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Tag Archives: American history

Have We Been Deluded?

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Patti Wells

I’m going to quit talking about this soon (maybe!), but I recently heard a news personality say the first amendment was “freedom from religion.” See what I mean from my last post? We must get back to what the founders meant, not what the court’s have changed the Constitution to mean. One more time, the First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is not freedom from religion, but freedom from Congress’s establishing a religion or interfering with individual religious exercises. How much clearer can this be? How do we expect justices to correctly interpret a 2000 page bill if they can’t get this one right?

The Bible says Satan “deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” [2 Thess 2:9-12]

Have we been deluded? Consider the following:
  • The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock with little more than their Geneva Bibles and their Calvinistic teachings that church and civil government should be separate and that man can serve God in any area of life. They knew first-hand the tyrrany and persecution of a state run religion, and they realized the importance of education in achieving their goal. Toward that end, they passed the Old Deluder Act in 1647, recognizing “the chief project of that old deluder, Satan” was to keep people from learning the true meaning of the original Scriptures.
  • The New England Primer, published by Benjamin Harris in 1690, was used by students into the 19th century. The Primer used the Bible to teach reading. Note the content of the 1877 edition, especially the questions at the end.
  • Upon completion of the Constitution, the Second Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance off 1787 to determine how new states should be added to the union. One of the its stated purposes was to “extend the principles of civil and religious liberty.” [Section 13]. “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” [Section 14, Article 3]. The Congress saw the need for schools to teach children religion, morality and knowledge, in that order. They knew that citizens educated in Biblical principles were necessary for good government. “When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked are in power, they groan.” [Prov 29:2]

Benjamin Franklin wrote, “History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion…and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.”

Have we been deluded? Have we listened to the lie long enough to believe it? What do you think?

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Celebrating the Fourth of July

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Patti Wells

Today we celebrate the birth of America’s freedom. Fifty-six men gathered 236 years ago to pledge “their, lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” in their stand for liberty against the powerful British Empire. Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence and its grievances against the King George. You might find some of them applicable even today.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

Thomas Jefferson

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Benjamin Franklin

If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by Him… Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.

William Penn

It truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and his Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

Daniel Webster

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

John Quincy Adams

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, 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.

Thomas Jefferson

It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

John Adams

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

George Washington

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Gal 5:1

Happy Independence Day!

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The Blessings of Liberty

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Patti Wells

In April, 1775, farmers and townspeople in small villages in Massachusetts, Lexington and Concord, picked up their muskets to stand against the advancing army in red coats that had been sent to force them into submission. These men didn’t know what they were doing when they fired the “shot heard ’round the world,” except that they had tasted the freedom that came from governing themselves, and it was worth standing up to the King of England to keep. A year later that vision was encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence, and a grand experiment that has outlasted all revolutions to this day was begun.

The American experiment was based on men being free to run their lives in any manner they chose as long as they respected their neighbors’ rights to do the same, each man’s rights ending where another’s began. The inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, given to each individual by the Creator, are the fountains from which spring the rights to one’s dreams, possessions, ideas, as well as the fruit from those dreams and ideas. The Bible says God gives His people the power to gain wealth [Deut 818]:, and further, that He will make His people a great nation, blessed to be a blessing[Gen 12:2]. The blessings of God flowed into and out of this nation, as long as His people trust His Providence and are obedient to His precepts. The United States of America has become the richest, but most generous, nation in the history of the world, because they ascribed to the tenets laid our in God’s Word.

In this experiment called America, free men governed themselves by granting powers to a representative government. The role of the federal government was limited to only those powers specifically delegated to it in the Constitution, such things as defending the nation and its borders, coining money, providing a patent office and a post office and making treaties, things that the compilation of states couldn’t do effectively under the weaker Articles of Confederation. All other responsibilities were reserved for individual citizens, and their local and state governments. This was, after all, the United States. The framers of the Constitution knew that the greatest threat to U.S. citizens was the federal government, so they did all they could to limit its scope and power, as well as to warn subsequent generations to be vigilant about its ever present propensity to encroach on the rights of the people.

Today we are in danger of losing the liberty the men and boys standing on those village greens fought to give us. We cannot expect Big Brother to take care of every aspect of our lives if we are to remain free from the clutches of government. Peace and security do not necessarily go hand in hand with liberty. If we don’t wake up soon, we may have to fight the American Revolution yet again, hopefully with ideas this time, to remain free and to pass the blessings of liberty to our posterity.

