WAS AMERICA EVER GREAT?

by David Causey

Note:  For contact information contact me and with his permission I will supply same.  Also, I added the bold face type.

         If you have had as much as a conscious moment over the last year and a half, then you’ve certainly heard the chant, “America never was great!”  This, of course, has been knee-jerk response to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America great again!”

         Well, was America ever great?  One’s opinion on the matter depends on the criteria they use.  If greatness is only measured on the basis of our pop culture’s tenets – e.g. “If it feels good, do it;” “America is all about racism and the oppression of women;” “Men of European descent are what’s wrong with America;” “If you’re heterosexual then you’re a homophobe;” “If you’re patriotic, then you’re a xenophobe;” “American history is all about the conquest and genocide of Native Americans,” etc. – then, I suppose, America never was great.

         However, if you measure greatness based on America’s historic role of defending and delivering the oppressed, on the charitable giving of its citizens, on its adoption of impoverished orphans from other countries, on its Judeo-Christian morality, on the quality of life that its people enjoy, on its system of government that allows all its people to participate in government, and upon whether people seek to enter its borders or flee them – then America has not only been great and remains great, but it is, by far, the greatest nation on the planet.

         What about America’s role in delivering the oppressed?  How does America rank among the nations?  Well, once we got past our Isolationism, i.e. from the time we entered World War II, America has served as the savior and protector of the free world.  America defeated the Nazism and Fascism of the Axis Powers, as well as the aggressive imperialism of Japan.  This was at no small cost to America.  The human price was staggering: the deaths of over 405,000 Servicemen, 607,000 wounded, and over 30,000 missing.  That’s well over 1 million casualties.  And in terms of money, America shelled out $321 billion (over $5 trillion in today’s money) to fund the war effort – at a time when our economy was less than one hundredth of what it is today. 

         And how did those vanquished nations fare after the war?  Did America absorb them into its empire, as the Soviet Union did to the Eastern European nations?  Not at all.  Instead, from 1947 through 1951 America pumped $22 billion (over $225 billion in today’s money) into West Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, and other western European nations to rebuild their infrastructure and economies.  In addition to this, the U.S. gave $800 million to help rebuild Japan ($8.2 billion in today’s money).   And Japan has fared far better than any of the Soviet Eastern European nations.  Today Japan has the third largest economy in the world, only behind the United States (number one) and China (number two).

         And what about America’s Cold War casualties – that 54-year fight to contain Soviet and Chinese aggression?  It is estimated that America spent over $14 trillion dollars to defend the free world from 1947 to 1991.  In American lives, the Cold War cost us 340,000 casualties, including more than 94,000 deaths.  And who benefitted from the Cold War?  Did America?  Hardly.  But the nations of Western Europe, NATO, South Korea, and Japan certainly did?  Was the Korean War a waste?  Before you answer that, first contrast life in North and South Korea.  South Korea is a mega industrialized nation with a muscular economy.  North Korea is a horrific nightmare, whose citizens perish from famine and die from execution, starvation, and overwork in prison camps by the tens of thousands every year.  Believe me, at a great cost to itself America has been the major force for good and hope in the world over the last seventy years.  And keep in mind, as the world’s foremost superpower, America could have used its military for far less benevolent purposes.

         What about charitable giving?  How does America rank?  Among the great industrialized nations of the world, America is at the very top and has been for many years.  In fact, 2017 has seen an all-time high of $390 billion donated by Americans to charitable works – an amount that exceeds the economies of many wealthy nations.  It’s true that, on a strictly per capita basis, Myanmar (Burma) sometimes edges ahead of America, but almost none of this giving leaves the borders of Myanmar.  This is in striking contrast with America, which exports much of its charitable donations.

         But what’s the big deal, you say?  America’s a prosperous nation.  Why shouldn’t it give the most?  Well, let’s do a little comparing.  Remember Japan, the nation with the third largest economy?  Where do you think Japan ranks in giving?  Number 3?  Hardly.  When it comes to generosity, Japan only ranks at 114^th place.  And China, with the second largest economy, ranks at 140^th in generosity.  That’s worse than Russia, which stands at 126^th place and oil-rich Venezuela, which is at 117^th.  It makes me wonder, where would these people, who say “America never was great,” prefer to live? 

What about the desire of Americans to save orphaned children from other nations?  How does America compare with other countries?  In this respect America has no peer.  Americans adopt far more orphaned and abandoned children from abroad – regardless of their race or color - than any other country.  In fact, more than 2 million of its citizens, 18 years and younger, were born in other countries but were adopted by loving people of this most compassionate nation.

