{"id":27701,"date":"2020-09-12T08:59:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T13:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=27701"},"modified":"2020-09-12T09:29:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T14:29:30","slug":"lest-we-forget-our-heritage-of-faith-remembering-a-400th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/lest-we-forget-our-heritage-of-faith-remembering-a-400th-anniversary","title":{"rendered":"Lest We Forget Our Heritage of Faith: Remembering a 400th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As\nrioters in America ransack cities, topple statues, and disparage our heritage,\na key quadricentennial is happening largely unheralded. This year marks the 400th<\/sup>\nanniversary of the momentous voyage of the Mayflower, which set sail from England\non September 6, 1620 for what its passengers deemed to be, as recorded by\nWilliam Bradford, \u201cthose vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are\nfruitful and fit for habitation\u2026. It was granted that the dangers were great,\nbut not desperate. The difficulties were many, but not invincible\u2026; and all of\nthem, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne\nor overcome.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncity of Leiden had proven not to be the spiritual haven they expected, and\nbefore sailing back to England to continue on to America, they engaged in a day\nof fasting and \u201cpouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency, mixed with\nabundance of tears.\u201d With renewed faith in their Creator, they then \u201cleft that\ngoodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years,\nbut they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but\nlifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their\nspirits.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sailing\non a northern route across the Atlantic through treacherous storms, the ship made\nlandfall at Cape Cod on November 11. The passengers had no doubt about the\npower that had preserved them. \u201cBeing thus arrived in a good harbor, and\nbrought safe to land,\u201d Bradford recorded, \u201cthey fell upon their knees and\nblessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean,\nand delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus\nbegan the drama of faith that would eventually forge a new nation under God. As\nexplained on the official Plymouth website, the Pilgrims arrived \u201cin hopes\nof making a better life for themselves and their children while being able to\nworship freely and in peace. Undoubtedly the most famous colonists in world\nhistory, their faith and fortitude are legendary. Their perseverance laid the\ncornerstone of a new Nation,\u201d and their \u201ccourage, gratitude to God, and love\nfor one another still inspire people today\u2026. They crafted a region rich in\nintellect, spirituality, self-government and commerce; a place of creative\nsplendors whose influence on American culture and the world is inestimable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nforget the Pilgrims\u2019 ardent faith in God would be to forget the very foundation\nof America, whose Founders not only acknowledged Creator-endowed unalienable\nrights but did so in the Declaration of Independence by \u201cappealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the\nrectitude of our intentions\u201d and \u201cwith a firm reliance on the protection of\ndivine Providence.\u201d Their faith was not in vain, as attested by General\nWashington following the miraculous victory against far superior\nBritish forces. When showered with praise by his grateful countrymen, he\nrefused to take credit: \u201cThe praise is due to the Grand Architect of the\nUniverse,\u201d he insisted. On another occasion he explained, \u201cDisposed, at every\nsuitable opportunity to acknowledge our infinite obligations to the Supreme\nRuler of the Universe for rescuing our Country from the brink of destruction, I\ncannot fail at his time to ascribe all the honor of our late successes to the\nsame glorious Being.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nif that glorious Being is not expressly mentioned in the Constitution (over\nwhose creation Washington presided), His reality is certainly presupposed. The\nDeclaration\u2019s insistence that the purpose of government is to \u201csecure\u201d\nGod-given rights is echoed in the preamble of the Constitution, whose stated\npurpose is to \u201csecure the Blessings of Liberty.\u201d As pointed out by Kevin Seamus\nHasson, \u201cBlessings<\/em> was not an empty word in the eighteenth century. Nor\ndid it equate simply with \u2018good luck.\u2019 A blessing was a gift from the Creator.\nIt needed only to be secured<\/em> by law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nupshot is clear, as expressed by the United States Supreme Court (in the 1952\ndecision of Zorach v. Clauson<\/em>): \u201cWe are a religious people whose\ninstitutions presuppose a Supreme Being.\u201d And should we ever forget the God who\ngave us liberty, it would be to our peril, as the Founders warned. \u201cOur\nconstitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly\ninadequate to the government of any other,\u201d for \u201cit is Religion and Morality\nalone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand,\u201d\ncautioned John Adams. President Washington\u2019s Farewell Address was equally\nclear: \u201cOf all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,\nReligion and morality are indispensable supports.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well\ndid Justice Antonin Scalia remind us (in his dissenting opinion in the 1992 Lee\nv. Weisman<\/em> decision), \u201cReligious men and women of almost all denominations\nhave felt it necessary to acknowledge and beseech the blessing of God as a\npeople, and not just as individuals, because they believe in the \u2018protection of\ndivine Providence,\u2019 as the Declaration of Independence put it, not just for\nindividuals but for societies; because they believe God to be, as Washington\u2019s\nfirst Thanksgiving Proclamation put it, the \u2018Great Lord and Ruler of Nations.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those in America today who believe otherwise, we must protect their divinely endowed right of free speech as carefully as we protect our own, even though they deny the very foundation of their liberty. What we cannot countenance is unlawful upheaval that violates our divinely endowed rights as it seeks to denigrate and obliterate our sacred heritage, nor can we accept the lie that our heritage does not matter. It is time to remember and remind our fellow citizens of the foundation of faith in God laid by the courageous passengers on the Mayflower and continued by those who, as Lincoln declared, \u201cbrought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d It is time to assess whether we, like Lincoln\u2019s colleagues, \u201chave forgotten God\u201d and \u201cforgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us.\u201d And it is time to recall Rudyard Kipling\u2019s words that might well serve as a prayer at this critical hour in our history: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,<\/em>
Lest we forget\u2014lest we forget!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is time to remember and remind our fellow citizens of the foundation of faith in God laid by the courageous passengers on the Mayflower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":28302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"It is time to remember and remind our fellow citizens of the foundation of faith in God laid by the courageous passengers on the Mayflower.","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,695],"tags":[5510,5508,4323],"class_list":["post-27701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-opinion","tag-founders","tag-pilgrims","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nLest We Forget Our Heritage of Faith: Remembering a 400th Anniversary - IFN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/lest-we-forget-our-heritage-of-faith-remembering-a-400th-anniversary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lest We Forget Our Heritage of Faith: Remembering a 400th Anniversary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is time to remember and remind our fellow citizens of the foundation of faith in God laid by the courageous passengers on the Mayflower.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/lest-we-forget-our-heritage-of-faith-remembering-a-400th-anniversary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"IFN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/iFamNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-12T13:59:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-09-12T14:29:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/mayflower-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"E. 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Douglas Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f01991614cc9086457280e0279d7da9c1c6dd2774eca1bf16e9e24005c6feb0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f01991614cc9086457280e0279d7da9c1c6dd2774eca1bf16e9e24005c6feb0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f01991614cc9086457280e0279d7da9c1c6dd2774eca1bf16e9e24005c6feb0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"E. Douglas Clark"},"description":"E. Douglas Clark is an attorney and Director of UN and International Policy at the International Organization for the Family. For two decades Doug has been on the forefront of defending the family at the United Nations as a lobbyist and strategist, leading teams and consulting with policymakers in New York and around the world. His writings include the World Family Declaration and articles in The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy and Ave Maria International Law Journal. After earning MBA and JD degrees from Brigham Young University, he practiced banking law and served as director of content of the original Law.com.","url":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/author\/dclarkifamnews-com"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28315,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27701\/revisions\/28315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}