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Have We Really Progressed?

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Patti Wells

I must say that I’m getting tired of arrogant elitists telling the rest of us that we are stupid. Last week I heard Bill Press use that descriptive of the Star Spangled Banner, because it is militaristic, and difficult to sing. Later that same day, Bill Maher complained that our country deserved to become Mormon because a stupid country deserved a stupid religion.

Unfortunately, we are reaping the fruit of the progressive movement that has infiltrated our educational institutions and media, while attacking families and faith. Progressives see themselves as the intelligent crowd that must tell us how to run our lives. Anyone who is not in agreement with them is stupid, mean-spirited, racist or homophobic. Of course, whatever the cause, the “medicine” is for our own good, but it doesn’t apply to them because they’re smart enough to run their own lives.

About one hundred years ago, the Progressive Movement under leaders like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson began to erode our individual liberties. The assumption was that to progress, to solve some of the ills of society, men needed to be dictated to by the experts who knew best. As a result, the government began to pass laws to protect us, as well as progressive amendments to the Constitution: graduated income tax, direct election of senators, women’s suffrage, and the prohibition of alcohol.

Now we’ve “progressed” so far that we’ve lost our ability to even think that we are capable of running our own schools, providing for our own health care or choosing what we should eat or drink. When there is a need we expect the federal government to throw money at it or to regulate it. For example, everything is so convoluted that we must restrict people’s diets, because if we don’t, we will have to pay more for their health care. What if people ate what they wanted and took responsibility for the consequences?

Don’t we realize this is a power grab, a way for politicians to stay in office. Those calling the rest of us stupid do so to reap the rewards of being on the good side of the powerful. If the motives were pure, women’s lib would be supportive of all women who are successful, no matter what their political persuasion. Ask Sarah Palin if this is true. African-Americans like Allen West and Condoleezza Rice would be applauded, not called “Uncle Toms,” if progressives were really interested in the equality of all races.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to use the curlicue lightbulbs that require a Hasmat crew to clean up the toxins if one breaks. I don’t drink sodas very often, but if I want a Coke, I don’t want some bureaucrat telling me how much I can have. I don’t want a bureaucracy making decisions about my health care; I’ve seen how well that works when I go to the Post Office. If solar power is effective and efficient, the market place will produce it, just like it did the incandescent light bulb or computer or steam engine or cotton gin or iPhone.

Wake up, America. If we continue to allow our liberties to be usurped by this crowd, maybe we are stupid.

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Separation of Church and State

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Patti Wells

The term “separation of church and state” is bandied about today as if it were a vital part of the U. S. Constitution. Not only is it nowhere to be found in that document, but the phrase has come to mean the exact opposite of its original intent. “Separation of church and state” has been used to systematically dismantle our  Constitutional rights granted by the First Amendment.

Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, said, “If you tell a lie long enough, people will eventually start to believe it.” He also stated, “The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape it.” I’m afraid that has happened in this case.

So what is in the Constitution?  The First Amendment states:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Therefore, Congress is prohibited from establishing a state-controlled religion or denomination like the one the Pilgrims fled in coming to America. In England the king was head of the church, as well as the government, so he could punish those who violated the religious edicts he imposed. Our founders envisioned a country where Christians could practice their religion freely as long as they respected the rights of others to freely practice theirs.

The phrase “separation of church and state” was penned by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut. In 1801, the Baptists, concerned that the First Amendment would not go far enough to protect their religious liberty, wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson. He replied that the First Amendment “created a wall of separation between the church and state” so the federal government would not be able to infringe on their rights to practice their religious beliefs.  View the letters here.

Two days after he wrote the reply, President Jefferson rode his horse down Pennsylvania Avenue to church, as was his usual practice.   By the way, the church he attended was held in the United States Capitol Building. Obviously, the framers of this republic saw no problem with Christian worship in a government building.

Although Thomas Jefferson may have been one of the least religious among our founding fathers, he knew the importance of a moral, educated society in the proper functioning of the government he had been instrumental in forming. He knew that Christianity provided the self-control that is necessary in a free society.  He had seen God’s Providence in the birthing of this nation, one founded on Christian principles.

I don’t think he would’ve been very happy about the use of his words today.

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