First, they came for the George Washington mural in a school in San Francisco—because our first president had been a slaveowner. Later they came for his name on the same school, and as of last count, the name survived.

Then, they came for the statues of the father of our country during the summer of statue-toppling.

Now, the left wants to strip his name from his eponymous university.

Commentator Nick Nolte (not the actor) notes that The Washington Post, named after you-know-who, has published the opinion of a student at George Washington University, which is in the city of you-know-who, District of Columbia.

Nolte sums up the student’s article thusly: “This university is racist, and George Washington was racist, and while I didn’t find this offensive enough to pass up attending school here, harrumph, harrumph, harrumph, half-truth, half-truth, half-truth, I’m so virtuous, I’m so virtuous, I’m so virtuous…”

That student even wants Winston Churchill’s name removed from the library.

This is just another indication of how the left is at war with Western Civilization. If we continue down this path, there would be virtually nothing left of the great traditions of freedom and flourishing that the West has enjoyed, primarily because of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

Was George Washington a hero or a villain? Well, consider this. William Wilberforce was often called “The George Washington of Humanity.”

Alas, many don’t know who Wilberforce was. But he was a committed Christian statesman who served as a long-time Member of Parliament. With a team of colleagues and friends, he bitterly fought against slavery in the British Empire—and succeeded.

It took him more than half a century to accomplish this. And he did it in two stages. First, he fought against the slave trade itself. This stopped British ships from going to Africa, paying for slaves from Muslim slave-traders, who got them from other conquering African tribes.

Step one stopped the bleeding. Although they get virtually no credit for it, the founding fathers of America beat Britain in passing a law to stop the importation of slaves. As part of the original Constitution, they stipulated that in 20 years (1808) from the document being ratified (1788), there would be no more importation of slaves into the United States.

Step two in Wilberforce’s Christian crusade was to get all the slaves in the British Empire to be freed. He retired from Parliament in 1825, but others kept his crusade going through completion. Wilberforce received the news of the complete abolition of slavery in the British Empire on his deathbed in 1833.

Historian, retired professor, and bestselling author Dr. Paul L. Maier noted in our D. James Kennedy Ministries television special, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? that Wilberforce’s successful crusade helped ultimately lead to the end of slavery in America.

Maier says, “And then we also in our country on the basis of Christian principles, Abraham Lincoln and others, were able to do the same thing.”

William Wilberforce was one of history’s greatest heroes. And, again, this humanitarian leader was called “the George Washington of Humanity.”

What does that say about George Washington? That speaks volumes of our first president. He helped give birth to a nation that stands for freedom, under God. The Constitution he helped create had within it the seeds to one day overthrow the evil of slavery. And it happened.

At the cost of the lives of 700,000 men, but it happened.

Keep in mind a few facts about the father of our country. Washington voluntarily served his country when called on, relying on God to help him throughout.

Dr. Peter Lillback and I wrote a book many years ago about the faith of our first president, George Washington’s Sacred Fire.

 Lillback, the founding president of Providence Forum (for which I now serve as executive director), notes that Washington was a fourth-generation Virginia gentleman farmer. Slavery was built into that system. Washington inherited slaves by birth and later by marriage. When he died, Washington freed his slaves and made provision for them. He broke the cycle.

Both Washington and Wilberforce saw Jesus Christ as the ultimate hero. George Washington said in a famous letter that what America needs most is to imitate Jesus, “the Divine Author of our blessed Religion.” If we don’t, he warned, we can never hope to be a “happy nation.”

The Marxist iconoclasts of today, such as the triggered student at George Washington University, or the editors at The Washington Post, who promulgated such ideas to a wider audience, have no appreciation for the sacrificial contributions of those who went before us, that we might be free.

First, they came to remove Washington murals, then topple his statues. Now they want to rename the university named in his honor. What’s next? A call to rename the capital city?

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a new case related to school prayer. This story began in 2015 when high school football Coach Joe Kennedy got on his knee at mid-field after a game and thanked God quietly. Some of the players voluntarily joined him in this huddle.

Kennedy was fired for this act by his employer, Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. He sued to get his job back.

Fox News (4/25/22) reports: “Lower courts have all ruled for the school. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that by kneeling and praying in view of students and parents, Kennedy ‘spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected.’”

Fox News quotes Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “No child attending public school should have to pray to play school sports.” But his defenders note the coach was expressing his own public thanks—not forcing anyone else to participate in his prayer.

How dare he, argued the secular authorities in the state of Washington and beyond, acknowledge Almighty God before all those students and parents and members of the community?

How dare Coach Kennedy do this in the state named after George Washington, who acknowledged Almighty God on multiple occasions—even on the day be became our first president and participated in a two-hour Christian worship service with the new government leaders of the United States at St. Paul’s Chapel, in which they received Holy Communion?

Coach Kennedy is closer to the ideals and practices of the founders than his critics who assert a false “strict separation of church and state”—words found nowhere in the Constitution.

Coach Kennedy is being represented by First Liberty Institute based in Plano, Texas, which focuses on defending religious freedom in America. Their name is derived from the fact that the first liberty listed in our nation’s Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U. S. Constitution, is religious liberty.

The First Amendment begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Historically, this was understood to mean that there would no Church of America, like there is a Church of England. That is, there was to be no Church “by law established” at the federal level. Some states at the time had state-churches.

Defenders of Coach Kennedy argue that the same men who gave us the First Amendment also gave us the Northwest Ordinance, which spells out the template that future states in the country were to follow.

They wrote in this ordinance: “Religion and morality being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The founders did not intend schools to be “religion-free zones.”

Judge Darrell White, the president of Retired Judges of America, once told me in an interview on church-states relations: “There is a separation of church and state, but it’s not a separation of God and government.” It is a separation of the institution of the church from the institution of the state.

James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, wrote a document called “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” in 1785. In that document, he notes that because Christianity is of divine origin, it will stand on its own, without the aid of the state.

Madison said, “Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered.”

In other words, the state is not to support the church and nor is the federal government (sometimes called by the founders the “general government”) to interfere with the church. Said Madison in 1788: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion.”

Just the idea of a school official bowing the knee to God—not bowing the knee to protest our national anthem, but in respect to our Creator—was enough for those on the left to try and destroy Coach Kennedy’s career and keep him from what he believes is his calling, to coach high school football.

It would seem that the left cares about free speech and freedom of expression when it comes to things the founders would have never dreamed about, like alternative sexualities and gender fluidity, but not for things explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution like the free exercise of religion.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

By God’s grace, the American experiment has lasted for 232 years now, since the Constitution went into effect on April 30, 1789. Every political leader that is sworn in agrees to uphold the Constitution.

But now in our day of rampant political correctness, of Marxist revisionism, of “egg shell plaintiffs,” of “safe spaces,” of “hate speech” (which is often just the other guy’s opinion), even the Constitution has recently been labeled as “harmful.” It might offend someone.

