Thanksgiving is intended to be the most spiritual of our national holidays. It is a time to reassess our situation, ask forgiveness for failures, reestablish our priorities, and to give thanks to God for our heritage, the vision, and the commitment of our founders for the liberty and freedoms that have resulted from their commitment and devotion to us, their posterity.
It is staggering to contemplate their sacrifices and achievements, of which we are the benefactors. It is disturbing to contrast their self-sacrifice and commitment with the self-interest and preoccupations of our present day. They gave their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create and preserve a republic that we so take for granted.
Assessing our Situation
It is difficult to establish a constructive perspective on the American predicament of the past several years. But it is essential for us to really understand our situation.
We have witnessed the deepest and most dangerous surrender and betrayal of our national security interests that has ever been seen. We have not only gutted the military in terms of morale and readiness, we have destroyed and surrendered our national security to build up the very adversaries of the coming century.
We have stood by helplessly as we watched a Congress too intimidated to deal with treasonous conduct in the highest offices of the land. We have a Chief Executive that you wouldn't trust to drive home the baby-sitter; and yet, the real problem goes far beyond the present incumbent of the Oval Office.
This goes far deeper than just one man and his mischief or perverse agenda. The general pattern of scandals, lies, and betrayals of the current administration establishes the culpability of both political parties over the deep humiliation this country has endured during the past several years.
The solid phalanx of perjured testimony of Democratic senators in the Senate of the U.S. clearly establishes their disdain for the American people. This mess is certainly their responsibility. They didn't have the decency, integrity, or care enough about the country to spare us the shame, the humiliation and the betrayal that has now come to characterize the charade we call the Congress.
And there is no evidence that the imitation socialists that attempt to compete with them are any better. Together, both parties, over the past several years have foisted on us - and then confirmed - the most lying, most shameless, most conscienceless betrayal of America's moral decency that this country has ever seen. They're all culpable. "Re-Elect Nobody" would seem to be the clarion call of the day.
While we have endured the betrayal of America, we need to recognize that this goes far beyond the weaknesses and betrayals and maliciousness of one little group of people.
The Problem is Us
What we have seen over the past several years, at the moral level, is simply the consequence of the deep abandonment of all moral principles and decency that the liberals, the socialists, and the leftists have achieved over the last 50 years! They have systematically been assaulting the family, revising our history and heritage, and eroding the very foundations of our liberty, on every front, in every way, throughout our entire lifetime.
And everything that we have seen throughout these scandalous years was the natural consequence of this abandonment of moral principle and our inability to understand that for institutions of self-government to work, there must be a moral foundation for integrity and for self-discipline.
Our founders understood this. They reiterated at every turn that these institutions were framed for a moral and religious people, and could not be sustained by any other.1
We need to abandon the apathy and detachment that has allowed the pagan left to federalize our children, our schools, and our very lives. How can we say we love our country when we stand by and watch it pushed over the brink of moral destruction, losing our liberty in the process and saying nothing? Wringing our hands on the sidelines won't help.
There is only one way to save this nation. We need to cry out to the Very One to whom our founders cried out, to ask for that miracle of heart regeneration that alone will reestablish our strength as a people and then to act unequivocally for the values that God has called us to and for which we all will be called accountable.
This Thanksgiving, with your family, conduct a review of our heritage and the freedoms that have come to us at such a high price; confess our sins of presumption and ingratitude that have let this precious mandate erode from beneath us; and ask God, in His mercy and sovereignty, to help us reestablish this country as a beachhead for the Gospel to a hurting world. Your own posterity will depend on it.
Notes:
- John Adams, as quoted in William J. Federer's America's God and Country, Fame Publishing Co., Coppell, TX 1994.
