Should America remain a Christian nation or commit suicide?

By Mary Mostert

The editor of Alan Keyes' Renew America Forum, Stefani Stone, posed a question this week to address "the supposedly 'controversial' fact that America is (and always has been) predominantly a Christian nation. ...Are we a Christian nation? Of course we are — to the extent we still value our origins. Should we REMAIN a Christian nation? That's where the controversy lies."

We were asked to take some time and reflect on "Does it really matter if our country stays distinctly Christian — or is it acceptable to continue to diminish that emphasis in the name of multiculturalism? To what extent are the teachings of Jesus absolutely vital to preserving our country — and why?"

It is interesting that Stefani asked that question at this point. As it turns out, I have spent considerable time this past year in researching what it actually WAS that the founding fathers did and said. I have been writing a couple of books — one on the events and the thought that led to the Declaration of Independence and the other, which I am just putting the final touches on, about the events that led to and the writing of the Constitution.

In that process I have read hundreds of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson's, John Adams, Tom Paine's, James Madison, and other founders' letters and journal entries. In my high school years, I got very interested in the French Revolution and always wondered WHY the French Revolution ended up not only in one massacre after another but, eventually, right back where they started with tyranny and eventually — even the monarchy restored.

Just in the past week I made a very interesting discovery in comparing the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, written by Thomas Jefferson, who was ambassador to France and the Marquis Lafayette, a French nobleman who became Washington's aide and devoted admirer. Most history books talk about the similarity of the two Declarations. If they were so similar, why did the two revolutions end up so differently? Recently I compared the two Declarations. Our Declaration begins:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

France's Declaration begins:

"The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties;"

While at first glance they SEEM very similar — they aren't. The French Declaration does not say that the rights of man are "endowed by their Creator." It merely says that they are "natural, unalienable and sacred."

While our Declaration ends with the signers "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions," the French Declaration has no such appeal. The National Assembly merely "recognizes and proclaims" the document "under the auspices of the Supreme Being" but states that "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights."

The commander in chief of America's revolution, George Washington, never once took credit for the success of the Revolution or the growing prosperity of the nation. He invariably thanked "Providence." In his first Thanksgiving Proclamation, issued October 3, 1789, Washington wrote:

"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, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Only a little over 3 years later, the leader of the Jacobins, Maximilien Robespierre, began his Reign of Terror with the beheading of King Louis XVI of France. He justified his action in a treatise "On the Principles of Political Morality"

"The springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless."

Robespierre was a devoted follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who laid the philosophical foundation for communism with his "Social Contract" that called for "Each of us (to) put his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will."

America, under God, became a peace-loving, united and prosperous people. France, under the humanist doctrine of there being no God, first experienced bloody massacres, then the emperor Napoleon, then the monarchy. It has never actually recovered. The Soviet Union, which followed Robespierre's Godless philosophy and Marxism collectivism for 70 years, is gone.

"Should we REMAIN a Christian nation? Perhaps the question should be, Should we REMAIN a Christian nation or just commit suicide like the USSR?

© Mary Mostert