The Glorious Cause

I reacted with joy this past Sunday when learning the USA women’s soccer team won their second consecutive World Cup championship and fourth overall.

Love of nation is a good thing.

However, like many other Americans, I was disappointed over the conduct of one player who had said earlier she hated the USA and cursed the current occupant of the White House.

The final straw was watching our girls wrap themselves in the U.S. flag to celebrate their victory–then disrespectfully throw it to the ground to pose for a selfie.

What ever happened to loving and respecting the “Glorious Cause” of the United States of America?

The Glorious Cause

There are more America-haters/doubters in our country than I can ever remember. A few are running for the Oval Office next year. Others criticized the president for setting up a “Salute to America” on the Washington Mall this 4th of July to celebrate and appreciate our country.

Fortunately, most Americans disagree with them.

Rasmussen reports:

“Democrats and many in the media have been highly critical of the July 4 celebration President Trump hosted in Washington, DC, but voters strongly share the rosy view of America and the U.S. military that the president honored that day.”

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Likely U.S. Voters agree with Trump’s statement in his July 4 speech that ‘together we are part of one of the greatest stories ever told – the story of America. It is the epic tale of a great nation whose people have risked everything for what they know is right.’ The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 12% disagree with the president’s statement, while slightly more (15%) are undecided.”

Love of country never used to be a question in the U.S. But now, many doubters and naysayers dominate the airwaves.

Nike recently displayed an anti-America attitude by pulling their new line of Betsy Ross shoes prior to the Fourth of July because Colin Kaepernick–political activist and “advisor” for the firm–said the sneakers shouldn’t be sold because they showed an image of the Stars & Stripes during the period of slavery.

Give us a break, Kap. The entire world condoned and encouraged slavery for thousands of years until the biblical truth of human equality worked its way into British common law and led to the Civil War in this nation.

Does your statement mean that everything and everyone who did anything good prior to the 1860’s has no virtue because of one sin?

Let’s flip your logic around. Does your own life contain any virtue because you condone the aborting of at least one billion children over the past 100 years–a greater holocaust than the tragedy of slavery?

My, how we have lost our perspective on history.

For many years I read and re-read America’s unique and exceptional story to our children. During the 1990’s, our family hosted an annual Fourth of July party for our King’s Kids ministry (up to 150 people at our home) for fellowship, good food, shooting off fireworks, and celebrating the blessings of America.

At every event, I gathered everyone before dark and read from a history book about the wonder and greatness of the American Revolution so that we would rightly love our nation.

Actually, we are to love all the important things in our lives–God, our families, friends, the world (that’s why we do missions) and our nation. America is easy to love because God used her to bring great blessings to the world–despite our imperfections and sins.

This summer, I pulled out David McCullough’s Pulitzer-prize winning book 1776 and re-read the American story. It refreshed my memory of the privilege of being an American and reminded me of the original name of our providential beginnings.

The American colonists in 1776–numbering maybe 300,000 folks–referred to the American Revolution as “The Glorious Cause.”

The Glorious Cause.

Think about that for a moment.

When founding father and future 2nd president John Adams signed the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776 (we celebrate the wrong day due to communication problems 243 years ago), by voting to “dissolve the connection” with Great Britain, he stated to his wife Abigail in a letter:

“We are in the midst of a revolution, the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.”

That’s very high praise–which can be backed up with facts.

Two months previous, Massachusetts Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins wrote his wife Sarah on April 5, 1776 while marching off to war:

“I am willing to serve my country in the best way and manner that I am capable of because I am engaged in this glorious cause, I am willing to go wherever I am called.”

The phrase caught on. During those exciting yet perilous days of the American Revolution, many colonists referred o the “Glorious Cause” of the United States of America.

Do you?

If you don’t, why not?

I can think of two reasons. First, we don’t teach the real history of the United States anymore in many of our schools and universities. Probably 90% of American children have never heard the story of the “Glorious Cause”–which highlights a sad biblical truth, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

The second reason is political correctness (secular fascism). We’ve been inundated by the media and secular politicians that America started bad and remains bad.

The New York Times, America’s flagship politically-correct newspaper, went to great expense this Fourth of July produce a video that said “America is OK”–not good or great.

History would rebut them.

The vast majority of people in every century lived under despots. Even the majority of the 7.7 billion people alive today exist without liberty under tyrants–that is, totalitarian regimes.

For example, billions of people live under Muslim tyranny (50 plus nations), Communist tyranny (China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea), and other forms of dictatorial control.

It as been rare for any people to live freely on the earth.

The United State of America took what one historian calls “the four thousand year leap” in 1776 to establish a two-headed form of self-government unique in the annals of time. This was the exceptional greatness of the American Revolution.

Individual self-government

In a predominantly Bible-believing culture, the American colonists  committed to regulating their own conduct as stated in the immortal words of James Madison:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Godly character produces personal freedom and strong families.

Corporate self-government

The Declaration of Independence–penned by Thomas Jefferson–stated for the first time that governments must be formed by the consent of the people to protect their God-given rights to life, liberty, and happiness (property).

The U.S. Constitution enshrines civic freedom and tranquility.

Thus, the American Revolution joined together in a unique bond the cry of every human heart–for personal and civil liberty. This wondrous combination had never existed in any other time or place (except possibly ancient Israel).

Over two centuries, America’s double-barreled engine of freedom propelled the Good News of Jesus Christ around globe, helped raise millions of people out of economic poverty, saved the planet in two worlds wars, and keeps the peace today.

That’s a glorious cause indeed–despite our weaknesses–and worth living and dying for in every nation on earth.