If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I will give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of Earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.”
Deuteronomy 28:1-2 NIV (Deuteronomy was George Washington’s favorite Book of the Bible).
THE AMERICAN CRISIS: COMMON SENSE No. 1 (Jan. 1776), by Thomas Paine (An excerpt)
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated….
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it…. Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and fortitude, will…supply the place of every inferior passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism….”
Many of you will recognize these words as extracts by the (at that time)
American Patriot, Thomas Paine, from his pamphlet titled: THE AMERICAN CRISIS (or just THE CRISIS). This work was Number One of thirteen written by Thomas Paine between 1776 and 1783, at a time when the survival of the American cause was in doubt, and the might of the British enemy seemed to be invincible. It was a time similar to our present day, when the nation that was struggling for its birth was infested with dangers---Tories who sincerely supported the British cause—spies who worked for both sides selling information to the highest bidder—merchants who sold their wares to both sides in hopes that their businesses would survive and prosper—Christian pastors who assured the colonists that God would have them stay as a part of the British Empire, and Christian pastors who were part of the “Black Regiment” who demanded that all ties to Great Britain be severed, and scurrilous attacks by the “media” of that time against those who were trying to free the colonies from the authoritarian yoke of Great Britain (probably no more than 10% of the colonial population).
AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT IS NOTHING NEW
It was a time of confusion, doubt, violence, propaganda, recriminations, compromise, family tensions and breakups over divided loyalties, mendacity, and perfidy. It was also a time of intimidating and overbearing government. It was a time when brave men and women determined to RESIST that increasingly harsh and intimidating government. A time not unlike today’s United States of America.
Some of our nation’s more “experienced” citizens learned early in their lives that our nation is (or was) unique. Why? Because America was the first nation in world history that had true religious freedom, which was not common among mankind (and still isn’t over an increasingly large portion of the globe, especially those regions dominated by the Satanists of Islam). Religious tyranny prevailed all over this world before America was founded. Oh yes, a few nations like Great Britain and the Netherlands had gradually come to some degree of (partial) religious tolerance, but only in America was full religious freedom attained for the first time, right from its founding. With religious freedom came political freedom. The two are inseparable. Lose one and invariably you’ll lose the other. If human history proves anything it surely verifies that truth.
WHY DO CHRISTIANS AND “THE CHURCH” ACT SO TIMIDLY?
Many Americans of this present time seem unconcerned when groups of people with agendas of destruction peddle their wares so successfully—demanding the “reorganization” of the Christian Church (what they really seek is the dethroning of our Triune God and the installation of “human reason” in God’s place, ala the Illuminati/Jacobins of the 1789 French Revolution), or its destruction and replacement with the Satanic political cult of ISLAM; or they’re demanding that their agendas of converting our free enterprise-oriented Constitutional Republic into a “People’s Socialist Republic” must be agreed to, lest they violently “burn down” our present political structure (which they plan to do in any case).
Craven COWARDS among our populace, including many so-called “American” businesses who assure us how much they support “free enterprise”, have surrendered in recent years to the hate-filled demands of the Marxist Neanderthals of the Black Lives Movement and the ultra-violent far-left fascists of the “AntiFa” mobs (financed by mega-wealthy people who hate our American system, and who decry their lack of overall control over the population) who have received millions of dollars extorted from desperate American businesses, most of which was funneled directly to the Klan of New Bolsheviks—i.e. the Dumbocrat Party—lest they suffer retribution from these disgusting communist bullies and anti-God deplorables.
R. J. Rushdoony remarked on the phenomenon of freedom back in 1964, in his book, This Independent Republic (Thoburn Press, p. 15):
“The question of freedom is first of all a question of sovereignty and of responsibility. Who is sovereign, and to whom is man responsible? This source of sovereignty is also the source of freedom. If sovereignty resides in God and is only held ministerially by men, then the basic responsibility of ruler and ruled is to God, who is also the source of freedom. But if sovereignty resides in the state, whether a monarchy or a democracy, man has no appeal beyond the law of the state, and no source of ethics apart from it. He is totally responsible to that order and has only those rights which the state chooses to confer upon him….”
Therein lies the source for the conflict between the world of believing Christianity (and other People of Faith) and the world of humanism that has been going on virtually since our Lord first appeared among men, and which became paramount in the ungodly minds of some Devil’s disciples who called themselves The Order of Illuminati in Bavaria, Germany way back in 1776—men whose goal, among others, was the total elimination of ALL religions, particularly Christianity. This battle of unbelievers vs. Christianity is especially virulent in today’s America. These non-religionists, generally considered as “liberal secular humanists”, believe that “the State”, or civil government, is the sole instrument fit to govern. Satan undoubtedly agrees!
CHRISTIANS VS. ANTI-CHRISTIANS—WHICH WILL PREVAIL?
