A Nation Under Judgment

All Scripture Quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader's Version®, NIV®. Copyright® 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Acknowledgments

The journey to complete this book began seven years ago and would not have been possible without the love, encouragement, and support of my family, all of whom have been a special blessing.

My spiritual journey, which led to the creation of this book, was blessed by the compassion and teaching of Sisters Kathleen Salewski and Beata Weiss, who were my clinical mentors during four years of Clinical Pastoral Education and my tenure as a hospital trauma chaplain.

I am also deeply indebted to the patients I have been blessed to meet as a crisis chaplain and mental health counselor over the past twenty-two years. Their courage to share parts of their life stories with me has been a blessing and has shaped my own spiritual journey.

Finally, I have been blessed with four outstanding and gifted editors: Pamela Guerrieri, Kimberly Jace, Kayleigh Gray, and Scott Jones. Each has made invaluable contributions that improved the quality of this book.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: One Nation under God

Chapter Two: Hunger

Chapter Three: Homelessness

Chapter Four: The Meaning of Life

Chapter Five: Gambling

Chapter Six: Marriage

Chapter Seven: Pornography

Chapter Eight: The Environment

Chapter Nine: Poverty

Chapter Ten: Gluttony and Greed

Chapter Eleven: Child Abuse

Chapter Twelve: The Power to Persuade

Chapter Thirteen: A Nation under Judgment

Introduction

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 33:12).

How do you define wisdom? For some it's measured by a person's level of knowledge and learning or by one's level of education. Dictionaries define wisdom as philosophic and scientific learning. Other definitions of wisdom include sound judgment, good insight, or common sense. Native Americans believe wisdom is earned only after living a long life that brings learning and experience.

These definitions have merit, but they fall short of a biblical definition of wisdom. Biblical wisdom can be defined as the ability to see things from God's point of view. As Christians, our wisdom grows when we understand and accept God's point of view. The same is true for nations; they show wisdom when they align their policies with God's view.

Without wisdom people can find themselves in trouble and counties risk disaster. The further a nation strays from God's point of view, the closer it comes to being a nation under judgment.

Our source for God's point of view is the Bible. As Christians, we believe the Bible is the Word of God and is our best resource for discovering His point of view. The mystery of the Bible is its awesome power to speak to each of us. All that's required is a willingness to open our hearts and minds to its messages.

We live in a country that prides itself on being one nation under God. We ask for God's blessing in songs like God Bless America by Irving Berlin. Our Supreme Court opens ever with God save the United States and this Honorable Court. The president and other politicians pandering for our votes give speeches that end with God bless America.

But what does it mean to be one nation under God? Have the words become merely a patriotic slogan? Do they have value only in times of national crises, when we feel threatened? Are we a nation asking for God's protection and blessings while turning away from His point of view?

How can we be a nation under God if we ignore His point of view when shaping national policies? When we create policies on hunger, homelessness, poverty, and protecting the environment, are we following God's point of view—or a political agenda? What does it say about our nation when the president, the Supreme Court, and those we elect to public office abandon God's point of view on marriage and the important question of when life begins?

Finally, what does it say about our values when one of every fifty children is homeless and one in seven households lacks sufficient food, in a nation that wastes 40 percent of its food? These are important questions that must be asked if we value being a nation under God because the answers may point to a nation moving away from God's point of view.

The movement away from God is not new to our generation. Abraham Lincoln spoke of our nation abandoning God in his proclamation appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer on March 30, 1863. Lincoln wrote, We know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishment and chastisements in this world.¹

Lincoln believed we had become a powerful, wealthy, and blessed nation by the hand of God: 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, and power as no other nation has every grown.²

But he understood that in the midst of our great power and wealth we had become a nation abandoning God: But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessing were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.³

Lincoln knew that we had become a nation intoxicated with unbroken success, and he called the country too self-sufficient and too proud to pray to the God that made us.⁴

The following chapters challenge us to examine God's point of view on important social issues and to ask whether our nation's policies reflect His view. Our source for God's point of view is the Bible. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The New International Version of the Holy Bible. Our nation's point of view is examined by reviewing national policies and practices.

Are we a nation seeing things from God's point of view? Only after exploring God's word and comparing it with our nation's point of view can we answer that question. What does it say about our nation when those we elect to Congress push to reduce spending for the poor, the homeless, and those facing hunger, while demanding that the very wealthy among us pay less in taxes? Are we a nation under God when we permit one in every six of us, including sixteen million children, to fall into poverty, and nearly fifty million Americans face hunger? What does it say about our values when one in every 150 of our military veterans is homeless?

