THE DREAM THAT BECAME AMERICA

Wayne D. Leeper

    It has been correctly stated that that the story of a man’s life begins before he is born.  This is also true of nations, especially the nation which the world calls the United States of America, but which we call home.  The dream which became America, held securely in the hearts of the first migrants to these shores, was best summed up in a sermon written by John Winthrop who would become the first Governor of Massachusetts.

    In 1630, on board the HMS Arabella, while in route to the “New World he wrote a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.”  In that sermon he laid out a vision of a national existence different from any nation that had ever existed.  It would be a nation based on the Christian concepts found in the Bible, but it would not be a theocracy.  Almost 150 years later Benjamin Franklin would proclaim that America would be a Republic, “If you can keep it.”

    Winthrop had a deep understanding of God's divine purposes for the colony. "We shall be a city set on a hill," he said of Boston - where the church was the center of life during those early years of the city's history. He described a harmonious Christian community whose laws and government would logically proceed from a godly and purposeful arrangement.

    John Winthrop also believed that this new form of government would help bring about a "Golden Age" and that one day all the nations of the world would copy this form of government: "We shall find that the God of Israel shall be among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, 'the Lord make it like that of New England.'"

    But Winthrop also gave a warning: "The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause us to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

    Winthrop set out clearly the revealed purposes of God and warned that the success or failure of their endeavors would depend on their dedication to the ideal of selfless community. History shows us that this ideal was never realized, however, Winthrop laid the foundation for generations yet to come.

   The scriptural basis of Winthrop’s sermon was Matthew 5:14.

             “You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

    Two hundred and fifty-nine years later President Ronald Reagan, who had long been impressed with Winthrop’s view of the “New World.” made the following statement as a part of his farewell address to the nation on January 11, 1989:

   “...I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.  But in my mind it was a tall proud city on rocks stronger than oceans, wind swept, God blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

   And how stands the city on this winter night?  More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago.  But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm.  And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

   We’ve done our part. And as I walk into the city streets, a final word to those men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back.  My friends: We did it. We weren’t just marking time, we made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands.  All in All, not bad.  Not bad at all.

And so, good by.  God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

    Even so, the dream that would become America had its roots one hundred and thirty-eight years before when, upon discovering the new world, Columbus wrote in his Book of Prophecies, page 78, on Thursday, November 17 1492:

                “...for this was the alpha and omega of the enterprise, that it should be for the increase and glory of the Christian religion and that no one should come to these parts who was not a good Christian.”           

    It is interesting to note that, unknown to John Winthrop, the first permanent structure in the “New World” was a church constructed some 30 years earlier in Jamestown, Virginia.  Captain John Smith reported that the first church services were held outdoors "under an awning (which was an old saile)" fastened to three or four trees. Shortly thereafter the settlers built the first church inside the fort. Smith said it was "a homely thing like a barn set on crachetts, covered with rafts, sedge and earth." This church burned in January, 1608 and was replaced by a second church, similar to the first. Made of wood it needed constant repair. Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in the second church.

    The Third Church--In 1617-1619 when Samuel Argall was Governor, he had the inhabitants of Jamestown build a new church "50 foot long and twenty foot broad." It was a wooden church built on a foundation of cobblestones one foot wide capped by a wall one brick thick. You can see these foundations under the glass on the floor of the present building. The First Assembly was held in the third church.

  Those who would argue for the separation of church and state must deal with the fact that first representative assembly in the New World convened in the Jamestown church on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly met in response to orders from the Virginia Company "to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia" which would provide "just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting."

   For generations the dream was perpetuated and passed down to the ensuing generation.  The flame of freedom grew in the hearts and minds of a new and unique people that would simply be known as Americans.  Their values were Bible based, their goal was freedom of the mind and soul and to this end they were willing to pledge “Our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.” With these words which ended our Declaration of Independence the dream became the reality which we call the United States of America.

    Yet, there are those today who persist in claiming that America was not founded as a Christian nation and that its founders were “deist,” not Christians.  The recorded statements of the men we call our “founding fathers” puts the lie to the notion that they were not Christians.  Their own words clearly state their religious beliefs, their concept of the nation they created and their hopes and prayers for its future.  They have been rightly called “Enlightened geniuses touched by Devine intervention.”  Their words ring true and clear through the ages and are just as applicable today as they were two hundred and twenty-nine years ago.

                  “What students should learn in American schools above all is  the religion of Jesus Christ.”

                                                  George Washington 

                                                   May 12, 1779

“It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionist, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!  For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

                                                    Patrick Henry

                                                    May 1765    

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of  civil government with the principals of Christianity.

                                                    John Quincy Adams

                                                    July 4th, 1821

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for rulers.”

                                                    John Jay First

                                                    Supreme Court Justice

                                                    October 12, 1816

“We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus.”

                                                    John Adams & John Hancock

                                                    April 18, 1775

“These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.  Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind.  It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”

                                                    Supreme Court    

                                                    Church of the Holy Trinity vs

                                                    The United States of America

                                                    February 29, 1892

“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Devine protection.  Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered...do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?”

                                                    Benjamin Franklin

                                                    Constitutional Convention

                                                    June 28, 1787

 

    And if there could be any remaining doubt, James Madison, often referred to as the father of our Constitution stated:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments.

    Of their efforts Abraham Lincoln declared:

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”

                                                  Gettysburg Address

   Lincoln, along with the founders and our current President realized that liberty is a gift of God to mankind.  Mankind is intended by our creator to be free.  Thomas Jefferson embodied this understanding in our Declaration of Independence when he penned the immortal words, “We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

    From the time of its founding America became a beacon of light to guide every person seeking freedom to our shores.  They came in droves to become a part f the “melting pot” which bonded people of every culture into one.  They strove to be called Americans and to have the opportunity to experience the American dream for themselves and their children.  With the exception of the Native Americans we are all either immigrants or the descendents of immigrants.  Yes, the nation which stands as a beacon to mankind is the nation we call home.

    Our Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims:

                                   "Give me your tired, your poor, your

                               Huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

                                  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

                                  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

                                  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

    Conceived and built upon the concepts embedded in the Sacred Scriptures, America has become the greatest nation in the history of mankind.  People from the world over still strive to reach these shores of  freedom.

    Yet, in recent years a troubling trend has developed which threatens the freedoms that we have long enjoyed under the protection of the God of our Fathers, yea, even our existence as a nation.  In the name of political correctness and multi-culturlism we have seen a concerted effort to remove the God of our Fathers from every aspect of our national life.  This is a movement which stands in direct opposition to the concepts upon which they founded this nation.  The dream which became America was rooted in the passages of the Holy Bible, yet there are those today who want no part of the God that oversaw our birth, protected our freedoms and led us to greatness.

    In 1831, a young Frenchman by the name of Alexis De Tocqueville toured the United States with a friend.  Later he wrote these words concerning what he had learned in America.

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there.  I Sought for the greatness and genius of America in her  fertile fields and boundless forest, and it was not there.  I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.  I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there.  I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution, and it was not there.  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.”         

    Indeed. How long will America  remain great if we refuse to acknowledge the God whose commandments led to our greatness and banish Him from our schools, our government and our land?