For almost two hundred years in the U.S. an “intellectual war” has been waged between two conflicting views of God, man, law, and the makeup of society. On one side is the Christian Church—not the unscriptural, top-heavy organized hierarchy we see today, parts of which are administered by non-Christians or anti-Christians—but the BODY of the church—the true believers, with their Biblically-inspired political doctrines of constitutional government among the states and their created entity, the federal government, political checks and balances, and at least for most of the history of the English speaking people of North America, the Bible as the Word of God.
On the other side are the anti-Christians, (some of whom falsely claim to be Christians, but they lie and deceive). They hold fast to a totally different view of the world, for they believe that man, not God, is the sovereign agent of all lawful authority—or at least the institutions of men are—i.e. the State, the political parties, the banking system, big business conglomerates, the corporatist oligarchies, the financial institution schemers, the “kept whores” of the “main stream media”, and the serpents who dominate the realms of academia. To them “man” is the ruler, not God. To them the only “god” that exists is man himself!
Our Founders refuted the idea that “man” was the ultimate arbiter of his own future. For example, James Madison, often called “The Father of the Constitution”, said:
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government. Far from it! We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity…of each and all of us to govern ourselves…according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Sad to say, the posting on school walls or on monuments of those 10 Commandments given by God to mankind millennia ago has, for the most part, been declared “unconstitutional” by the “Oracles” who have inhabited our Extreme Court for decades. We all should know, by now, that our nation was not founded by deists, atheists, or followers of other religious traditions. America was originally founded in large part by those who considered themselves to be committed Christians, who had bound themselves together by their common beliefs in the Trinitarian God who revealed Himself in the Holy Bible, and who subscribed to a faith that taught that Biblical doctrines applied to every part of normal life. There were Jewish patriots and financiers (e.g. Haym Solomon) who aided the Revolutionary cause, of course, and they must be acknowledged and appreciated and lauded, but it was mostly those who were considered to be Christians who carried the struggle through from early planning to ultimate success.
The majority of People of the Abrahamic Faith tradition (Christians and Jews) of our Founding Generation believed in our God’s transforming power, and the Christians among them believed in the salvation given as a free gift by our Savior, Jesus the Messiah. They also believed in the power of God’s Holy Spirit which indwelled a true Christian and, in their case, yielded an outflow of mighty works that they trusted would endure into their far future.
These faith-led Patriots of our Founding Generation believed that God was accessible through fervent prayer, and that He would intercede and grant answers to prayer which, as our Revolutionary Forefathers learned, would give victories out of what appeared to be virtually hopeless situations (George Washington often expressed that belief). Our Founders knew in Whom they believed, unlike so many of our present generation who have succumbed to doubt, religious pluralism, agnostic pride, and their arrogant self-righteousness that God is no longer needed, and that they can “go it alone” just fine. They are the culturally lost and spiritually confused of our day, and must be considered as inherently antithetical to our historic American tradition of constitutional republicanism!
WHAT “HOPE” CAN GUIDE US TODAY?
In my opinion, our greatest hope for our troubled and disintegrating nation today can and must be found in our Christian heritage of yesterday that guided our ancestors through very difficult times. Christian Patriots and patriots of other morally practiced faiths must once again grasp the power of true believers engaged in a spiritual (and perhaps soon a physical) battle, applying their God-given ability to discern truth from error and right from wrong. Truly, a rebirth of the “spiritual fire” of our forefathers must prevail against the destructiveness of Satan, who has come “to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” (John 10:10) The question remains, of course, as to whether or not Christian Patriots and all People of Faith today will reclaim that mighty heritage and will employ that “spiritual fire” to overcome the enemies of God and Country. That question is still undecided, at least in human terms.
I opened this essay with the immortal words written in a “time of crisis” by Thomas Paine. Without any doubt, these are “soul trying times”, as the enemies of faith and freedom keep pushing Americans into an ever-decreasing “corner” (or more accurately—we allow ourselves to be pushed into that corner). The key words of Paine’s wisdom are these: Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered….” That’s true, it isn’t easily conquered. It never has been easy to overcome a political or religious tyranny once it has been imposed upon a people by their cowardice, their indifference, their unconcern, and their love of compromise with evil and with sin. It ALWAYS requires a great expenditure of effort—of “blood, sweat, and tears”, much suffering and loss of many human lives to overcome any kind of tyranny. Our ancestors knew that lesson well. The people of the 20th century also learned that lesson in very difficult and painful ways, and many millions of them were murdered by the collectivist tyrannies of that century.
WHY ARE WE ALLOWING TYRANNY TO INCREASINGLY OVERWHELM US?
