The Roar
A Day For Prayer
First off, let’s get it right! I want to wish all my fellow Americans a happy day for thanksgiving and prayer. These are George Washington’s words when he sign a decree designating November 26, 1789, as a day of “Public thanksgiving and prayer.”
I am sick and tired of this whack-a-doo anti-American sect somehow erasing our Forefather’s original message and intent with their secular and anti-Christian overlap. Today, in the year of our Lord 2011, let us all proceed to renew our American instinct and dedicate our efforts towards the return of the principles which made our Country so great. For I believe that our current turmoil and agitation comes as the direct result of our waywardness from our original design.
In 1962, our august Supreme Court ruled against prayer in school. In its finding, the Court stated, “prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and state.” Also cited was the Court’s, “A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.”
This was the conclusion to a case against having a twenty-two word voluntary and nondenominational prayer observed in New York State schools. Consider the words of this particular prayer, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.” This bland moment of reverence is a monumental example as to this continuing push for a secular America. Ladies and gentlemen, without a rudder, a ship flounders. Our ship of state is floundering and the reasons are quite clear.
Returning to the words of George Washington, his thanksgiving and prayer proclamation wisely acknowledged “the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor…” also “Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to ‘recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'”
Now President Washington spoke in lengthy sentences. It seems to be the trade mark of those early days when diction was more elaborate and defined. As such, our first President continued proclaiming that this occasion is “to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be…”
Space does not permit the complete proclamation but suffice to say that the main theme to Washington’s decree was his and our worshiping thanks “to the great Lord and ruler of Nations.”
From this historical document, one can readily see that that modern day America has been led to the slaughter. Starting from when the Constitution was ratified till the 1947 Everson case, which introduced this insipid and Constitutionally unfounded “wall of separation between church and state,” the freedom of religion, to practice and worship remained sacred and untouched. It is a monumental injustice for nine black robes to embark upon a First amendment detour which has the complete eradication of our Christian doctrines and heritage as it final quest. In essence, our Supreme Court created new law which for all intent and purposes contradicted our First Amendment’s recognition of our inalienable religious rights by prohibiting their “free exercise.”
So on this day of thanks and prayer, while we all enjoy the football games and eagerly anticipate the Black Friday store gimmicks, remember that it was a Supreme Court authority, the same authority which will now consider the constitutionality of Obamacare, which trashed our inalienable religious freedoms. As such, their record for upholding Constitutional safeguards should send shudders throughout our society. If ever there was a time to “beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions,” this seems to be the occasion. The father of our Country was right, and his message still rings true. A day for “thanksgiving and prayer.”
Jim Bowman Author of
This Roar of Ours