Case in point. Recently, Ophelie Jacobson of Campus Reform approached students at the University of Florida to ask them what they think about the Constitution. Their responses, as seen in this video, were mostly negative.

Here were some of their comments on the U.S. Constitution:

• “Absolutely terrible. Needs to be redone immediately.”
• “I think it needs a lot more reform for the changes that happened since then.”
• “I think we just need to update it on like—more equality, equity, stuff like that.”
• It’s the product of “all old white men.”
• “It should have been made by a group of diverse people.”
• “The time period, you know, was rich, old white men; and that’s exactly what that document says and stands for and vouches for.”

No wonder so many of them were willing to sign a petition to abolish the Constitution!

Furthermore, even the keepers of the Constitution in Washington, D.C. have contributed to this negative view. On 9/24/21, The Federalist reported: “Over the summer, the National Archives issued ‘harmful content’ warnings on all its collections of online documents, including Founding-era documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.”

Why would they do this? The Federalist explains that the warnings “allegedly protect against documents that ‘reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more.’”

U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) want the National Archives to remove these “harmful negative alerts” from our founding documents.

This is getting ridiculous. If these views prevail, the Marxist attempt in America to “tear it all down” and start over might well succeed. May it never be.

The Constitution has brought unparalleled political freedom and prosperity. Marxism has brought unparalleled misery and death. People don’t clamor to get into the Marxist countries like China or Cuba or Venezuela. But they do risk their lives to get into the United States. That’s not despite the Constitution and what it represents. It’s because of it.

But many forces today, because they love power (and often the perks that come with that power) are willing to undermine the Constitution, so they may gather unto themselves more control. This does not bode well for the future of our republic.

Thomas Sowell warns, “It doesn’t matter what rights you have under the Constitution, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn’t matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials’ power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences.”

This point is reminiscent of a warning from the father of our country.

As Dr. Peter Lillback and I noted in our 2006 book, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, “Washington asserted that human depravity could ultimately destroy the Constitution, even with the checks and balances it possessed. In his proposed Address to Congress in April 1789, he described how the Constitution, with all of its wisdom, could ultimately come to naught by the depravity of the people and those who govern them, since the Constitution in the hands of a corrupt people was a mere ‘wall of words’ or a ‘mound of parchment.’”  (p. 220).

One of the geniuses of the Constitution is the way its principles were built by men who acknowledged the sinful nature of man. I believe that because it was based on a correct anthropology—one that recognizes our innate selfishness—that the Constitution has been so durable.

James Madison, a key driving force behind the Constitution, learned well from his teacher, Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, the devout Presbyterian who was the president of Princeton, who taught Madison what the Bible says about man’s corrupt nature.

Madison said, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” Therefore, the founders separated power, explicitly, so that we would have liberty rather than tyranny.

I agree with William Gladstone, the distinguished 19th century Prime Minister of England, who declared, “The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”

Why this constant attempt to tear down those things which are right in our world? The Constitution of the United States is one of them. We have our work cut out for us to convince many fellow Americans of that truth.

This article was originally posted at JerryNewcombe.com.

I recently read a very interesting, and brave, editorial from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. It appeared on AFA’s national news service – One News Now. He points out the contradiction in the efforts to remove statues all across America because of how the culture now views the words or actions of certain individuals which can often cloud how they are remembered today for their larger contributions.

The “woke” liberal culture has now even questioned statues of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and some abolitionists who worked to end slavery because they may have said things in certain ways reflecting their era about race or slaves that are frowned upon today. This cancel culture movement has even questioned Martin Luther King’s teachings and gone after people like Christopher Columbus and George Washington.

Donahue applies this new revisionist view to the homosexual movement. He wonders why corporations went over the top in promoting June as “Pride Month” when so many founders of the Pride movement were child molesters, supportive of child molestation, or other abhorrent behaviors.

For example, Harry Hay who is considered the founder of the modern gay rights movement supported adults having sex with minors stating that “young males would love it.” Hay admitted that he was molested by a 25-year-old adult male when he was 14, referring it as a “most beautiful gift.” He criticized homosexual parade organizers who tried to exclude NAMBLA (the North American Man Boy Love Association which advocates for pedophilia and the repeal of all age of consent laws) stating, “NAMBLA walks with me.” Hay also had connections to the Communist Party including setting up an organization of homosexual communists in the early 1950’s called the Mattachine Society.

Brenda Howard, who organized the first gay pride march in 1970 and was known as the “Mother of Pride” was an open advocate for sadomasochism, bondage, and polyamory.  Larry Kramer, founder of ACT-UP was also an advocate for NAMBLA. Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag, was anti-Catholic and also reported to be a member of NAMBLA. Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician memorialized in a Hollywood movie, and praised by President Barack Obama, was known to have had a live-in relationship with a young, runaway, 16-year-old boy when Milk was in his 30’s.

Donahue opposes the removal of many of our historic figures’ statues but wonders why these morally compromised founders of the gay rights movement are not held to similar standards when their beliefs and actions are far more problematic. “Why is it OK to trash Harry Truman but not Harry Hay?” Donohue asked.

It’s not a pretty subject, but it is a contradiction that our culture does not want to consider as it rushes to embrace an “anything-goes” ethic of sexual behavior.

(Note: In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control reported that homosexual and bisexual males were abused as children at a rate three times higher than heterosexual males. Other studies have found higher rates of childhood abuse among lesbian and bisexual women.)

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

Written by John A. Sparks

The idea of expanding the size of the U.S. Supreme Court, also known as “court packing,” has surfaced once again, as it did after the Brett Kavanaugh appointment. Often mentioned is a proposal by Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of University of California Berkeley’s Law School. He favors increasing the size of the court to 13 instead of its current nine. There are other calls for a larger court, such as those produced by organizations like “Take Back the Court” and “Demand Justice.” Of course, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) simply demands: “Expand the court.”

Let’s start with the basics. The U.S. Constitution does not state a particular size for the U.S. Supreme Court. The number of justices are fixed by Congress. The initial size was set by the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was passed by both houses and signed into law by President George Washington. That act called for one chief justice and five associate justices—a total of six. The number has been changed a few times, but a later Judiciary Act (1869) set the total number at nine, where it has remained for over 150 years. Although there are other proposals circulating—rotating justices off the court and onto the U.S. Courts of Appeals and requiring mandatory retirement at a certain age—a change in the number of justices would be the only change which would clearly not require a constitutional amendment.

So, why change the size of the court? Is it really necessary?

One reason given by advocates of expansion is that the current configuration of nine justices does not give duly elected presidents sufficient opportunities to shape the court by their appointments. In theory, since a newly elected president can’t “clear the deck” and name an all new court, the president must wait for court retirements or deaths to occur. Until that happens, the president is unable to make a court appointment. In the case of President Trump, he had the rare occurrence of two deaths and a retirement during his first term.