And what about our government, our quality of life, and the desire of people of other nations to live here?  Oh, I agree, our borders must be guarded.  But they’re not guarded to keep people from fleeing America, but from overrunning our borders to share in our unparalleled quality of life.  Obviously, millions of immigrants from around the world would not agree that “America never was great.”  And America’s government – a republic that allows all its citizens to choose their own leaders – represents the longest continuing democratic government in the world.  Since 1787 we have been operating under the same governing document – the U.S. Constitution.  Contrast this with France which has changed its government seven times since the French Revolution and Italy which has changed its government 51 times within the same period.

         So, the next time someone tells you, “America never was great,” just ask them to identify what they do consider to be a great nation.  I strongly suspect they’ve never actually lived anywhere else and really have no idea what life would be like elsewhere.  Chances are, they have no idea how good they – and everyone else in America - have it. 

Sure, this nation has some serious problems.  But they won’t be solved by symbolic acts like taking a knee during the National Anthem or by burning our National Colors.  America will only be mended by the difficult acts of love and reconciliation, and by fervent prayer to our Creator.

PRAYER:  Almighty and merciful Father, please bless the United States of America.  Please forgive our many sins.  Please heal our land of its divisions and its spiritual and moral sickness.  O God of our fathers, send forth Your Divine Spirit to turn our hearts to You in faith and repentance and to each other in love and reconciliation.  Please bless America and make her citizens spiritually sound and morally straight.  Raise America to true greatness and grant her supreme success as Your torch of freedom and Your instrument of peace throughout the world.  Amen.

(Information from: https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donations-rise-to-new-high-of-390-05-billion/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Giving_Index; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war; http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/marshall-plan/; “Fever of adopting Chinese children in the United States,” Peoples’ Daily Online; https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-America-spend-on-the-Cold-War-arms-race)

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"THE FOUNDATION WHICH ELEVATES OUR SOCIETY"

(by Chaplain David C. Causey, USA - pictures added)

An article appeared yesterday (22 August 2016) about a 16^th Century church which was built at the command of Hernan Cortez after he conquered the city of Cholula.  For the site of this particular church - La Iglesia de los Remedios - the builders chose the top of a prominent hill which rose abruptly from the surrounding plain.  This church has served the community for nearly 500 years. 

However, in 1910, when the town began excavating at the base of the hill to build a mental hospital, workers made a stunning discovery.  The hill, upon which the 500-year-old church was built, was no hill.  It was a monstrous pyramid.  In sheer volume it is the largest pyramid in the world, nearly 1500 feet wide at its base and 200 feet high.  Actually, the pyramid was a succession of pyramids built on top of each other by different rulers as the land changed hands from the Teotihuacans to the Olmec-Xicallancas to the Toltecs to the Aztecs.  Construction on it began about 300 BC.  By the time Cortez arrived the pyramid was so covered with dirt and vegetation that it was mistaken for a hill.  This mistake actually preserved it, for Cortez destroyed most of the other religious monuments in the area.

Something struck me about this story.  It dawned on me that the builders of La Iglesia de los Remedios had no idea that its foundation had been laid hundreds of years earlier - by the very religions which they repudiated.  They were completely ignorant of the fact that the religious devotion of pagans was responsible for lifting their Christian temple so high above the earth.

This is symbolic of what is now happening in our nation culturally.  But it is happening in reverse.  In post-Christian America the very mention of Christ or the church in public schools and universities conjures up images of intolerance, ignorance, book burnings, slavery, and lynching.

A steady drone of anti-Christian propaganda has blinded us to the positive influences of Christianity.  For instance, the very spread of Christianity resulted in the establishment of thousands of hospitals and charitable organizations worldwide (e.g. The Salvation Army – which assists nearly ten million families annually, the Red Cross, World Vision, Food for the Poor, Habitat for Humanity, etc.).  The abolitionist movements in both Great Britain and the United States were spear-headed by devout Christian believers.  In fact, two-thirds of the membership of abolitionist organizations in the US at the time of the Civil War consisted of Christian Clergy.   The modern Civil Rights movement began in the churches, not in academia or government or the media.  

From its beginning Christianity influenced culture in a positive way.  The rise of Christianity in the Roman world led to the cessation of such despicable practices like infanticide (i.e. the daily discarding of hundreds of newborns – mostly female), the bloody gladiatorial games, abuses of women (e.g. brutalizing women, widow burning, foot binding), atrocities against slaves, cannibalism, and the general disregard of human life.  Of course, by today’s reasoning Christianity was guilty of interfering with indigenous cultures and imposing its view of morality of others.  By today’s twisted logic it would have been better if all those human rights abuses, baby-killings, gladiatorial games, cannibalism, and the abuse of women had continued.  Perhaps that’s why, in a society which now repudiates Christianity, those very abuses are returning.

