“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Apparently, taking his cue from another historical leader, President Obama must hope that this is accurate advice, as he once again claimed that, “Here in America, Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.” Throughout his speech, the president used phrases that might confuse the issues for many listeners. Stating, “Generations of Muslim immigrants came here…” may lead others to think that this is a racial issue instead of correctly identifying it as a religious and political one.
Hiding the truth, President Obama again attempted to excuse the violence perpetrated by Islam, stating, “the terrorists do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hat[e]ful ideology. They no more represent Islam than any madman who kills innocents in the name of God represents Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism. No religion is responsible for terrorism.” Yet again, the president ignores the fact that this violence is demanded by Islamic religious books and encouraged either directly or indirectly by many of their Imams [religious leaders]. Instead of claiming that Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country, it would be more accurate for the president to state that this Jihadist violence is woven into the fabric of the Islamic religion.
It’s hard for any thinking American to believe that “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.” Neither our history books nor during our growing up years did Americans learn or witness anything of Islamic music, hear city-wide Islamic calls to worship, see their art, read their literature, or see a presence anywhere in our early American political culture. For that matter, Islamic Shariah law stands in direct opposition to our laws and the Law of our Land, the Constitution of the United States of America.
Wherever the fabric of American history and Islam intersected, it was shown as being at odds with one another, a rending of the fabric rather than a weaving into it.
One example is the conflict with the Islamic Barbary Pirates. After speaking with the Muslim Ambassador of Tripoli and asking why they would make war with a country that has done them no injury, Thomas Jefferson relayed what the Ambassador had said: “it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
America would have to make a contract with each Muslim nation along the coast and there was no guarantee that it would be kept. So an American Navy was born. It was this exchange which led Jefferson to weave thisinto the fabric of our nation, “Justice indeed on our part will save us from those wars which would have been produced by a contrary disposition. But to prevent those produced by the wrongs of other nations? By putting ourselves in a condition to punish them. Weakness provokes insult & injury, while a condition to punish it often prevents it. … I think it to our interest to punish the first insult; because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others.”
The list of presidential speeches made, in part, against Islam could go on; it’s not been until a couple of our most recent presidents that we have seen a desire to weave Islamism peacefully into the fabric of our own nation. Instead, let’s focus on the better question; since the religion of Islam has not been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding, what has been interwoven into America’s fabric; what has held us together for all these 200 plus years?
The answer is simple, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Founding Fathers, our Presidents, much of our Congress, judiciary, and many of our military leaders looked to the God Who raises nations up and tears them down, and to Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. They recognized and acknowledged the Hand of Providence in the founding and keeping of our country.
From the beginning, God kept and set aside this land that would one day be known as The United States of America, for the growth and distribution of the Gospel, to be a light shining upon the hill. According to M. Oelsner in a footnote from The Hand of God in History, written by Hollis Read, “The Mahammedans would have discovered America even centuries before Columbus, had not their fleet been wrecked in a tempest, after clearing the straits of Gibraltar.” Columbus’ goal was to be a “Light carrier,” to bring Christ to the new land. In like manner, The Mayflower Compact states, “In the name of God, Amen…Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith…” They came here to spread the Christian faith, to tell others about Jesus!
Pre-national documents are not the only place that Christianity is interwoven with our socio-political beginnings. In the fabric of our founding documents “Almighty God,” “Divine Providence,” and “Creator” are frequently woven. It’s our Creator that is named as having given us the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Christian Bible is interwoven throughout the fabric of our country, our Constitution, and the education that our Founding Fathers desired for the generations to come after them. John Adams gave a messageto our military officers, who stated in part, “…we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. …Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Noah Webster adds, "[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence."
Space does not permit -oh how I wish it did- to go into detail of how Christianity, and its Christ, is so deeply engrained into the fabric of our nation’s founding. Search for yourself; see how deeply the colors, how strong the weave of Christ and Christianity run through our national tapestry. Look into some of these threads that have bound us together well, for over two centuries:
Christianity can be found in the fabric of our buildings, as Scripture, Moses, and the Ten Commandments grace many structures, both inside and out.
Christianity is to be found in our art and literature. It’s woven throughout our national songs. Francis Scott Key, in writing our national anthemsings, “…Bless’d with victory and peace, may our heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just – And this be our motto – ‘In God is our trust!’” Check out the last verse to “America,” the whole of and particularly the last verse to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and of course the whole of “America the Beautiful.” The God of the Bible is ever present in these great, national songs.
Throughout our history threads of fasting, prayer, and humiliation have been frequently woven into the fabric of our country by presidents, governors, military and church leaders.
Most, if not all, of the state Constitutions give recognition and/or gratitude to God in their preamble. Click hereto see how your state has woven Christianity into its fabric, which of course weaves itself into the fabric of our nation.
Congress printed the Christian Bible to be used in our nation’s public schools.
Again, the list could go on; even foreigners recognized the interrelated weaving of Christianity and the success of our nation.
Famous French statesman, historian and social philosopher,Alexis de Tocqueville, reported, “Each sect adores the Deityin its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God…. Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same.
In the United States the sovereign authority is religious,… there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”
So with Christ so interwoven into the fabric of our nation, why are things unraveling before our very eyes? Tocqueville summed it up nicely with these words, “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” The goodness of America was tightly tied to the Righteous and Holy God of the Bible. Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush said, “Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind." We are unraveling because we are divorcing ourselves from Christ and His Righteousness.
So, what is the solution? How can we stop the unraveling of our nation and see the light of holiness shine in and through us once more? The answer brings us to one more vital thread that has been woven into our national heritage from its founding.
Great Awakenings are a part of our tapestry; we need another one woven into our nation now before we further unravel and continue to fall apart. We need God, the same God who has from our foundation been woven into our national fabric, to come down and move us once more. It is only by His grace that we will be saved, only by His goodness, that we as a nation might be revived.
Are you willing to prayfor this next Great Awakening? Are you willing to stand in the gap (Ezekiel 22:30) for your country, for God’s glory?
Do you wonder if there’s even hope for this country; do you think of America only as a sinking ship? Terry Slachter’s book, The Next Great Awakening, is a 41-day devotional that will bolster your faith in God, give you Biblical and historical insights to revival, and create a desire within you for the burdened heart that only God can give. We urge you to get and read this little book on prayer and revival.
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