However, such opportunities are not far from the norm. Remarkably, the facts show that with the exception of partial-term presidents (William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson), virtually every U.S. president, beginning with George Washington and ending with Donald Trump, has been able to appoint at least one U.S. Supreme Court justice during his term of office, with Jimmy Carter being the only exception. In fact, the average number of appointments by each of our 45 presidents is approximately 2.6 appointments. Two-term presidents appoint on average 3.1 justices, if one excludes Franklin Roosevelt (8) and George Washington (11), who are “statistical outliers.”

Coming forward to the post WWII era, the 13 elected presidents—six Democrats and seven Republicans—have maintained an average similar to the historical average. Here are the number of appointments for each: Truman (4), Eisenhower (5), Kennedy (2), Johnson (2), Nixon (4), Ford (1), Carter (0), Reagan (3), George H.W. Bush (2), Clinton (2), George W. Bush (2), Obama (2), and Trump (3). The mean average per president for this period is 2.3 appointments. The statistics on appointments by sitting presidents seem to show that on average presidents have not been curtailed by the nine-justice configuration.

Another argument made years ago is now resurfacing. It challenges the fundamental structure of American government. These supporters of change say that our current constitutional system of presidential nomination and senatorial confirmation is outmoded because it is anti-democratic, that it is not responsive enough to “the people.” They say the existing judicial processes of choosing justices are  “relics” from a political “ice age” that was “pre-democratic.”

True, the court and the way its members are chosen and serve is not democratic, if by that one means that “the people” choose the justices directly and can regularly remove them. The fundamental configuration of American government put in place by the Founders is what Aristotle called “mixed government,” that is a mixture of democratic and non-democratic forms. Members of the U.S. Supreme Court are chosen by the president, not elected by the people. The confirmation of the nominee is done by the U.S. Senate, where population does not determine political power because each state has the same number of votes. The term of service for a justice (and other federal judges) is for life. These are the only federal office holders with life-long tenure. Therefore, the justices are not reachable by “the people” in the same way that, for instance, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives is. The reason? The Founders wanted the judicial branch to be able to resist the fitful pressures of majorities and of the executive which would endanger the cardinal rights of citizens—life, liberty, property, religious expression, and speech.

However, this is not to say that the people have no voice in the shape the court takes. But that voice is a muted, indirect voice. It is expressed by choosing a president who then, through the rigorous filter of the U.S. Senate, appoints a justice upon a vacancy. The voice of the people, though restrained by the existing system with nine justices, has produced courts of differing political hues. One only must only compare the New Deal court with the Rehnquist court or the Warren court with the current Roberts court. However, those changes in emphasis and judicial philosophy come gradually, helping to guarantee a substantial degree of certainty and predictability which should be the hallmark of a court, the chief interpretative body in our constitutional republic.

What the proponents of expansion actually fear is candidly expressed by Chemerinsky. Expansion of the court “is the only way to keep there from being a very conservative court for the next 10-20 years.” Chemerinsky’s statement reveals that he is not really dissatisfied with the current size, structure, and process of judicial nomination. What he is unhappy about is that certain Republican presidential wins coupled with deaths and retirements by justices have produced a court with a conservative tilt. He fears a “long winter” of conservative opinions by the court and is unwilling to trust that future Democrat presidential wins, deaths, and retirements could just as well turn the court back in the liberal direction he desires while keeping the current process and size of the court.

Despite current polls which indicate that court packing would be viewed unfavorably by the electorate, the temptation to pack the court would be significant with a Democrat presidential win. Assuming an expansion of the court to 13 justices, the four new members of the court would presumably be liberal judges inclining the court in that direction. Regrettably, such an abrupt change in the size of the court based on a single presidential victory would diminish and eventually destroy respect for and confidence in the court. It would result in long-term damage to the court, which would be converted from a generally impartial deliberative body following the rule of law into a branch whose size could be altered in favor of either victorious political party in any given election.

Court packing is unnecessary and potentially destructive of the court’s dignity and high standing. It would undermine the delicate balance between the branches that the Founders labored to ensure.

This article was originally published by The Institute for Faith & Freedom.

The Chicago Board of Education voted 5-2 on Wednesday, February 26, 2020, to stop celebrating Columbus Day and replace it with “Indigenous Peoples Day.” This latest example of political correctness comes on the heels of calls for paintings in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that contain images of white people to be removed. CPS has the largest collection of early 20^th century murals in the U.S. Most of them were commissioned by the Work Projects Administration as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

CPS has created a new educational steering committee to evaluate all future artwork displayed in the schools saying they will, “evaluate concerns raised about specific works of art to ensure equity and cultural responsiveness.”

A district statement read, “The district recognizes that some works of art in schools do not reflect the district’s values of diversity and inclusion.” This statement is ironic considering most of the paintings that are being suggested for removal feature Native Americans pictured peacefully with early white missionaries and settlers. Apparently, “diversity and inclusion,” means excluding white people.

Sarah Dennis, a social justice advocate, says her children were taken on a field trip to Bateman Elementary where they saw a mural that contained white women wearing head-coverings (a religious symbol that was common in early American history). Head-coverings are still worn today by Illinois citizens in the Amish and Mennonite communities. Her response is, ““We went out into the hallway and stared at it. I asked them, ‘What do you see? What kind of message does it send to the children who attend here, about who is important?’”

Other commentators called the art, “racist, dated and offensive.” This kind of disregard for religious practice and historical accuracy is reflective of the new postmodern deconstructionist mindset that seeks to tear down existing social structures and replace them with new politically correct ones.

Ironically, the Italian-American community that hosts more than 500,000 citizens in Chicago alone, released a statement against the removal of Christopher Columbus as a historical figure in the schools:

For Italian Americans, who endured horrific discrimination and continue to be the subject of stereotypical degradation in popular culture, Christopher Columbus is a symbol for the resilience of a people that have helped shape the cultural landscape of this great nation.

Is CPS seeking to represent all cultures equally and fairly or do they seek to give preference to some people groups while excluding others? This is the inequality that often happens when multiculturalism gets hijacked by special interest groups who seek to promote their own agendas.

Some paintings have already been removed. Last year at Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, students from the Social Justice Club successfully pressured administrators to remove Ethel Spears’s 1937 mural Child and Sports – Winter because the painting included only white children.

This follows the example of other schools around the nation that have removed any paintings of America’s founders (e.g., George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry) because they owned slaves.

Teaching history demands telling the truth about the mistakes that have happened in American History. We don’t want to lie to our children, telling them that America’s past was perfect. That can be done, however, without removing any reference to the positive impact made by European settlers. They were not all slave-owners, oppressors and racists. And even those who were often contributed in ways that have helped all future generations of Americans including historically oppressed groups.

The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, though written by flawed humans, have helped all Americans. Oppressive regimes like Communist regimes scrub history to advance an ideology. As Americans we should seek to tell the whole story: the good, the bad and the ugly. We can’t do that if ideology leads to censorship.

THIS SATURDAY! IFI is hosting our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon. For more information, please click HERE for a flyer or click the button below to register for the conference.