 Many Americans have also overlooked the fact that the concept of universal education and literacy likewise came from the Judeo-Christian faith.  Before the American Revolution John Adams made the observation that, in a very religious New England, an illiterate man was as rare as a comet.  Schools were everywhere, in every town, educating every child.  And they were all begun and operated by the various churches in colonial America.  In fact, the first 123 colleges in America were established by churches.  Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown Universities were all started by churches – some for the express purpose of training ministers of the gospel.

Nor should it be overlooked that the greatest scientists, from Francis Bacon onward, have predominantly been Christian believers.  Isaac Newton, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Lord William Kelvin, Johannes Kepler, Nicolaus Copernicus, Carolus Linnaeus, Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Charles Babbage, Richard Owens, Max Planck, Gregor Mendel - and even Galileo Galilei – were all believers in the God of the Bible.  I should also mention that Galileo’s astronomical observations did not conflict in any way with biblical doctrine.  It only conflicted with the astronomical position first postulated by Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian astronomer, 1,400 years earlier.  The Roman Church had simply accepted Ptolemy’s prevailing view of the universe (a geo-centric view), and that’s where the conflict arose. 

In reality, the Judeo-Christian faith elevated society by proclaiming the value of human beings as created in God’s image, by teaching the brotherhood of all men, by defending women and children from abuses, by promoting education and literacy, by promoting a view of the universe that is governed by natural laws which the Creator Himself established, and by laying the foundations for law and government in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount.  Would you believe that even the concept of three branches of government (legislative, judicial, and executive) comes from the Bible?  Check out Isaiah 33:22. 

In other words, our modern godless culture benefits from the foundation laid by the Judeo-Christian faith which preceded it.  All of us benefit from the values and faith of the Bible which we condemn as tyrannical.  Beneath our modern society lies a mighty, rock-solid pyramid – the Judeo-Christian faith.  Don’t be too quick to sweep it away.  All other foundations are shifting sand.

PRAYER:  Almighty and merciful Father, please bless the United States of America.  Please forgive our many sins.  Please heal our land of its divisions and its spiritual and moral sickness.  O God of our fathers, send forth Your Divine Spirit to turn our hearts to You in faith and repentance and to each other in love and reconciliation.  Please bless America and make her citizens spiritually sound and morally straight.  Raise America to true greatness and grant her supreme success as Your torch of freedom and Your instrument of peace throughout the world. Amen.

 (Information from:  http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/08/22/world-largest-pyramid-is-hidden-in-mountain-in-mexico.html; http://mexonline.com/cholula-pyramid.html; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHLioeL9dYk; http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-impact-of-christianity; http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html)

God, Mankind, Failure, and Sin

Continuing the previous discussion... 

The argument tendered in response to the previous blog argued as follows.  Since God is "all knowing" or "omniscient" He knew Adam and Eve would disobey and thus He  creates them knowing ahead of time exactly what its they would do. Therefore, God is either directly or indirectly responsible for the existence of evil.  That must mean that God is evil.  To compound the issue He then punished the very ones He knew would sin.  (Adapted from a recent facebook posting in response to the previous blog.)

Following that notion forward, one might conclude then that God is responsible for all of the evil in today's world.  Thus mankind individually and corporately should be divested of all responsibility for his evil actions.  The idea being that because God is the responsible for the inception of evil, thus He is responsible for the outgrowth of that evil in the intervening years between then and now. 

While those ideas seem to follow logically, they only do so when founded upon certain assumptions.  Of course, assumptions by their very nature and existence require examination.  So let us consider some questions (most certainly there are more).

First question:  How can one be certain that God has foreknowledge?  Some schools of thought hold that God has chosen to limit His foreknowledge.  If such were so then the matter of His culpability would seem to be invalid. 

Second question:  How can one be certain that the entrance of sin into Garden was the time at which sin entering the whole world?  There is among some theologians the belief that the Garden was a utopian paradise created in the midst of a world that was already in the ravages of evil and corruption.  If such were so then the matter of God's responsibility may lay elsewhere.

Third question:  How can one be certain that God did not have a much more encompassing plan?  Such a plan that would be in effect either way, knowing that man would obey or would not obey.  If such is so it would be well beyond what man can rationally understand.  The most commonly cited example is that there is no evidence that Job ever understood what was going on in the Heavenlies. 

The outcome is the same no matter how these things are viewed.  The world contains corruption, evil, and wickedness.  In the midst of that darkness, a light shines and that is the light of truth and that truth is the standard that allows for one to label evil and wickedness, and corruption for what they are.  If there had not been the positive there would be no way by which to know negatives.  Therefore, any fundamental disagreement with what is herein must treat the question:  Where did truth originate?

The question that overshadows these and other beliefs is that of the benevolence of God. Is God a good God?  If God is viewed as evil, from where did the standard originate that allow one to make that assertion.  Either way one answers the question, the accompanying question is this.  Just who is it that one allows to define good?

