This is as good a time as any for me to address some concerns I have about the new mainstream narrative that goes something like this: “We are a divided country and we need a President that will unite us and bring us together”
Does our President—in fact, all our military and legislators and government employees—not take an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.’ What if we have people in our own country who don’t believe in our Founding or Our Founding Documents, or the Institutions whose foundations have been the platform for liberty, freedom, and prosperity that has not been known in the PAST 15,000 years? What if we were invaded by a foreign regime, would the people fighting and creating chaos and violence in the streets of our cities fight on the side of our enemies, or would they fight to protect the citizens of our country and the ideas that have been the bases of 400 years of economic prosperity and personal liberty the likes of which the world has never known?
After 8 years of bloodshed, civil dislocation, 25,000 deaths on the battlefield(as a percentage of population 2.6 million today) and again that number in the civilian population who died from smallpox, hunger and dysentery WE BEGAN AN EXPERIMENT IN SELF GOVERNMENT THAT HAD NEVER BEEN TRIED BEFORE. The odds of success were very small. The promise of Our Great Declaration was able to begin to unfold. It was a beginning that in retrospect was a miracle. A miracle can be defined as an event or a series of events that manifests Devine intervention.
The mention today of The Almighty, Devine Providence, or God regarding the ongoing American Experience and the idea that a higher power was involved on our relentless march toward liberty for all and economic and political sovereignty, is met with cries against the concept of “Exceptionalism”. This is done without an understanding that a nation distinctly blessed is not exclusively blessed, A history of the United States needs to focus on the goodness of our people, from our Founding to today, on the sacrifices of ordinary people—700,000 alone died in our Civil War plus 200,000 more who died in prisons or were unaccounted for. No country has given so much of their own blood in order to correct the inequities between peoples. An honest examination of the nation’s origins and development does not demonstrate the power of randomness, or luck, or chance, but clearly makes the case for purpose, intent”—and may I add Devine Guidance.
It was new and unique in all of history that our Declaration recognized that our advantages as a people did not come from a King but rather from God. The March of liberty from Jerusalem to Athens to Philadelphia to today has been guided by the hand of Devine Providence
The rejection of Devine guidance and deliberate design as understood by our Founders and those that followed them allows for the intrusion of political and economic philosophies that are grounded in “principles and first instances” that are anathema to those who believe in providential influence in the past and future. Materialism, communalism, the subordination of the individual to the State and to the “commons” is what the progressive movement is all about. The secularization of morality, situational ethics, the egocentric assumption that man is his own god, can make up his own rules, and disavow a Devine center creates coercive totalitarianism. If you as a ruler are only accountable to yourself why can’t you slaughter millions of people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Pol Pot?
I am not interested in negotiating with people who don’t recognize and respect the unique and Devine nature of our founding and our ongoing experiment. The looting in our streets, the confrontational assaults on innocent people, demanding reparations for sins of past generations, inserting government between God and man—only God can forgive my sins. Defining people by their skin color, gender, or place of birth instead of the merit of their deeds, is not the America I want for my children or grandchildren to inherit. A people cowering to a hateful mob are not an exceptional people. Confronting evil is part of the responsibility of being “Exceptional”.
It is difficult to identify miracles even if they are happening in front of us—though I wonder about the heart of a person that watches a child come into the world and not believe in miracles. In Exodus 33 as Moses prepares to carve the second tablets he asks to see the face of God but his request is denied. God did offer Moses a place on a rock that was close to HIM and Moses could only see the back of God as he was passing. Michael Medved has opined that the face of God as He moves through history can never be seen by man, but we can view the back of The Lord and His good works as he passes by.
I believe that Devine Providence has acted throughout our country’s history in such a way that makes us “exceptional’ exactly because we have acknowledged God’s sovereignty from our Founding through the Civil war up to now. Those not believing in that fundamental truth, those who tear down our history and our statues and our flag cannot be appeased or reasoned with. You don’t have to believe in God to believe in American Exceptionalism, but if you do believe in God you have to believe in the AMERICAN MIRACLE. I hope as we teach future generations American History, that along with our many sins including slavery, we can also view God passing by and with gratitude and supplication live up to our destiny. We are the hope of the world. WE are Exceptional. We kneel to no man and only to God.