Written by Jerry Newcombe

Everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out what has gone wrong when disturbing stories break of more attacks by young men killing strangers at random. We are reeling as a nation in the wake of these mass shootings and wondering what has gone wrong.

Our cultural elites have led us down a path of unbelief, and now we are reaping the consequences.

I’m reminded of the story about Voltaire, the famous French skeptic, who helped grease the skids for the bloody French Revolution. When one of his skeptical guests was talking loudly at his home, Voltaire asked him to lower his voice. He didn’t want the servants to hear their godless philosophy, lest they steal the silverware.

It’s the morality, stupid. Of course, this phrase piggybacks on the unofficial campaign slogan of Bill Clinton in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid!” This simple phrase kept them focused, eventually on to victory.

In today’s crisis, which is not something brand new, it’s been brewing for decades in America: It’s the morality, stupid And what’s the cause of this morality? We have driven God out of the public arena.

Unbelief assumes there is no divine accountability. When there is no fear of God in the land, then people do whatever they feel like doing—even if it inflicts mayhem on others. As an atheist character in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov put it: “…since there is no infinite God, there’s no such thing as virtue either and there’s no need for it at all.”

America is ultimately an experiment in self-government. After the founding fathers hammered out the Constitution in the convention in 1787 in Philadelphia, a Mrs. Powell of that city asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they gave us. His answer was classic: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

The founders knew that the only way we could sustain this self-government was by the people being virtuous, acting in a moral way. And how would that morality be sustained? Answer: through voluntary religion.

The man who spoke more than any other at the Constitutional Convention was Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. He is credited with writing some of the Constitution, including the preamble (“We the people”). He noted that religion is necessary for morality:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”

George Washington said in his Farewell Address that it is religion that sustains morality. If you undermine religion, you’ll undermine morality.

That is precisely what has happened to America. Beginning with a whole series of misguided U.S. Supreme Court decisions, religious influence—frankly Christian influence—in society was restricted more and more. By the 1960s, God was effectively kicked out of the public schools.

When he was 14 years old, William J. Murray was the plaintiff in one of the key anti-school prayer cases on behalf of his atheist mother, Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Today, Murray is a born- again Christian, ruing the terrible decision and its consequences.

He once told me, “I would like people to take a look at the Baltimore public schools today versus what they were when I went to those schools in 1963 and my mother took prayer out of the schools. We didn’t have armed guards in the hallways then when we had God in the classroom. But I’ll guarantee you there are armed guards [now]. In fact, the city school system of Baltimore now has its own armed police force.”

We lack a fear of God in our land. Young people have no idea that after they die, they will have to give an account to Jesus, whom the founders called in the Declaration of Independence, “the Supreme Judge of the World.”

In the mid-19^th century, one of the Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives was Robert Charles Winthrop, a descendant of John (“a City on a Hill”) Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston.

Robert Winthrop gave an address in 1849 at the Massachusetts Bible Society, in which he noted, in effect, our choice is clear: Christianity or violence?

Here’s what Winthrop said:

 “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Would that we choose the Bible today, as the settlers and the founders of our nation chose to do.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Ny), the darling of the new socialist Democrats in this country, recently referred to the three branches of government. She said, they are the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives. John Roberts, call your office.

Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in a great misunderstanding of our history. Many Americans have an abysmal knowledge of our history and some of the basics of American civics.

The results of a recently-released survey (2/15/19) are not encouraging. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reports that, “in the highest-performing state, only 53 percent of the people were able to earn a passing grade for U.S. history. People in every other state failed; in the lowest-performing state, only 27 percent were able to pass.” [Emphasis theirs.]

The states that did the best were Vermont, Wyoming, and South Dakota. The states that did the worst were Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas. When I first read that, I thought, “Then, what are those Vermonters doing, voting for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders again and again?” As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Some examples of the common ignorance of Americans uncovered by the survey:

• 57% did not know that Woodrow Wilson was the Commander in Chief during World War I.

• 85% could not identify the correct year the U.S. Constitution was written (1787).

• 75% could not identify how many amendments have been added to the document (27).

• 25% did not know that freedom of speech was guaranteed under the First Amendment.

The Foundation concluded: “[A] waning knowledge of American history may be one of the greatest educational challenges facing the U.S.”

This survey is consistent with other findings through the years. We have dumbed down our schools.

Our loss of the knowledge of basic history and civics is a tragedy. We suffer from what I call, American Amnesia. I even wrote a whole book about it. God is the source of our freedom, but we forget this to our peril. As John F. Kennedy put it, “[T]he rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

I once interviewed the late Mel and Norma Gabler of Longview, Texas, who reviewed textbooks, from a Christian and conservative perspective. They told me of a textbook which dedicated seven pages to Marilyn Monroe, but only a paragraph to George Washington—and in that paragraph it mentioned that he had false teeth.

Our young people today know more about the trivia of today’s celebrities than they do the men and women who sacrificed everything to bequeath our freedoms to us.

Karl Marx once said, “Take away a people’s roots, and they can easily be moved.” Dr. Peter Lillback, with whom I had the privilege to write a book on the faith of George Washington, said in his book on church/state relations, Wall of Misconception, “One of our great national dangers is ignorance of America’s profound legacy of freedom. I firmly believe that ignorance is a threat to freedom.”

Lillback compiled the following quotes on the link between education and freedom:

• Thomas Jefferson said, “A nation has never been ignorant and free; that has never been and will never be.”

• James Madison observed, “The diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty….It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

• Samuel Adams pointed out the importance “of inculcating in the minds of the youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country.” God and charity first, said the Lightning Rod of the American Revolution, country second.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, says the Bible, which was in the first 200 years of America the chief textbook in one way or another. That includes the small but powerful New England Primer, which trained whole generations in Christian theology (in the Calvinist tradition), while teaching them even the basics of reading and writing.

Even their ABC’s were based on Biblical truths. Says the New England Primer: “A, In Adam’s Fall, We Sinned All. B, Thy Life to Mend, the Bible Tend. C, Christ Crucif’ed, For Sinners Died,” and so on.

Back then, with a Bible-based education, literacy was so high that John Adams said that to find an illiterate man in New England was as rare as a comet. It is too bad that as a society we continue to forget God, and we continue to reap the consequences, including the loss of our history and heritage of liberty.

Why does this matter? George Orwell, a former British Marxist, told us why in his classic novel, 1984: “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com

An Illinois lawmaker’s bill to publicly display the motto “In God We Trust” in public schools is the latest challenge to the secularism that is the status quo in many public schools across the country.  Though displaying the motto would not be mandatory, State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) says his legislation (HB 341) would encourage a return to Christian principles: “As a God-fearing Christian, I believe that the lack of such is the problem in our country today.”

This bill has three co-sponsors in the Illinois House thus far: State Representatives Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport), Chris Miller (R-Robinson) and Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville).