Christians cannot escape our responsibility to hold those we elect to public office accountable for crafting policies that reflect God's point of view. If our nation is moving away from God, we have a responsibility to advocate change and to elect leaders who believe that under God is not merely a slogan but a call to action that will bring our polices into line with God's point of view.

Our Founding Fathers knew that we could not indefinitely exist apart from God's point of view. George Mason warned that providence would punish national sins with national calamities. Thomas Jefferson said, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever. These great men understood that our nation's future rests upon its commitment to live by the words one nation under God and that we must create national polices that reflect His point of view, rather than policies that conform to a political agenda.

Ultimately, we must decide if we will be a nation of wisdom—one that enacts laws and policies aligned with God's point of view—or a nation that strays from His point of view and becomes a nation under judgment.

Chapter One

One Nation under God

Is our nation reaching a boiling point? We appear restless and frustrated and we've become angry with a dysfunctional Congress that's more interested in playing political games than advancing policies to solve the critical issues facing our nation. We've witnessed years of political bickering, and voters appear ready to shout with their votes what their hearts already know: something has gone terribly wrong in America.

Our nation seems to be abandoning the wisdom our nation's Founding Fathers followed, the wisdom of God's Word; like the nations described in the Bible, we might find ourselves facing God's judgment for ignoring that wisdom.

Our nation's spirit is restless. Perhaps this is because the lifeline to our Founding Fathers' commitment to one nation under God has been severed—not by we the people, but by our government. Public opinion polls say that a majority of us believe in God and that religion is very important, yet our nation's soul is restless. It senses that we are no longer one nation under God, and instead have become a nation moving away from God.

We are dissatisfied with the direction of our nation. A Gallup Poll found that three-quarters of us are dissatisfied.⁵ While the anemic economy, high unemployment, and massive national debt explain part of our dissatisfaction, they don't explain the longer trend of disapproval that has gripped our nation since July 1992, when only 17 percent of us were satisfied with our nation's direction.⁶ Most Americans believe we've been moving in the wrong direction for years.

Is our deep dissatisfaction based on a fear that we are moving away from God's point of view?

A National Legacy of Faith

We've not always been a nation rejecting God's point of view. In his farewell address, George Washington warned, Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.⁷

Long before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the colonists laid the foundation to build one nation under God. The First Charter of Virginia, which was issued by King James of England on April 10, 1606, granted colonists the right to settle in America. By the Providence of Almighty God, the colonists were to tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such people who were living in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God.⁸

The passion to plant Christianity firmly into the roots of our nation was written into the Mayflower Compact of 1620, which said, Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia.⁹

The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England—which was approved by the governments of Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven— said, All came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity and peace.¹⁰

Prior to the founding of our nation, twelve of the thirteen colonies met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress. Fifty-six members appointed by their colonies met in secret to

resolve differences with England. The Reverend Jacob Duche, a local minister, opened the second session by reading Psalm 35 and offering a prayer that included these words: O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords.. .Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly... All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.¹¹

More than one hundred years after the pilgrims landed, our Founding Fathers declared their independence from England and gave birth to our Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed a national government divided into three branches; his model may have come from Isaiah 33:22, which says, For the Lord is our judge [judicial branch], the Lord is our lawgiver [legislative branch], the Lord is our King [executive branch].

On October 3, 1789, President Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. He wrote, "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor."¹² The proclamation said that Thanksgiving Day was to be a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many an favors of Almighty God.¹³

Our nation's foundation is planted in the idea of one nation under God. It's an important part of our heritage, and it's in our Pledge of Allegiance. Since 1956, In God We Trust has been our national motto and inscribed on our currency.

A Nation Losing Faith

However, a disturbing trend has developed in the last decades. Since 1962, prayer in our public schools has been banned, along with public prayer at graduation ceremonies and athletic events. We've evicted God from our public schools and government buildings.

We've also seen our nation's laws change. Since 1967, states have repealed criminal abortion laws; abortion became a national right in 1973. We've developed polices that condone abortion, and state and national policies that legalize same-sex marriages. Massachusetts was the first state, in 2004, to legalize same-sex marriages, and other states are recognizing civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Has our nation's foundation of one nation under God begun to crumble? Are we traveling down a road where our destination may be similar to other powerful and great nations that once ruled much of the world—until they abandoned God's point of view?

If wisdom is the ability to see things from God's point of view, have we lost our wisdom as a