My thoughts this Independence Day (weekend)

I read an article today about a recent Marist poll that said 26 percent of those surveyed didn’t know which country we gained independence from. Most of you, if you read my notes and comments to articles I post, are familiar with my views regarding public education in America. That’s not the point of this note.


Many, if not all, of those of you who were born in the early 1950s or before probably remember starting the school day with two things: the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer similar to this one:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.”

Unfortunately, in 1962, the US Supreme Court determined that those words violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That was just one of a long line of cases where the Supreme Court (and, by extension, the lower courts) totally misinterpreted and misapplied Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state.” (For some good reading on the “wall of separation” and the subsequent mess in the Supreme Court on the issue, click here and here.)

Back in the 1980s and part of the 1990s, there was a popular Christian artist by the name of Carman. He wrote some wonderful songs, including “America Again” and “Revive Us, Oh Lord.” In the first, the verses are spoken, and he gives a sort of condensed version of America’s religious history before concluding with the statement: “We need God in America again.” The latter song is mainly a cry of repentance and request for revival: “We’ve turned from your ways/Lord, your fruit we’ve ceased to bear/We lack the power we once knew in our prayer/That gentle voice from heaven/We’ve ceased to hear and know/The fact that he has risen no longer stirs our souls/Revive us, oh Lord!”

In the past few days I’ve thought of both of those songs as I’ve been preparing to join Dr. Michael Youssef’s “God Save America” campaign. Dr. Youssef is asking thousands of American Christians to join him in praying for our nation every day from July 4 (Independence Day) through November 2 (Election Day). I don’t think I need to convince you that the entire planet, let alone the United States, is in dire straits. We have, in effect, declared our independence from God (as if that were possible). I know it’s almost become a cliché, but I would remind you of 2 Chronicles 7:13-14: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

As I said in a previous note, God never promised us that we wouldn’t have trouble. In fact, he promised the opposite: “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). But if we turn to him and depend on him, we can “take heart” for he has “overcome the world.”