Why I Love America–and Will Stand Up for Her Freedom
I’d like to continue the Fourth of July memory this week with some personal thoughts about the United States.
It’s been my privilege to study in-depth many founding documents of our nation and to teach that subject for years. I gleaned my historical understanding from primary sources through many gifted researchers, authors, and communicators from different racial and social backgrounds.
It’s natural for human beings to love and study their family, church, ethnicity, vocational and country heritage–despite the flaws.
Here’s why I love America–and will stand up for her freedom.
Why I Love America–and Will Stand Up for Her Freedom
I share my love of nation today out of a stream of grateful consciousness, not footnotes and detailed research. I could go that route–it’s easy to chronicle, but I’d rather let this one flow from my heart as a stream of thankful reflection.
The secular media and its academic allies saturate the nation these days with lies and distortions about America’s founding, uniqueness in the world, and its cultural greatness due to the legacy of God in our history.
Today I want to correct that torrent of propaganda.
Interestingly, a Barna Group survey released July 1, 2020, reported that 58% of all U.S. adult citizens still believe that “historically, the United States has been a Christian country” and 52% of all adults agree that “the United States has been blessed by God.”
We have flaws and sins–all human constructs do. I am very aware of America’s sins and failings–but they’ve been extremely overemphasized this century. Some human entities contain great character, vision, and achievement in the course of their lives that prevent them being defined by their mistakes. They must be judged in totality on God’s scale of “good.”
The United States of America ranks high among nations.
Here’s why.
I love America because of God’s Providential hand on our continent. He used Asia as the continent of origins (religion, civilization), Europe as the continent of development (education, arts, business and science), and America as the continent of propagation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. God is currently mobilizing Africa, Latin Asia, Oceania and East Asia in the Fourth Wave of modern missions to complete the Great Commission. Yet, America remains the engine of global liberty and the greatest contributor to world evangelism.
I love America because the Age of Exploration brought a God-fearing Christopher Columbus to this hemisphere to open up one-third of the world to His blessings. The civilizing of the continent gradually stopped savage tribes from killing each other and got rid of human sacrifice. On one occasion up to 20,000 human sacrifices had been made by the Aztecs. (This evil would not return to America until secular humanists began killing babies in the womb in 1973). Native tribes were given lands to live on and self-government. Before America, conquered peoples were simply killed, enslaved or absorbed.
I love America because the Pilgrims and Puritans brought to these shores the precious principles of self-government and biblical virtues that create strong, free societies. They established the sanctity of marriage, the centrality of the nuclear family, a strong work ethic, and civil polity that became the envy of the world. The Statue of Liberty provides the visual memory of a land conceived in liberty, committed to justice, and founded on “In God We Trust.”
I love America because the American Revolution was miraculously blessed by God as a movement of ideas–not power. George Washington towers above other conquerors by rejecting kingship for people-led self-government. Thomas Jefferson reminded us of the God-given rights to life, liberty, and property (pursuit of happiness) which no one can take away. James Madison helped form the greatest political document of all-time–the U.S. Constitution–which created the first “government of the people, by the people, for the people” in the history of the world.
I love America because our founders and succeeding generations understood that human societies had tolerated slavery for thousands of years–but knew it was wrong and must be abolished. Our forefathers fought a war to end it where 600,000 men gave their lives. God raised up Dr. Martin Luther King in the 20th century to deal a decisive blow to racism–allowing equal opportunity for all.
I love America because we believe in free enterprise–i.e. capitalism. Free economics restrains corruption in the marketplace, motivates fallen human beings to work, demands the virtues of honesty and integrity to be successful, and stimulates creativity and invention. The American vision of free enterprise has lifted one billion people out of poverty in the past fifty years as other nations emulate the American way of doing business.
I love America because we have never sought to use our power for world domination. We liberated Europe twice and rebuilt much of it with our own money (The Marshall Plan) while rescuing Japan from imperial despotism. Instead of making Japan a “vassal” of the USA we helped rebuild it into one of the most successful nations of the 21st century. We also “guard” the Middle East from chaos and champion the nation of Israel–God’s chosen people.
I love America became it welcomed my penniless German grandmother to these shores in the 1880’s when she entered Ellis Island beneath the Statue of Liberty. My father grew up in a poor family with no running water. Dad put himself through college and medical school by working nights and sleeping 2-3 hours a day–for six years–to achieve his dream of becoming a doctor. In America, most human “privilege” is earned, not bestowed.
I love America because I was educated in schools where students acted color-blind to race. Some of my best friends were African American–though they were a small minority. I lost an election for ASB president to Joe Washington, an African-America guy. (He became a successful broadcaster in Atlanta.) Another close friend–Ruthie Thomas–was a cheerleader, and today she’s a woman preacher. When we lived in Washington, D.C. in the 1980’s the roles were reversed. Yet, some of my closest friends to this day are African Americans.
I love America because a 72% white (European and Hispanic) nation elected Barack Obama twice as president of the United States. That has never happened in any other nation on earth.