Illinois is the latest state with legislation that would permit the posting of “In God We Trust” in public schools.  Lawmakers in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee have recently voted to require or allow the motto to be posted in public schools.  Sheriff’s deputies in Jefferson County, Illinois, have joined the movement by voluntarily placing “In God We Trust” decals on their squad cars.  Similar bills have already been introduced this year in Alaska, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York and South Carolina.

Atheists like Hemant Mehta of friendlyatheist.pathos.com are outraged by attempts to refer to a Higher Power:

“We certainly don’t need religion to teach common decency and morality when it’s the Christians currently running the government who provide us with a steady stream of corrupt acts and cruel policies.”

Evidently not a very “friendly atheist.”  Critics also say the motto can be alienating to students who are not religious, and allege that it is a violation of the separation of church and state.

But that cornerstone of American secularism – the vaunted “separation of church and state” – never appears in the United States Constitution, but rather first appears in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association dated January 1, 1802.  Jefferson’s chief concern appears to be avoiding the establishment of any denomination as the “state church.”

Garrett Epps, writing in The Atlantic, and arguing against public expressions of faith, claims that the concept of the “separation of church and state” originated not with Jefferson, but with the American theologian Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation in the British New World.  According to Epps, Williams coined the phrase in 1644 to “signify the protection that the church needed in order to prevent misuse and corruption by political leaders.”

Epps is seemingly unaware that he has undermined his own argument.  The “separation of church and state” is meant to protect the churches from government intrusion – not the populace from exposure to religious teachings.

Those who oppose the influence of Christianity in society are fond of (mis)quoting Thomas Jefferson, one of several deists among the Founding Fathers.  But deism is not atheism, and while Jefferson did not believe in supernatural revelation, he affirmed his belief in one God as well as in divine providence, the divine moral law, and in personal judgment including rewards and punishments after death.

The opponents of Christianity would also do well to study the life of George Washington, the first president of the United States.  George Washington was a devoted Anglican his entire life.  As General of the Army of the Potomac, Washington openly endorsed religious practice – this, mind you, while as a public servant.  He encouraged his soldiers to attend to their religious duties, including “to implore the blessing of Heaven” upon the nascent American Army.  Washington’s archived papers contain hundreds of biblical quotations, figures of speech, idioms, proverbs, and allusions related to his Christian faith.

George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787 during the time when the writing of two key founding documents in American history were written: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  The Constitution explicates how the new United States was intended to function.  The Declaration of Independence lays out the rationale for the new nation, and in so doing mentions God four times and states that our rights come from our Creator.

It seems inconceivable that important aspects of American history are deliberately withheld from public school students – especially when the vast majority hold to a belief in God and subscribe to Christian beliefs.  A Pew Research Center survey found that “an overwhelming majority of the youngest adults continue to believe in God or a higher power: Eight-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 say they believe in at least some kind of spiritual force.”

It is the height of duplicity to deny the posting of what was unanimously declared by the 84^th Congress to be the official national motto of the United States, and which appears on the currency in the purses and wallets of students.  The “In God We Trust” movement is a welcome reaffirmation of the Divine guidance upon which our great country was built.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to ask him/her to support and co-sponsor HB 341.  Simply acknowledging God does nothing to establish a church or a religion, but subtly points to the fact that we are dependent daily on God’s goodness, mercy and grace.

Christian Life in Exile
On February 22^nd, IFI is hosting a special forum with Dr. Erwin Lutzer as he teaches from his latest book, “The Church in Babylon,” answering the question, “How do we live faithfully in a culture that perceives our light as darkness?” This event is free and open to the public, and will be held at Jubilee Church in Medinah, Illinois.

Click HERE for more info…

With this being the season we celebrate the birthdays of two of our greatest presidents—Lincoln and Washington—I thought it would be fitting to share a quote from our first president that still has tremendous relevance today.

Washington understood the power of education and its influence on young minds. In a letter written in 1795, he shared the following:

It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. Although there are doubtless many, under these circumstances, who escape the danger of contracting principles unfavorable to republican government, yet we ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems before they are capable of appreciating their own.

The wisdom encapsulated in this paragraph from Washington’s letter holds a lot of relevance for us today, albeit in a different context. While Washington was concerned about foreign ideas of government, today we need to be equally—if not more—concerned about worldviews and value systems contrary to the Word of God (and not just regarding government, but also morality, ethics, and every other area of life).

Just as it was Washington’s desire to see more young people educated here in America rather than abroad, my desire is to see fewer young people from Christian homes educated in secular schools and more given a distinctively Christian education.

Let’s break this quote down and look at some of the wisdom it contains.

SINCERE REGRET

Washington begins by observing how solemn his concern is, noting that this has “always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret” for him. Indeed, the possibility of our young people adopting contrary worldviews and belief systems is (and ought to be) a matter of “serious reflection.”

SENT AWAY

Washington lamented young Americans being sent away to foreign nations. In our day, however, it’s not foreign countries we need to be concerned about so much as the institutions in our own country that are foreign to our worldview and beliefs. Sending our children away to these institutions brings risk just as surely as sending an eighteenth-century American student to Europe did.

FOR THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION

Here we come to the crux of the matter. These young Americans in Washington’s day weren’t being sent overseas merely as tourists or sightseers, but as students—“for the purpose of education,” as Washington put it. And that’s a key distinction. When we send our students to schools where we know the worldview is contrary to our own, we have contradictory hopes. We hope our children do learn what we want them to learn, but at the same time, we hope they don’t learn what we don’t want them to learn. Do you see the dilemma? We hope the school is effective, but not too effective. We hope our children learn and believe some of what is taught, but not all of what is taught.

How are our children supposed to know the difference? How are they going to parse it all out and embrace the good while rejecting the bad? It’s a tall order for a young mind.

Never forget: the purpose of a school is education; the foundation of education is ideas; and the content of our ideas determines our direction in life.

ARDENT AND SUSCEPTIBLE MINDS

Here we come to another important point. Washington knew that many of the young people sent overseas for their education were bright, intelligent . . . and susceptible.

Think about some of the synonyms for susceptible: vulnerable; prone; liable; at risk.

Washington knew that young minds are often ardent, but that this ardor can bring vulnerability to wrong ideas. That was his concern in 1795, and it’s no less a concern today. 

TOO STRONGLY AND TOO EARLY

Washington’s fear was that these young Americans would be impressed with contrary ideas “too strongly and too early” for their own good and the good of their country. And his concern wasn’t unfounded. Indeed, the combination of youth and inexperience is a dangerous blend. Mix in some wrong influences, and you’re inviting disaster.

CAPABLE OF APPRECIATION

The final point in Washington’s argument is insightful: he recognized that these young people were not yet capable of completely understanding their own nation—what it offered and what it represented. They would be susceptible to other ideas of government because they had not yet come to a point of full appreciation for the American experiment and the value of individual liberty.

Is it any different today, in the realm of other ideas and beliefs? Are our children so wise and mature that they can recognize the value of the Christian worldview and hold it as the precious thing it is, even in the face of conflicting belief systems?

