Monday, September 6, 2010

Our Christian Nation-Editorial

Last week my son had borrowed the second season of Boston Legal from the library and started watching the episodes. I was in and out of the room listening to the story lines but one part in particular caught my attention. In the story, a large company had decided to endorse prayer in the work place to encourage their workers to remember our precious values: honesty, benevolence, integrity and justice and in so doing one of the employees was offended and quit. He then decided to sue this company for their promotion of prayer and Christianity in the work place. During the course of the case one of the junior attorneys created a video of quotes from past Presidents of the United States and other statesmen reciting quotes of our nation under God. It really caught my attention. This junior attorney went on to say in his speech to the opposing attorneys that, “We are a Christian nation. Evolution is out and Christianity is in. We are a Christian nation.” Watching that whole scene made me stop and think: We are a Christian nation. Then why is it that our federal government seems to think otherwise?
In several speeches in the past, President Obama made the statement to other countries that “America is no longer simply a Christian nation.” This belief was disputed by many including a Congressman from Virginia. Rep. Randy Forbes, who spoke out on the House floor against Obama’s view on our religious heritage and asked “when did our nation ceased to be a Judeo-Christian nation?”
I found this wonderful speech by Congressman Randy Forbes given May 6, 2009 to the Speaker of the House and he finishes his remarks by presenting House Resolution 397, the Spiritual Heritage Resolution. It was written to help reaffirm the great history of faith in our country and with that resolution designate the first week of May as America’s Spiritual Heritage Week.
As it is written from this Spiritual Heritage Resolution, we know that “religious faith was not only important in official American life during periods of discovery, exploration, colonization and growth, but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all three branches of the Federal Government from the very beginning.”
We need to return to our Founding Father’s roots and reaffirm the fact that “without God there cannot be any form of American government.” Most of us who do recognize Christianity as the founding principles of our country cannot ignore the fact that others are trying to remove it from our life.
We should ask ourselves the same question as Rep. Forbes: “If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?” The answer to that question is we never have nor ever will cease to be a Judeo-Christian nation. People can remove God from statues, buildings, schools and our legal tender, but we will still be a Christian nation. We will always think: “In God We Trust”.