I love America because our founders loved God and liberty, unlike the founders of Black Lives Matter–Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi–avowed Marxists who hate our country and want to “transform” (destroy) it. They encourage protest, burning and looting. Our godly founders sacrificed their own money, lives and sacred honor to bring us freedom.
I love America because no nation in the history has been more generous to give people and resources to benefit other nations–especially the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I’m sure there are many other reasons why you love America also.
Now might be a good time to listen to a new rendition by Lee Greenwood of “God Bless the USA.” You can listen/watch it here.
We’re currently engaged in a cultural civil war for America’s future. For forty years, and in over one hundred cities and towns, I called the American nation to stand up and fight for her liberty. The message is called Who Will Stand Up for Freedom?
Bill O’Reilly launched a campaign last week called “Stand Up for Your Country.”
I’m joining in–and ask you to do the same.
Declaring (like the New York Times) that America is evil might be Satan’s biggest lie since the Garden of Eden.
We’d be fools to believe it–just like Adam and Eve–and help plunge the world into further human depravity.
Ron,
I submit that your reference above to 20,000 human sacrifices per day according to what I have read appears to be an exaggeration. Unless you are looking at some source I have not seen or you have done some research on an aggregated number of all tribes? But you mention this happened in “some places” so I assume you refer to the Aztecs. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice no doubt and seem to be the worst at it. But no source I can find puts it at 20,000 per day. It is more like 20,000 per year. See my references below.
Whatever the number it may be … human sacrifices are horrific. But that brings me to my 2nd point about your article. You leave the reader wondering if you are referring to all indigenous peoples as savages. By exaggerating a number and not being specific on which tribes practiced human sacrifice you leave the reader to assume that all indigenous peoples were “savages” which is derogatory and one sided favoring what you portray as the liberating forces who civilized the native Americans by giving them land and self government. Did you really mean to imply this? Your language is so misconstrued that I am taking the time to point this out to you as a brother in Christ as this paragraph in particular is reprehensible as written and I trust it was unintentional?
American tribes before Europeans came was a patchwork of villages, towns, farms and trade routes with what could be called a “federation of nations.” There was war between them but there was also peace, diplomacy and co-existence. There are plenty of historical accounts that favor the Native Americans as the ones who acted justly and with uprightness while the “Christian” acted without Christlikeness. No doubt there was killing between the tribes.
I recognize that you acknowledge you are aware of America’s sins and failings in a previous paragraph. I recognize you wrote this to honor July 4th and because America’s sins and failings have been overemphasized this century. But to imply that these tribes were civilized by Europeans and then given self government and land (their lands were stolen by those who then allotted portions of the stolen goods) while glossing over the massacres by we Europeans is doing what you blame others for doing which is “extremely overemphasizing” one side of the story. The atrocities we committed against Native Americans and then to African Americans with much of it done in the “name of God” is a deep stain on our foundations.
The story of America is not only wonderful …. it is dark and painful. Let us be honest to remember both and walk simultaneously in thankfulness and brokenness as we recount our history accurately and truthfully in humility.
Respectfully.
Tim Svoboda
References
https://www.historyonthenet.com/aztec-culture-how-many-were-killed-as-human-sacrifices
https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/how-many-people-did-the-aztecs-sacrifice/
https://www.history.com/news/did-the-aztecs-really-practice-human-sacrifice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/history/in-wisconsin-evidence-of-human-sacrifice/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/thanksgiving-and-the-myth-of-native-american-savages/
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J6Y98UE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Thanks for writing, Tim. Your points are well made and I respect your position. You are right that I had certain reasons for saying what I said when I said it and ample motivation to rebut the PC culture which is only giving “one side” to the masses right now.
My reference to large-scale human sacrifice is taken from the writings of University of Texas historian and scholar Rodney Stark and his two works For the Glory of God and Discovering God.
I believe the premise of the “noble savage” (Michener and others) anywhere in the world prior to the enlightenment of the Gospel is at best a half truth. There are always exceptions (what Francis Schaeffer called the “mannishness” of man), but warring tribes are the norm in history if not for the grace and goodness of the Loving God.
The early settlers in America (especially Catholic and secular ones) committed atrocities among the native peoples (my wife is part Native American). But not by comparison to other cultures. That’s an extremely important detail not being mentioned today (which I alluded to in my article). The faith of the Pilgrims and Puritans restrained them–as it should. But we, as a biblically-based culture, could have done much better.
Thanks for all you do for Christ and his kingdom,
Ron
Ron can you please provide the source for this statement: “The civilizing of the continent gradually stopped savage tribes from killing each other and got rid of human sacrifice–up to 20,000 human beings a day in some places.” Thank you.
What a great testimony of your family. I believe there are scores of millions of stories like this in our nation and they need to be heard–and are one reason why we love our nation. It’s the “land of opportunity.”
But you must seize it.
Ron
Three of my grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe. They settled in New York where they worked in the garment industry. My father served our country in the Navy, retired as a Senior Chief, and went on to have a second career in information technology. My mother was a medical transcriber for many years. I’m thankful that they had these opportunities to work hard for our family.