EMBRACING THE WISDOM OF WASHINGTON

The father of our country was rightly hesitant about sending our young nation’s students abroad to be educated in countries that didn’t share our values of liberty and self-government. He recognized that a young person’s inexperience, ardor, and susceptibility would all combine to make him or her uniquely vulnerable to embracing foreign ideas of government. And in turn, this would be dangerous to the nation he had dedicated his life to building.

In our day, we’re seeing young people walk away from the church in droves. Perhaps we should take a cue from the wisdom of Washington and stop sending our young people, with their “ardent and susceptible minds,” to be educated by those who share neither our faith nor our worldview. Let’s handle the education of our children with the care and concern it deserves.

America’s founders believed in God and His word, and predicated our founding documents on those immutable, biblical principles.

Though Leftists love to spout revisionist nonsense about many of the Founders being deists or worse, those accusations don’t hold water when faced with the weight of those early patriots’ own words and actions.

Thomas Jefferson, often upheld as vying for the least religious spot amongst the Founders, wrote:

I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.¹

And Jefferson’s worship habits speak even louder:

Many people are surprised to learn that the United States Capitol regularly served as a church building; a practice that began even before Congress officially moved into the building and lasted until well after the Civil War.

On December 4, 1800, Congress approved the use of the Capitol building as a church building.

The approval of the Capitol for church was given by both the House and the Senate, with House approval being given by the Speaker of the House, Theodore Sedgwick, and Senate approval being given by the President of the Senate, Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson’s approval came while he was still officially the Vice- President but after he had just been elected President.

Jefferson attended church at the Capitol while he was Vice President and also throughout his presidency. The first Capitol church service that Jefferson attended as President was a service preached by Jefferson’s friend, the Rev. John Leland, on January 3, 1802.

Significantly, Jefferson attended that Capitol church service just two days after he penned his famous letter containing the “wall of separation between church and state” metaphor.

Now, just over two centuries later, many Americans maintain a post-Christian worldview. As written at IMB.org:

In a Christian culture, the majority of people have been shaped by Christianity, and it shows in how they live their lives. Post-Christianity, just as it sounds, is a culture that was once shaped by the Christian faith and worldview, but has since moved away from the primacy of such a worldview.

In a post-Christian society the Biblical story that once shaped culture is no longer the narrative that gives meaning to life.

The Barna Group conducted studies beginning in late 2016 and ending in mid-2017 concerning young people and their faith worldview; the findings are especially troubling.

The study sampling and definition:

Two nationally representative studies of teens were conducted. The first was conducted using an online consumer panel November 4–16, 2016, and included 1,490 U.S. teenagers 13 to 18 years old. The second was conducted July 7–18, 2017, and also used an online consumer panel, which included 507 U.S. teenagers 13 to 18 years old. The data from both surveys were minimally weighted to known U.S. Census data in order to be representative of ethnicity, gender, age and region.

One nationally representative study of 1,517 U.S. adults ages 19 and older was conducted using an online panel November 4–16, 2016. The data were minimally weighted to known U.S. Census data in order to be representative of ethnicity, gender, age and region.

GEN Z were born 1999 to 2015. (Only teens 13 to 18 are included in this study.)
MILLENNIALS were born 1984 to 1998.
GEN X were born 1965 to 1983.
BOOMERS were born 1946 to 1964.
ELDERS were born before 1946.
NO FAITH identify as agnostic, atheist or “none of the above.”

Some of the findings?

Gen Z is the first purely Post-Christian generation — the percentage of Gen-Z identifying as atheist is DOUBLE the U.S. adult population.

The article presenting the findings (with a related book available for purchase), “Atheism Doubles Among Generation Z,” notes:

For Gen Z, “atheist” is no longer a dirty word: The percentage of teens who identify as such is double that of the general population (13% vs. 6% of all adults). The proportion that identifies as Christian likewise drops from generation to generation. Three out of four Boomers are Protestant or Catholic Christians (75%), while just three in five 13- to 18-year-olds say they are some kind of Christian (59%).

The decline in a Christian-based worldview is illustrated in the graphic posted to the right.

Appallingly, over one third of Gen Z don’t believe it’s possible to know if there really is a God.

What happened to the country whose motto is “In God we trust”?

Noah Webster, the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” wrote:

The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles… This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.²

The Christian religion… is the basis, or rather the source, of all genuine freedom in government… I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling influence.³

And, George Washington, the Father of Our Nation wrote:

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.⁴

Yet in the span of just over 200 years, the youth of America knows next to nothing about God and the Bible. Church attendance, at least in mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, is declining precipitously.

What is the answer? Is it too late?

The Apostle Peter admonished us:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)

“Always be prepared to give an answer” — the underlying precept of apologetics, the defense of the faith.

And a vital part of Apologetics is knowing your worldview.

Gen Z may be overwhelmingly lost and devoid of hope, but we believers have the answer that restores hope. We must be ready to give that answer to a generation that sorely needs hope.

With that dire need in mind, Illinois Family Institute presents the Fourth Annual IFI Worldview Conference Featuring John Stonestreet.

10 AM – 3:30 PM 

Medinah Baptist Church (map)
900 Foster Avenue, Medinah, IL 60157

$20 per person/$50 per family 

Just who is John and why is he a tremendous resource for such an event?

As President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, John’s passion is to illuminate a biblical worldview for today’s culture. He’s a speaker, writer, cultural commentator, and collaborator of worldview initiatives.

John directs conferences and curriculum projects, speaks to groups nationally and internationally, consults on worldview education for schools and churches, and appears frequently on web and radio broadcasts.

John is the co-host with Eric Metaxas of Breakpoint Radio, the Christian worldview radio program founded by the late Chuck Colson.

Don’t miss this tremendous opportunity to “study to shew thyself approved…”!

The Founders invested their hope and their faith into this burgeoning Republic, infusing our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution with biblical precepts and a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Now is the time to recapture the explicit understanding of that worldview, and to share that hope and understanding with a lost and hopeless generation.

_____________________

¹ – Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIV, p. 385, to Charles Thomson on January 9, 1816.
² – Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1832), p. 300, ¶ 578.
³ – K. Alan Snyder, Defining Noah Webster: Mind and Morals in the Early Republic (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 253, to James Madison on October 16, 1829.
⁴ – George Washington, The Writings of Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, editor (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932), Vol. XI, pp. 342-343, General Orders of May 2, 1778.

Here was the headline: “Soros Shifts $18 Billion To Foundation He Uses To Fund Left.” That is not a typo. $18 billion with a B. This guy is serious about seeing Leftism advanced. The facts about that “shift” of dollars are presented by Aly Nielsen at NewsBusters.org.

By now, most people who follow politics are aware of George Soros and his generous funding of radical Leftist issues and organizations around the world.

Here are the opening paragraphs of Nielsen’s article:

Left-wing financier George Soros just nearly tripled the size of his foundation by adding an additional $18 billion in assets. The foundation has funded liberal activism on immigration, abortion, journalism and a myriad of other issues. Its soon-to-be president was also formerly a DNC executive director.