A political and irreligious “tyranny” is slowly but surely being imposed upon Americans right now—a tyranny of “politically correct speech and behavior”, of disgusting and stupid “wokeness”, of the attempts by “our” government to impose “social credit scores” on all of us (to please our Chinese communist semi-masters?), of racial shaming of our white citizens and our conservative black citizens, by racist and disgusting liberals of the brain damaged left, of the purposeful destruction of a humane Christian civilization caused by the zeal of the secular humanists and the cowardice of all People of Faith in the face of the destruction of our Constitutional freedoms--one “unconstitutional” Supreme Court decision after another, of the intentional “dumbing down” or de-learning of our young people in their mostly secular humanist and/or Marxist controlled middle schools, high schools. and universities (those “Institutes of Induced Ignorancc”), as our heritage of liberty under law and under God is slowly purged from our people’s historic or cultural memories, aided and abetted by the “social media” to which so many Americans, tragically, have become addicted.
For many different “reasons”, Americans are staking their future of freedom on our greatly embattled President, Donald Trump, in the hope that he and his political “allies” in The District of Criminals and Communists, and throughout our nation, can “pull it off” and restore the ESSENCE of liberty to a people increasingly confused as to just what “liberty” means to them. You may agree or not, but every citizen who has benefited from the freedoms codified in our venerable and now almost totally IGNORED U.S. Constitution, especially the freedom to worship God—or not to do so—as he or she thinks is right, also has the duty to defend the foundations of our Christian culture and the laws of America that make all of our freedoms possible.
The time is now upon us for Christians, Jews, and all Patriots to realize that they—WE—have the primary responsibility for preserving the Godly heritage of our nation, because it is that very same heritage upon which our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were founded, and upon which ALL of our freedoms rest. NO other religious/political “heritage” will suffice or even work to accomplish this goal—this truth. ONLY our ancient Abrahamic faith heritage will preserve our liberty—if we really want it to do so! Everything else will lead to political and religious TYRANNY, violence, hate, slavery, and death!
Our beloved United States of America—our great but imperfect union of states founded by truly brave and God-honoring people and sent through time to US, their spiritual and political descendants---is in major trouble today. President Trump and his allies around our nation may slow the inexorable descent into increasing societal darkness. I pray that he and all of us who care can do so. Perhaps even stop that descent and reverse it. Because of all of the violence and destruction being caused by a relatively small minority of Marxist-inspired God and culture-hating barbarians and Satanic ENEMIES of mankind, a group of malcontents and misfits that could be easily overcome and dispatched to the “junkyard” of lost causes by Americans of all stripes should they really determine to do so, our “Sweet Land of Liberty” is teetering on the verge of societal collapse and incipient imposition of Marxist oppression because the majority are too paralyzed by fear, inaction, timidity, and deliberate lies to tell these enemies of freedom ENOUGH!
Those of you who are still “straddling the fence” of timidity and your desire for “non-involvement” in the sometimes sordid affairs of politics had better decide to speak out against the approaching threats to our freedoms, and decide soon while you still can. These threats are not only “within our gates” but are right now “knocking on our doors” in many cities and states, doors that I assure you they will soon begin to break down (and for some Americans already have).
The victory of “good guys” over “bad guys” is not impossible. That became apparent in the conflict that our Revolutionary ancestors engaged in with the bad guys of that time—the arrogant and authoritarian government and military might of Great Britain. We all have studied from our history (I hope) about the sufferings endured by our Founders during those years when they were seeking to throw off British chains—of their deaths by torture and starvation in prison ships, of formerly wealthy men dying in poverty after they had committed all of their substance to the war effort, of families or children killed, of our Founders being captured, imprisoned, killed, or dying of heartbreak. Yet they prevailed because they refused to quit. It has been said that only around 10% of our colonial population actually supported the Patriot Cause, proof that a few dedicated patriots can accomplish miracles. The rest either loved British authoritarianism or were too timid or cowardly to commit to the cause of freedom!
In the very dark days of the summer of 1776, the Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington, wrote a letter to his cousin, Lund, in which he wrote that a victory over Great Britain seemed impossible. But as we know, he refused to consider defeat. Here is part of his letter:
“I wear a countenance dressed in a calm serenity of perfect confidence, while my heart is corroded with infinite apprehension…. I’m not afraid to die. Why should I? I am afraid to die only with infamy and disgrace. Heaven knows how truly I love my country, that I embark on this arduous enterprise on the purest motives…. If it be the will of God that America should be independent of Great Britain…even I and those…men…may not be thought unworthy instruments in His hands. In this persuasion I resolve to go on, contented to save my country or die in the last ditch.”
This is a sterling example of the courage that our Lord expects of Christians and all People of Faith, and the courage that should be exemplified by all American patriots. That same courage gave us the Godly heritage that we Americans have enjoyed for the past 250 years, and which far too many Americans have neglected in the face of the relentless attacks against us of the enemies of God and our Constitutional liberties. George Washington went to God in prayer, but then he waged war against the enemies of freedom. As we face the rampaging authoritarians of our time, as our souls are being “tried”, all Christians and Patriots need to consider carefully their future course of action, throw off their “yokes of fear” and their “mantles of unconcern”, and really BELIEVE that “If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?” Who, indeed?
