A state legislator in Hawaii has introduced legislation (HB 1282) to establish the second Saturday in July of each year as "Religious Freedom Day."
Our first reaction to this was to dismiss it as yet another expression of civil religion being promoted for political purposes. Yet as we reflected we recognized, as did the founding fathers, that all the rights and freedoms, indeed our very ideas of what it means to be an American, are rooted not in ethnicity or territory as is true with every other nation, but in the profoundly religious idea "that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."
In an excellent book, America's Real War, Rabbi Daniel Lapin provides irrefutable evidence that this nation was founded as a Christian nation where freedom of religion, not freedom from religion is protected. Those freedoms are in danger from a populace that has not been told its true history in the government schools, they are in danger from secularists in national leadership promoting Marxist materialism, and they are threatened from without by Islmamic jihadists determined to eliminate all vestiges of our faith and culture and impose Sharia Law.
In 1954, President Eisenhower heard a sermon delivered by Reverend George M. Docherty that resulted in the words "under God" being added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Concluding his sermon, Docherty stated:
Our first reaction to this was to dismiss it as yet another expression of civil religion being promoted for political purposes. Yet as we reflected we recognized, as did the founding fathers, that all the rights and freedoms, indeed our very ideas of what it means to be an American, are rooted not in ethnicity or territory as is true with every other nation, but in the profoundly religious idea "that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."
In an excellent book, America's Real War, Rabbi Daniel Lapin provides irrefutable evidence that this nation was founded as a Christian nation where freedom of religion, not freedom from religion is protected. Those freedoms are in danger from a populace that has not been told its true history in the government schools, they are in danger from secularists in national leadership promoting Marxist materialism, and they are threatened from without by Islmamic jihadists determined to eliminate all vestiges of our faith and culture and impose Sharia Law.
In 1954, President Eisenhower heard a sermon delivered by Reverend George M. Docherty that resulted in the words "under God" being added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Concluding his sermon, Docherty stated:
In Jefferson's phrase, if we deny the existence of the God who gave us life, how can we live by the liberty He gave us at the same time? This is a God-fearing nation. On our coins, bearing the imprint of Lincoln and Jefferson, are the words "In God We Trust." Congress is opened with prayer. It is upon the Holy Bible the President takes his oath of office. Naturalized citizens, when they take their oath of allegiance, conclude, solemnly, with the words "so help me God."
This is the issue we face today: A freedom that respects the rights of the minorities, but is defined by a fundamental belief in God. A way of life that sees man, not as the ultimate outcome of a mysterious concatenation of evolutionary process, but a sentient being created by God and seeking to know Him well, and "Whose soul is restless till he rest in God."
In this land, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free; neither male nor female, for we are one nation indivisible under God, and humbly as God has given us the light we seek liberty and justice for all. This quest is not only within these United States, but to the four corners of the globe, wherever man will lift up his head toward the vision of his true and divine manhood.
If we are to restore respect for the U. S. Constitution, protect America's liberties, and build on the foundations that made our republic great, we must restore a deep respect for the religious roots of our nation. As Rabbi Lapin points out, "either America has no religious roots and no special spiritual destiny, or it has both." Establishing a Religious Freedom Day close to the Fourth of July will be an important reminder that freedom from something is unimportant unless we are truly free for something -- the love of God, our country, its ideals, and our fellow man.