Soros transferred the billions to Open Society Foundations (OSF) from his hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 17, 2017. The transfer increased OSF’ assets from $7.3 billion (according to Foundation Directory) to $25.3 billion.

Here are a few details from the article put into bullet points:

• Soros has given away roughly $14 billion throughout his lifetime.

• Soros has also funneled more than $103 million to journalism groups around the world including ProPublica, NPR and Columbia University.

• Soros also gave at least $10.5 million to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

• Media outlets that backed her campaign or policies had received an additional $61 million in prior years.

• OSF operates in seven different global regions including the U.S., Africa, Latin America and Europe.

• Through the various OSF branches, Soros has started revolutions, undermined national currencies and funded radical groups throughout the world.

There are a lot more colorful details in the article, but my focus is the money:

By transferring $18 billion to OSF, Soros has signaled he intends this left-wing agenda to remain well-funded long after his death.

Soros is 87 years old.

At American Thinker, Rick Moran wrote about this news item as well: “Soros transfers most of his wealth to Open Society Foundations.”

Two sentences from the article: “The foundation said it is the second-largest in the world after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” “The Wall Street Journal estimates Soros’s net worth at $23 billion.”

Note this good point as well: “Suffice it to say, infusing his foundation with that much cash will free up other resources for partisan campaign donations.”

Soros isn’t the only big money person funding Leftist causes, of course, but he’s the biggest dog. Another big dog is Tom Steyer (read more about him here). Steyer is worth an entirely separate article since he is funding an effort to impeach President Trump. Tech magnates have also made headlines over the past few years as they have written enormous checks to left-wing causes. J.B. Pritzker, another Leftist billionaire, is running for governor in Illinois.

The Lefty titans get it — everything in politics costs money. If you want your political agenda to succeed, it requires money money money.

There are a few good examples on the political right where conservative donors are adding more zeros to the checks they write. But many more of our big dogs need to realize that funding a building with their name on it at their alma mater is not going to save the country from the Leftist agenda.

The only way conservatives save the country is if we have the money to fight. The large PACs and the large think tanks are adequately funded, but the best fighters are many of the small, underfunded groups. I’ll name just two here — the Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action (there are many more here and around the country).

Often the smaller organizations are more aggressive and less concerned with being politically correct. Their effectiveness would greatly increase with more funds to hire more staff to oversee more campaigns and events to reach more people. The decades-old think tanks are happy to operate the same as they always have while expecting a different result.

A few years ago I wrote (and rewrote) a series of articles on this topic — it starts with this one. In one, I included this story:

In August of 1781, our Southern forces had trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in the little Virginia coastal town of Yorktown. George Washington and the main army and the Count de Rochambeau with his French army decided to march from the Hudson Highlands to Yorktown and deliver the final blow. But Washington’s war chest was completely empty, as was that of Congress. Washington determined that he needed at least $20,000 to finance the campaign.

When Morris told him there were no funds and no credit available, Washington gave him a simple but eloquent order: “Send for Haym Salomon”. Haym again came through, and the $20.000 was raised. Washington conducted the Yorktown campaign, which proved to be the final battle of the Revolution, thanks to Haym Salomon.

“Send for Haym Salomon.” Even the Father of his country needed funding — and he knew where to turn.

Here is an invitation to those conservatives who can write checks to fund a much-needed communications revolution from sea to shining sea. Wealthy donors need to start exercising a little critical thinking, and stop supporting organizations that don’t have a vision and start funding those that do such as IFI and IFA.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

America is not like most other nations around the world. We have a different history and heritage. America is a nation that was founded on prayer. That is something we should not forget during this election year.

A History of Prayer in America

In December of 1621, Gov. William Bradford and the Pilgrims in Massachusetts called for a day of thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God for His provision and protection.

During the Revolutionary War, Congress issued a total of 15 official proclamations, calling for times of fasting and prayer.

On the celebration of the first national Thanksgiving Day, President George Washington declared:

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. . . Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November [1789] . . . that we may all unite to render unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection.”

The most visible signer of the Declaration of Independence, Gov. John Hancock, proclaimed in 1790:

“[I] appoint . . . a day of public thanksgiving and praise . . . to render to God the tribute of praise for His unmerited goodness towards us . . . [by giving to] us . . . the Holy Scriptures which are able to enlighten and make us wise to eternal salvation. And [to] present our supplications…that He would forgive our manifold sins and . . . cause the benign religion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to be known, understood, and practiced among all the inhabitants of the earth.”

In an appeal for prayer, Benjamin Franklin said to his colleagues in the Continental Congress:

“All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?”

All throughout the history of our nation, our leaders have called for prayer to Almighty God.

It’s Time to Seek the Lord

In this election year, many people are expressing fear and anger. Both of these emotions come from a similar place. Things feel out of control. Our future seems uncertain. People are desperate for something that can stop the freefall our nation seems to be in.

The fact is, our greatest problems in America all have moral and spiritual roots. We cannot, as a nation, turn our back on God, and pretend that we don’t need Him, and then expect His blessings.

Ronald Reagan’s words at the 1982 National Prayer Breakfast ring so true:

“I also believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way, a country created by men and women who came here not in search of gold, but in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law with faith in their Maker and their future. Sometimes, it seems we’ve strayed from that noble beginning, from our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to. God, the source of our knowledge, has been expelled from the classroom. He gives us His greatest blessing, life, and yet many would condone the taking of innocent life. We expect Him to protect us in a crisis, but turn away from Him too often in our day-to-day living. I wonder if He isn’t waiting for us to wake up.”

I believe now is the time for us as Americans to wake up, and hear the call for repentance and humility. Rather than the anger and arrogance that has typified much of this election season, let’s approach our Maker with bended knee, and seek His mercy and pardon for our wayward hearts. Only then can we expect the needed rebuilding and restoration of our country to begin.

“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me,
and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me,
when you seek Me with all your heart.
I will be found by you, declares the LORD.”
~Jeremiah 29:12-14a

There are a number of Americans of which every young boy and girl should learn. George Washington, Abigail Adams, Sam Houston, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, and Louis Zamperini. Zamperini (or “Zamp” to his friends) first achieved celebrity as track athlete in the 1932 Berlin Olympics. A head-strong young boy from Torrance, California, Zamp came out of nowhere to place 8th overall in the 5,000m event.

In 1943, as 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, his bombardier was shot down over the Pacific, more than 800 miles away from Hawaii. The survivors of the crash drifted in their survival raft for 47 days, battling hungry sharks and starvation to eventually land on the Marshall Islands. The Japanese captured them and imprisoned Zamp in a series of increasingly oppressive P.O.W. camps until the camps were eventually liberated and Zamperini returned home as a hero.

