A People of Faith

I don't get to read Mercatornet.com very often. But my friends pass me things of interest occasionally that are a great encouragement.  Good things come from surprising sources sometimes.

Recently a speech was quoted from the Attorney General of the United States about the need for religion in our national life.

He goes back to the founding fathers, acknowledging that they wisely understood humankind's penchant for selfishness. They took a traditional Christian view of human nature, understanding that while we had great potential for doing good, humans were also capable of evil. There needed to be some form of restraint.  But, it should not be the government.

So, the Founders decided on a "great experiment."  They would place their trust in the self-discipline of the people.  They believed in the ability, in Madison's words, "of each of us to govern ourselves."  Quoting John Adams, "our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

They put huge trust in the Americans as people of faith.  They assumed Americans would be looking to Almighty God to guide them in their personal lives and in their national life.

It was a daring choice to make.  They wanted the Church to have a voice in the market place of ideas, through the individual people.

They assumed a high calling to us all.  They expected God to be a living factor in the lives of individual Americans.
These assumptions go back to the humble trust in God of the Pilgrim generation with their vision of America itself to be "a city on a hill with the eyes of the world upon us."

It was a large and faithful vision. It was articulated first by our Pilgrim ancestors and picked up again by the nation's later founding generation.

That is the call to us in our time, to reclaim that faith in God for our personal need and for the sake of our nation.