Let’s Win the Culture War

Editor’s Note: Today’s Prophetic Insight is the text from a video blog recently posted on Apostle Dutch Sheets’ Web site (dutchsheets.org), with minor modifications. It is a serious call to prayer regarding the culture war in America that we believe every Christian needs to read and respond to.

President Obama has said twice now—in his inaugural address and on a recent trip to Europe—that America is no longer a Christian nation. In fact, he implied in his inaugural address that we never have been a Christian nation, that it was many faiths that shaped and defined who we are as America.

A recent Newsweek magazine basically agreed with our president. The headline read, “The End of Christian America.” What are Newsweek and others really saying about America when they say we are not a Christian nation? In essence, they are saying we lost the culture war for America. The implication is that we never were a Christian nation, that we’ve always been a mix, or that maybe we were at one point, but are no longer—in other words, the culture war is over and we are announcing that Christianity has lost.

What is the truth about our roots as a nation? Consider the following quotes, which demonstrate clearly what we were at the founding of this nation, and what our founding fathers and early leaders wanted us to be. The first one is from the United States Supreme Court in 1892.

“From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation … that this is a Christian nation.” I guess the Supreme Court at that point in time would not agree with our current president.

John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, said, “Unto Him who is the author and giver of all good, I render sincere and humble thanks for His manifold and unmerited blessings, and especially for our redemption and salvation by His beloved Son.” Is that a Christian statement? I believe it is.

Here is what Fisher Ames, the author of the First Amendment, said: “Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book?” Remember that the First Amendment is what the revisionists use to try to prove that our forefathers didn’t want Christianity influencing our government or anything in the public square. I don’t think Ames agreed with today’s “definition” of the separation of church and state.

John Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and our second president, said: “The general principles of which the fathers achieved independence were … the general principles of Christianity.” He certainly thought we were a Christian nation, founded upon Christian principles.

Here’s one that will surprise many of you. It is a statement from the Handbook of Harvard University, published in 1642, under the heading “The Rules and Precepts”: “Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) … and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” Our educators today do not agree with this statement, but it appeared in the Handbook of Harvard University.

A final quote: “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, power, as no other nation has ever grown. But, we have forgotten God.

“We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied, enriched, and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”