“As a nation, when was America the most successful? Was it when God, His precepts and power were an integral part of our daily lives from both a national and a personal perspective? Or. is it now when seemingly as a nation, and in a lot of cases from a personal perspective, the U.S. Constitution and the Federal government has been substituted for the precepts and power of God?”
A recent Associated Press story entitled “Atheists Sue President Over National Prayer Day” reported “The Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF), the nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics, is suing President Bush and other elected official over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer. According to the article the FFRF is “arguing that the president’s mandated proclamations calling on Americans to pray violates a constitutional ban on government officials endorsing religion” and “creates a hostile environment for nonbelievers, who are made to feel as if they are political outsiders.”
Now before he writes much farther an Ole Seagull, while acknowledging his own imperfections and failures as both a man and Christian, must state his unequivocal belief in the Christian God and in the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, who died that all might have eternal salvation. Yet even in his imperfection God can use even an Ole Seagull for His purposes and will do what He will with him when those purposes have been accomplished.
What “constitutional ban on government officials endorsing religion” is the FFRF talking about? One would presume its First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the applicable portion of which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”
The FFRF’s suit is also suing “over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer.” A reasonable conclusion is that the law being referred to is the 1998 entitled, “National Day of Prayer” (39 USC 119). It says, “The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.”
From a personal perspective and his recollection of U.S. History back in the days of the founding fathers, as well as the testimony of at least the first one hundred years of our nations actual history, an Ole Seagull has a tough time believing the early Congresses of the United States would have batted an eye over passing legislation similar to that establishing the “National Day of Prayer.”
Some might ask, “But how could they have done that in the face of the first amendment?” That’s pretty simple. The power of the federal government was strictly construed and a law to encourage prayer was not the “establishment of a religion” by Congress. Indeed it would have been consistent with other actions the early Congress and leaders of the country took in that regard.
To an Ole Seagull the wording of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is an acknowledgement of the Founding Fathers that they, the created, could not change the laws and percepts of the Creator. God had established His church and it was in the hearts and soul of those who has accepted His Son as their Lord and Savior not in the halls of the governments created by man.
Yet over a hundred years after the First Amendment went into effect some of the “created” decided to expand the verbiage in the First Amendment to create an alleged doctrine of “separation of church and state.” In an Ole Seagull’s opinion, the doctrine is nothing more than an attempt to separate a “government of the people, by the people and for the people” from the very God whose spirit and grace was the foundation upon which their Nation was built.
The fact that the FFRF can even bring such a lawsuit, the removal of prayer from schools, the attempt to take Christ out of Christmas, etc. shows how successful they have been. One could almost get the impression that the created believe that what they have created supersedes the laws of the Creator and they’ll take it from here. Is the Ole Seagull the only one who believes that is a horrible mistake?