It seems that if we allow man to define "good" then the outcome is a very self-oriented, short sighted, and immediate notion of what comprises "good."  If conversely, we allow God to define "good" then something, which appears to be evil on the human plain can in reality be divinely, eternally, and purely "good."

What might one take away from the discussion?  First, God is under no obligation to explain Himself to man.  In other words, what happened in the Garden of Eden and how God intervened is as explained but only in so far as man needs to know.  To take it beyond the text or even what the text allows is to court danger.  What is there is there, nothing more and nothing less.

Second, God does protect man from that which would defeat him.  This is offered in the form of another question.  What if any such explanation that God would give would be more than man could bear?  What is required is trust, truth in the goodness of God.  A goodness as provided above.

 

Third, God allows mysteries such as this in order for man to develop faith.  However, it must be said that such faith is a decision one makes, a volitional decision to trust in God despite such circumstances as may present themselves along the pathway of life.

Another Answer to Questions Christians Cannot Answer

"If God is so perfect, then why did he create something so imperfect allowing pain, suffering and daily atrocities?" (from the article "50 Questions That Christians Cannot Answer." available at http://www.bukisa.com/articles/107211_top-50-questions-christians-cant-answer).  The site continues, "Don't get me wrong, they will have an answer for them. You will find, however, that their answers have no basis in verifiable fact or evidence whatsoever, and will be largely based in their blind faith. Their faith has mad (sic) them whole."

As noted in the previous blog to assume that some Christian some place on this earth or who lived in some time period could not legitimately answer these questions is a quantum assumption which though postulated is impossible to defend.  Maybe these questions cannot be answered to the satisfaction of the questioner but that in no way validates the questions presented nor invalidates such answers as are provided. As well, just as many of the questions are not validated with facts, one should not expect the answers will be either.  It is an unfair stipulation that even the questioner cannot abide.

As to the current question the prudent observer of life knows that evil exists in the forms listed and others beside.  For the honest seeker of truth, this and other questions are deserving of a thought out answer.  Most certainly there are questions that cannot be answered due to their illogical nature.  

Look first at the question being ask.  Of course it is an "if-then" question which taken at face value seeks to impugn the character of God.  In effect it is saying that God is responsible for evil in its various forms.  Therefore God is evil and not to be trusted if He even exists at all.

There are some other questions one might consider.  Is God really the origin of evil or is it found in man?  Is it a consequence of culture or as a natural bent of man?  Are there exceptions to this evil?  Is evil ever in its final form or is it ever dynamic?

There are answers if one is willing to enlarge his frame of reference!  The challenges in asking the question are the limiting factors one embraces.  Following are several question to be asked of the one proposing the initial idea.   

First, is it legitimate to postulate that because evil exists there can be no God?  This seems to assume a correlation between God's existence and evil's existence.  How can that link be legitimately established?

Similarly, is it legitimate to suggest that because evil exists there exists a malevolent even vengeful God?  Again this seems to assume a correlation between God's existence and that of evil.  How can that link be legitimately established?

Can one accept the assumption of a malevolent God and thus be able to postulate the opposite question?  "If God is so imperfect, then why did he create something so perfect allowing good in all of it multivariate forms?" There are a multitude of difficulties with such a thought, not the least of which is that in order for there to be imperfect, there 

must be an antecedent perfect (more in a moment).

 

Second, is it legitimate to say that what God originally created has not changed, either devolving or evolving?  In order for the initial question to have legitimacy, there can be no change from the original creation.  How can such be legitimately established.  So then if one allows for some form of change then the merits of the question fall apart.

Now for a rebuttal question.  If the original questioner is correct and such is as he has proposed, from where comes a sense of "good?"  From where does the standard that labels something or someone as "good" originate.  As noted, for there to be "evil" there must be an initial "good."  Since that is so, from where did that initial notion of "good" originate? 

The Bible explains that in fact the original creation was good.  It remained so for some period of time until man given the freedom to choose, then make the fateful choice to disobey.  In doing so he opened the door to evil. 

As well, because there is a right and it involves God then consider this.  If one can accept that God is good and that He involves Himself in the affairs of man, then, one must at least give the possibility that the wrong can in fact turn out to be a "right," an "evil" turned to a "good," and a "curse" turned to a "blessing," etc.  This is but one of the advantages of an open system of thought that allows for God's intervention in the affairs of mankind individually and corporately.

So why did He not intervene in the disobedience of the original man and woman?  He did, just not in a way that the skeptic chooses to label as proper and good.  You see, God does all things "well and good" but, He is the one who defines "good!"  For man to do so would result in a shortsighted and selfish good.

Once again the supposed nail in the "God" coffin is fragile at best and crumbles under the scrutiny of a few simple questions.