles of Confederation drawn up by the New England Confederation in 1643, we note these words: “Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ...”
John Adams said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
For years we have been told that Thomas Jefferson was not a believer in Christ, but in a letter he wrote to Dr. Benjamin Rush he set forth his Christian beliefs very clearly by stating: “I did promise you that I would give you my views of the Christian religion. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection and very different from that anti-christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the Corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, and the only sense in which He wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.”
And as for that “wall of separation between church and state”, I give you the following citations from Supreme Court cases.
In 1844 the US Supreme Court in Vidal v. Girard said it would never allow Christianity to be “maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of Believers or the injury of the public.”
In 1892 in the case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, the Supreme Court examined thousands of documents concerning the founding of our great nation. After ten years of research, the court issued a unanimous decision that included the recognition that the United States of America is not only historically and culturally religious, but that the very system of government and our laws are based on a Christian worldview.
The high court further stated after examining all these documents: “There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not declarations of private persons. They speak the voice of the entire people. This is a religious people. This is a Christian nation.”
The high court further stated after examining all these documents: “There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not declarations of private persons. They speak the voice of the entire people. This is a religious people. This is a Christian nation.”
In 1984 in Lynch v. Donnelly the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state, but in fact “affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility towards any.”
In 1985 in the case of Wallace v. Jaffree, Justice William Rehnquist wrote in his dissenting opinion: “The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”
Finally, after President John F. Kennedy spoke his great line about asking what we can do for our country, he went on to say in his Inaugural Address of 1961: “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking God’s blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
It was President Kennedy who also said that “...the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”
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