“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34 NKJV
“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.”
The 250th anniversary of our country’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence (July 4th, 1776), is great cause for rejoicing as the mighty hand of the Most High God has been at work from our earliest days. The 56 signers of this historic document were gripped by these self-evident truths that are rooted in the glory of God demonstrated in creation order. In other words, they affirmed that our rights are God-given having been endowed to image-bearers of the Creator not by any human government.
Upon doing so, they understood that they were rebels guilty of treason and sedition against “John Bull”, the King of England, thus signing their death warrants. This sobering reality rendered their proceedings one of dead serious urgency thus confessing a “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” as they mutually pledged to one another “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
May the freedoms of the “Great American Experiment” that were championed and subsequently ordered by our nation’s founding fathers be sustained in our day as we intentionally pass on the legacy of this heritage to the next generation. “Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light; protect us by Thy might, great God, our King!”
Zero Hour America & the Legacy of Freedom
Just in time for the 4th of July this year, I finished reading a book of penetrating insight by Os Guinness called “Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give.” Having been born and raised in China as the son of medical missionaries just before the Cultural Revolution of the Communists under Mao Zedong (1949) and later educated in England at such places as Oxford University, his writings reflect a tremendous understanding of culture including the rise and decline of civilization.
Since the mid-1980s, he has lived here in the United States just outside of Washington D.C. where he is actively engaged as an author, cultural critic, and Christian statesman. Here’s a poignant excerpt (slightly edited) from the aforementioned work that challenges Americans to deliberately pass on the legacy of freedom to the next generation through ordinary means right at home:
“But the main burden of handing on freedom is carried by families & by schools [more so families & churches]. In [properly ordered] nations families are the bedrock of society, & to promote or tolerate the breakdown of the family is to disorder freedom at its core. Families mean love that generates new life; parenting means formation in identity, character, & the virtues from the earliest age, so that for better or worse families are the indispensable key to human identity, ethics, & civic continuity. If those ideas sound abstract, we should remember that the family accomplishes these things silently & unconsciously through such practical things as simply being together, conversations at the dinner table, bedtimes stories, & the celebration of holidays.”
“All these things have gone by the board or have been disastrously weakened in America in the last generation. Families have become smaller & less stable. They have been broken by divorce & weakened by alternative forms of living together, parents have been sidelined by schools on one side & video games & the social media on another, holidays have become casualties of the culture wars, & the family dining table has become a fast-food Grand Prix refueling station between sports games & other activities. Not only was civic education excised from public schools in the late 60s, but it was also replaced by Howard Zinn’s alternative views of American history & then by the 1619 Project & radical views openly opposed to the American founding. Now, with President Biden [written in 2022] allowing countless people to flood into the borderless south of the country, there is no civic education for the new arrivals & therefore no citizenship as classically understood & as required by freedom.”
“The combined result of such trends is suicidal for the American republic. Following the way of freedom means respecting what freedom requires generation after generation without fail, always remembering the past & its celebrations & its warnings. There is simply no other way to be freed, to remain free, to renew freedom, & to stay the hand of the otherwise inevitable decline & fall of great nations. To forget the inspiration & warning of the past is to starve & suffocate freedom & court decline. Only in remembering & celebrating the past can freedom flourish, & only in handing it on & renewing it when necessary can you love your children & your children’s children as yourselves.”[1]
Gratitude & the Unfolding of History
Life moves fast. Lest we take it in stride, dismiss the sage words of an elderly man like Os Guinness, and miss out on capital opportunities to thank God for His great faithfulness through every season, we must slow down and be grateful. Special occasions like birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and America’s semiquincentennial are gifts for us to do just that. For Christians, this kind of stuff really is at the heart of what it means to be a grateful people as citizens of Heaven. We have also been entrusted with a stewardship here in this country as citizens of the greatest nation in the history of the world (Josh.4:19-24; Pr.14:34; 1 Tim.2:1-4).
God in His providence has been at work throughout our nation’s history. From the Mayflower Pilgrims to the colonial era to the Civil War to the 20th century ravaged by two world wars and the horrors of Soviet Communism to the War on Terror and the culture wars of the 21st century, the United States of America has endured only by the grace of God.
Through it all, God-fearing Christian patriots of the American church and family are the backbone of resolute biblical conviction that have been used of the Lord to right all wrongs, albeit imperfectly. From the Great Awakenings to the abolition of slavery to the war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to the Civil Rights Era to the fight for the sanctity of human life and the preservation of moral sanity in the face of LGBTQIA+ sexual perversion, once again, it has been God-fearing Christian patriots of the American church and family that have stood against soul-destroying moral evil that also threatens to destroy civilization.
The Great American Experiment & GFM’s Mission
As missionaries to the American church and family, GFM’s passion is to be a prophetic voice in challenging God’s people to champion the glory of His Name and the absolute truth of His Word in the full spectrum of life. This is exactly what God-fearing Christian patriots did in the founding era of our country. They were inspired to do so by their pastors known as “the Black-Robed Regiment” and others like “the Sons of Liberty.”
Such resolute biblical conviction begins right at home with family discipleship and is anchored in the local church. This is where Christian families gather for worship, sing His praises, hear the preaching of His Word, enjoy fellowship, and are equipped for deployment into the harvest field of souls for the glory of God.
We endeavor to strengthen the church and family as co-champions of the next generation by equipping both with the necessary tools to do so. May the church and family in this epoch of our nation’s history be grateful for the “Great American Experiment” and intentionally pass on the faith to the next generation of Christians in America and beyond. Let Freedom Ring!
[1] Guinness, Os. (2022) Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press.
