(from America’s Foundation)
One of the best remembered phrases to come out of the Clinton administration - perhaps even a defining theme for our nation today - is something that was used as a focus statement for the president's platform: You remember, in 1992, when President Clinton was being pinned to the wall by his conservative opponent over all the topics that arise during a political campaign. Clinton's campaign manager, James Carvel, kept Clinton's message clear with the mantra, it's the ECONOMY, stupid!
That well-timed, catchy, fiery phrase carried the day, because that's what the American people wanted to hear–that this candidate was going to focus on their most important priority.
I'm sorry to have to disillusion you today, but Carvel was wrong. And the voters who rallied around that cry were wrong.
It's NOT the economy, stupid; it's not the economy we need to, as a united body, focus on. It's the FOUNDATION.
If a house is losing its foundation - if the cement and stone base upon which —it is set is crumbling and eroding - you don't throw money at new paint to make it look better to investors. You don't install an ultra-modern security system to protect from thieves. You don't install a state-of-the-art kitchen to feed everyone in the house. If the foundation is crumbling, what do you focus on repairing? THE FOUNDATION!
And what is our foundation? You have the answer with you. Take out a dollar bill. Now flip it over. There's a phrase on all our money that we mint that sets the defining tone for our nation. See it there – "in God we trust."
"In God we trust" was a term that was popular with our Founding Fathers when this nation was in early development. It is still popular today. It must be–everyone carries it around with them and guards it carefully.
But today, when we say, "In God we trust," our definition of that term has changed. Today, when we say "In God we trust," we're talking about the money on which the phrase is printed more than the phrase itself.
This has become our new foundation. It's the economy, stupid. This is the god in which we trust.
Our foundation is made of unsecured, over-inflated paper. This is our foundation–and this is our god. And it's false and hollow and dangerous!
It's NOT the economy–that's stupid!
We still speak with honor of our Founding Fathers, as we should. But what do we mean by that term? What did these great men Found? What was the Foundation they laid for us, their inheritors? To best answer that, we need to understand the men.
I)
When we first started this business of being a nation, over 225 years ago, we had some very different ideas about what constituted freedom and basic human rights.
The equal rights that we battle over today would, in many cases, have seemed like perversions to the men and women who gave their lives to begin the America we live in.
When we speak of, say, freedom of religion and separation of church and state, we aren't even speaking the same language as the Founders of America.
But to understand what they had in mind for this nation and the people who would be born here, we need to have a little understanding of who these men were and what they stood for – to the death.
Of the men who made up the First Continental Congress in 1776, many were pastors of local churches; most were practicing Christians; and all of them acknowledged a Supreme Creator.
They unanimously voted for the First Amendment, which states,
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Fisher Ames was the Congressman who wrote those words of the first Amendment. He warned in an article written in 1801 that the Bible must be kept in the forefront of the public school classroom–an idea which has been banished today. Discussing the acceptance of new text books for the school children of his day, Ames wrote:
Why then, if these new books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book?
These men firmly believed in the necessity of Biblical morality in PUBLIC and private lives in order for the nation they were laying out to survive and prosper.
Noah Webster, representing at different times Connecticut and Massachusetts, wrote in a textbook for public school students,
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from - vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war - proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.
President John Adams - a signer of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment - said, in 1798, in an address to the United States Army:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
George Washington was known to be a strong-willed man who would withstand all manner of hardships for the cause of America's independence. But where did Washington find that strength of will?
In his farewell address, Washington told what he felt America's and his strength was built upon.
Of all the habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.
And Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, which defined how our nation should proceed, said in 1781,
God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis (or foundation), a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated BUT with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Our country, then, was shaped by a unified body of men who believed, as a group, that without God as its foundation, we couldn't build a nation.
II)
In 1947, 166 years after Thomas Jefferson made that statement, the United States Supreme Court made a revolutionary decision. In the case, Everson v. the Board of Education, they used a phrase which Jefferson himself made, but they used it in a way he never intended. In that decision, judging that a simple prayer could not be made in school, the Court cited the phrase "
a wall of separation between Church and State" to mean that religion and the American public policy must be kept apart and that religion should not be taught in American classrooms.
The origin of that phrase was a letter President Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. The Association had written to the President out of fear that the newly formed government would attempt to install a state-sanctioned religion, and prevent citizens from practicing religion freely where ever they wished. Jefferson was replying that the Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion to every citizen, and that the Constitution stood as a wall protecting the people's right to always practice religion without government orders.
Jefferson never intended that citizens be protected FROM religion, but that they be guaranteed the protection of a Godly government to practice religion anywhere and everywhere they desired. In government, in classrooms, in their homes, and in public.
When the United States Supreme Court established this legal precedent in 1947 (
which 97% of the citizens at that time disagreed with), they began the process of tearing away the Foundation so carefully laid by the men who began this nation.
What has been the result of this undermining of our national Foundation?
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that - under the redefined phrase, separation of church and state - it was unconstitutional for a student to even SEE a copy of the Ten Commandments in school. (
Remember that Fisher Ames, who wrote the First Amendment they refer to, encouraged that the Bible be kept as the primary text book in public classrooms!) Such ideals as "do not kill" or "do not steal" were now considered by the government to be subversive doctrine, and not to be promoted to impressionable children.
Well, the children were impressed, alright!
Since that landmark decision:
• There has been a 500% increase in teen pregnancies - it's called a national crisis; but teaching abstinence and morals is considered subversive religious indoctrination.
• Violent crime has risen 794% faster than the population growth - I don't even have to remind you of Jonesboro, AR and Littleton, CO.
• Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant.
• Divorce and the death of family is now prevalent.
• We house in prison over 2 million of our youth who were raised under the new doctrine.
• 50% of today's youth smoke. And study after study shows that many of those go on to illegal drugs.
Our current government has succeeded in separating Church (or religion) from State (or the nation). And we are paying the price.
From the cradle to the rest home, our government is seeking (and finding!) ways to weed out citizens. Anyone that a humanistic, evolution-believing minority feels is in the way, is eliminated. Abortion, euthanasia, and selective medical care provisions are the tools used to remove anyone who stands in the way of a perfect society.
III)
That's where we are. And it's not a pretty picture.
It's the economy, stupid! … is stupid! It's not the economy, it's the Foundation we need to work on.
Fortunately, many of our citizens and their representatives in government are beginning to see the light. They are beginning to realize that, just like literacy and SAT scores, our country's quality of life has plummeted since our focus moved from our Foundation to our pocketbook. They are beginning to realize that maybe the men who originally plotted out this nation actually knew what they were doing.
As God-created individuals, every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I didn't say that; the men who dreamed and worked and prayed this nation into existence said it.
The reason that America is the land that so many are willing to risk their lives to come to is that we were founded on freedoms. So many areas of the world restrict religious freedom - America included, now. But originally, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence guaranteed to every American citizen the right to worship God wherever and whenever they desired.
We can all contribute to this counter-revolution. Every voting citizen can let elected representatives know that they are through with a flawed perversion of our system as it was originally intended.
You can write letters, send e-mails, support platforms, and vote encouragement to men and women who will stand for bringing the focus back where it belongs. And you can pray for your leaders who believe, as most Americans do, that We The People still deserve the America we were promised.