Do we belong to the same country which spawned Louie Zamperini? Some days it is hard to tell. By that I mean, think about some of the Americans who have accomplished the most memorable feats over the past 20 years. Lance Armstrong, won seven Tour de France titles and beat testicular cancer—admitted to a doping scheme, stripped of his titles. Barry Bonds, hit 762 home-runs in his career—allegedly used a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs during his career. Michael Phelps, won 18 Olympic gold medals during his career—has been caught hitting a bong and driving-drunk, suspended from all swimming competitions.

These three men have scaled the zenith of American achievement over the past 20 years. Yes, to some degree they are cherry-picked, since there have been other Americans who accomplished great things (Cal Ripken Jr, Nik Wallenda, etc.), but the fact that three of the most accomplished Americans in recent memory are a) athletes and b) of dubious character proves that our concept of remarkable has changed dramatically.

Do we still have true American heroes?

Or are we left with talented athletes as our best and brightest?

We absolutely do have true American heroes. They are all around us. Sadly we usually don’t know their names, or the particularities of the Hell they went through on our behalf, because they are often reticent to speak about their service. The Armed Forces of the United States of America are hero factories. They prepare the best of us to protect the rest of us. Even today, while these institutions are under attack by an effeminate administration which finds itself threatened by their selfless heroics and ruthless efficiency in the face of evil, even today there are still young men and women lining up to serve their country.

So why doesn’t valor engender celebrity in 21st-century America? For a number of reasons, the first being that we have become a cynical people who are motivated primarily by self-gratification and sensual pleasures. Much like a citizen in the late Roman Empire, honor has ceased to be the goal. We would prefer to experience the latest salacious indulgence than think about self-sacrifice.

Another reason is that the prevalence of moral relativism has watered down the potency of concepts like valor and honor in this country. As more people come to believe that there are no moral absolutes, they put little stock in those who live their lives as paragons of those absolutes. The average college student, who thinks that we each create our own morality, cannot accept the integrity of a man who believes so strongly in living honorably that he would give up his life to prevent Evil from achieving success. The terms Good and Evil are meaningless to this poor, befuddled student and so he is left unable to understand or appreciate the heroic individuals in our midst.

The exciting thing is that this Christmas Season, not one, but two films which depict true stories of valor, honor, and indomitable will, open nationwide. Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie, and American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, tell the true stories of Louis Zamperini and Chris Kyle, respectively. While I have no clue yet how faithful these films will be to their source material, and the real lives on which that material was based, we have a rare opportunity to enjoy tales of American valor and skill on a scale not seen more than once or twice in a generation. The lessons these men can teach through the example of the lives they led are desperately needed today in America.

Unless we desire the fate of the late Roman Empire, we must recalibrate our concept of remarkable and once again seek the noble and honorable as our celebrities. Not for their athletic prowess, but for their intestinal fortitude and unbreakable will.

The first great challenge of my life was when, as a kid, I made the transition from a dissipated teenager to a dedicated athlete. Another was staying alive for forty-seven days after my plane crashed, then surviving prison camp. The best way to meet any challenge is to be prepared for it. All athletes want to win, but in a raft, in a war, you must win. Luckily, and wisely, I was prepared—and I did win.  ~Louis Zamperini

The Democratic Party and liberal pundits are trying to make the case that because Mitt Romney is extraordinarily wealthy, he can’t relate to the struggles of average or economically disadvantaged folk; and if he can’t relate to their struggles, he doesn’t care; and if he doesn’t care, he is unworthy of the office of president.

History demonstrates that that argument fails miserably.

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a list of the inflation-adjusted net worth of past American presidents. Some of our finest presidents and some presidents that the Left love were also men of considerable means. Some inherited their wealth, some made it themselves.

• John F. Kennedy (according to WSJ, “Although he never inherited his father’s fortune, the Kennedy family estate was worth nearly $1 billion”)
• George Washington ($525 million)
• Thomas Jefferson ($212 million)
• Theodore Roosevelt ($125 million)
• Andrew Jackson ($119 million)
• James Madison ($101 million)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt ($60 million)
• Bill Clinton ($38 million)
• James Monroe ($27 million)
• John Quincy Adams ($21 million)
• John Adams ($19 million)
• Dwight Eisenhower ($8 million)

And let’s not forget the extraordinarily wealthy Democrats who have served or are serving in Congress (some of whom sought to be president). Information comes from Roll Call and The Center for Responsive Politics :

Democratic U.S. Senators:

• John Kerry ($193.07 million)
• Jay Rockefeller ($81.63 million)
• Ted Kennedy ($43-163 million)
• Mark Warner ($70.30 million)
• Frank Lautenberg ($55.07 million)
• Richard Blumenthal ($52.93 million)
• Dianne Feinstein ($45.39 million)
• Claire McCaskill ($17 million)
• Tom Harkin ($10.28 million)
• Herb Kohl ($9.23 million)
• Jeff Bingaman ($7.41 million)
• Kay Hagan ($70.6 million)
• Ben Nelson ($6.56)

Democratic U.S. Representatives:

• Nancy Pelosi ($35.20 million)
• Jared Polis ($65.91 million)
• Nita Lowey ($15.46 million)
• Carolyn Maloney ($10.14 million)
• Shelley Berkeley ($9.29 million)
• Lloyd Doggett ($8.53 million)

If being raised by wealthy parents or possessing wealth renders people unable to relate to the poor and unable to be compassionate, are George Clooney, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet callous men unable to feel the pain of the disadvantaged? Are they unable to provide solutions to the problems that plague those with fewer material blessings?

What about Obama’s daughters? They have never known poverty. They are being raised in privilege and affluence, attending the most expensive private schools in the country. Are their characters being deformed by such affluence and privilege? Will they become callous young women unable to relate to the disadvantaged, lacking in compassion, and unable to contribute to solutions for those who have far fewer privileges?

Chelsea Clinton was raised in affluence, attended the best schools in the country, and married a wealthy Wall Street hedge fund employee who previously worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Is she a heartless, selfish elitist unfit for serving the less privileged?

According to CNBC , Hillary Clinton’s current net worth is $85 million. What will Democrats say about that if she decides to run for president in four or eight years?

If wealth renders people compassionless and unsuitable for elected office, Democrats need to tell Americans how much wealth disqualifies a person for the office of president. And does wealth equally disqualify someone for fitness for Congressional office?

The truth is that one doesn’t have to “relate” to those who are poor to have deep sympathy and empathy for their suffering.  Wealthy people often have the luxury to travel and read deeply about the world. Through these experiences, their eyes, minds, and hearts are opened to the suffering around the world and here at home. It’s true that among the wealthy there can be found greed, self-absorption, and cruelty, but there can also be found thankfulness, selflessness, generosity, and kindness. Sometimes people who have been given much or earned much are acutely aware of their blessings and believe that to whom much is given, much is required.

There is ample evidence that those who have been raised in privileged circumstances and those who have worked doggedly to be successful are fully capable of feeling compassion, demonstrating service, and finding solutions to even the most challenging social problems.  The argument that wealthy people cannot serve the poor is foolish, dishonest, and—as is so often the case with liberal arguments—inconsistently applied only to conservatives.