Everyone likes to point to this nation as one with a
foundation of Christian values. But revisionists of history today like to point
out works of our founding fathers that show it was not the basis, but I
disagree. Freedom was the basis of the founding fathers and the first
Commandment (based on the Jewish interpretation of Exodus 20) is:
I am the Lord thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Freedom is the leading statement to the Christian Ten
Commandments or the first Commandment for the Jewish people, either way freedom
is key to God’s relationship with us. Free choice guides our lives, not a world
of predestined events. God may in fact know what will happen in the future, and
that is debatable, but in no way controls the future. He may interject and help
His agenda along, but in no way are we His puppet show.
As we ponder the founding of this nation on July 4th
we tend to look at the Declaration of Independence and forget the history
prior. We forget that the original colonies were founded by religious groups
trying to escape the Church of England and their controlling doctrine. The
Bible history kind of shows the way things went, since before the reformation,
during the dark ages, the Bible was only in Latin which was a dead language
even in the days the Bible was translated.
I never understood the logic here, other than to control the
flow of information. If the church was the only group that could read the word
of God than the people had no choice than to go to the church to learn the word
of God. As the Bible started to be translated into other languages, the
Catholic Church lost its control of information. From there different minor
theologies sprouted from this and the denomination wars began and with over
30,000 ones to pick from you can see the problems.
What is a denomination anyway? Simply put a “denomination”
is an interpretation, be it language or theological that helps other understand
the word of God.
Often people get into battles and I have seen many called
cults, even the Catholic Church. I feel this needs to stop since all appear to
be vying for members and wants them to believe they have interpreted the path
to salvation and hold that key. Honestly, I look at it more as “different strokes
for different folks” more than anything. Often people like the structure and
formality, where a Catholic or old time Methodist church works great. Heck on
any Sunday you can find the Gospel preached in so many different ways that you
can easily find a church that fits your liking.
At the same time the translations gave people the ability to
fact check what they were being taught!! This was key since often times, more
so today, we get preachers telling us false gospels to make us content and
comfortable. One only needs to read the Bible to see how content the disciples
were spreading the word of God. Only one was not martyred, and that was because
they gave up trying to kill him and dumped him on an island. So while it is
possible to be stranded on an Island with a Bible and have a great relationship
with God, the church was formed since this is not healthy. We need help along
the way understanding the word. And also we need help to ensure that we grow in
our faith and not remain stagnant.
With this said freedom was the Godly foundation that this
nation was founded under and not a belief that God is what all must follow.
This movement to force the Ten Commandments from schools and courthouses is a
simple example of how atheists miss the point. The whole moral code of our
society is based on those ten simple statements. So to remove them is like
trying to remove the Confederate Battle Flag, it was not erase history only
make us forget, so we will be destined to repeat it!!! Remove God and Revelations
is the natural consequence, I only need to point to the many communist regimes
to prove this point, since they tried to remove God (and freedom) and it ended
in the deaths of millions.
So when people say this nation was not founded on Christian
and Godly principles, ask them if the principle foundation was freedom. Then
discuss the what is arguably the first commandment of FREEDOM!!