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These days, in post-Christian America, we suffer a chronic (and perhaps terminal) case of historical ignorance.
For example, many are unaware that our tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November was established by Abraham Lincoln at the height of the civil war.
Lincoln's proclamation holds valuable lessons for us today. To gain some perspective on how far we have drifted from our foundations, try to imagine President Barack Obama speaking the following words in a televised presidential address in 2009.
Here is Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon. And to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures--and proven by all history--that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
We know that by His divine law, nations like individuals are subject to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justify fear that the awful calamity of Civil War, which now desolates the land, may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins--to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
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 ever grown.
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 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 has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.
I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our benevolent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
A. Lincoln
My grandchildren enjoy watching videos of Jay-Jay the Jet Plane. If you don't have small children around the house, you may not be familiar with Jay-Jay, but trust me, he is really big with the pre-school crowd.
Recently, while I was watching a holiday-themed Jay-Jay video with little Miranda, I became troubled.
Jay-Jay and his friends were flying around (as they so often do) while discussing the meaning of Thanksgiving. Jay-Jay didn't understand the concept of being thankful, or even what to be thankful for. His little jet-friend Tracy set him straight, to some degree, by reminding him of the good things in his life and teaching him to appreciate his friends, his job, and the comforts of home at Tarreytown airport.
What bothers me is the fact that my grandhchildren are being taught a lesson that is only two-thirds complete. Watching Jay-Jay, they will learn to count their blessings, and they will learn to be thankful for them -- but aren't these two concepts rather aimless unless they learn WHO to be thankful TO?
That Jay-Jay Thanksgiving video represents what is wrong with us in America today. We have enough sense to realize that we are fortunate to live in such a prosperous, free and open society. We know that we should be thankful, but we have forgotten who to thank.
Sadly, Barack Obama was spot-on when he recently declared that America "is not a Christian nation." We have drifted a long way from our cultural roots. Back when I was young, and dinosaurs roamed the Great Plains, public acknowledgements of God were still common and non-controversial.
It has been a grim experience to witness, in my lifetime, the decline of America into an increasingly humanistic, secular and fractured society. We have allowed God-hating people to run rampant over our culture. We cannot pray in school. Nativity scenes are being banned all across the country. The Ten Commandments have been removed from public display in courthouses. Political correctness dictates that you say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." There is a movement to have the words "under God" stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.
Anything that hints of God is being eliminated from our public life.
Ironically, we are free today, as Americans, because our forefathers believed in God and acted upon that belief. It was a shared faith in God's authority and power that gave those early Americans the fortitude to persevere against all of the challenges they faced. Without God, this country would never have been born.
The people who founded this country shared a biblical worldview that molded the structure of our government and laws. It was a common acceptance of biblical principles that led them to establish a constitution that upheld the concepts of liberty and individual freedom. An individual had intrinsic worth, because he was created in the image of God.
That alone is reason for overwhelming thanks. But even more, God has blessed this country bountifully since it's founding. We have rejected the sin of slavery, emancipated women, liberated entire continents from tyranny, cured horrific diseases, and elevated the common man's standard of living to heights never dreamed of before in human history. We are blessed to live in a great country. God has been good to America.
Yet, in the face of such divine magnanimity, we have rejected our God.
Listen to the Thanksgiving shows on TV. Watch the parades. Unless you are watching Christian television, you will hear no mention of God. Thanksgiving Day has been reduced to a national pig-out, and the start of the Christmas shopping season.
As we become more secularized, and more forgetful of who has been buttering our bread, we teeter ever closer to that tipping point where God finally withdraws his protection, and allows judgement to proceed. I believe that the decline of America is already underway. We are growing weaker and poorer, both materially and spiritually, with each passing day. I shudder to think of the country that my grandchildren will inherit if we do not reverse our course.
We can learn from the Old Testament how the people of ancient Israel suffered terrible judgements as a result of their continued rejection of God's authority. A great nation was reduced to a wasteland, because the people forgot the God who sustained them.
At the height of Israel's glory, when King Solomon had just finished dedicating the temple in Jerusalem, God appeared to him and made a sobering declaration. It was a promise of blessing for obedience, and a promise of judgement for sin. Americans today would be wise to heed the words that God spoke to Solomon so long ago.
When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
"As for you, if you walk before me as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.'
"But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?' People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.' "
(2 Chronicles 7:11-22, NIV)
America needs to return to God. We need to discover anew just what Thanksgiving Day is really all about.
Okay, boys and girls, settle into your seats for a quick lesson in Remedial Economics from Professor Dave. Be ready to take notes, there may be a pop quiz later.
First, a little background:
You may recall that in the summer of 2008, before the last general election, gas prices passed the $4 per gallon mark. This understandably caused quite a ruckus among consumers, and we beseiged our representatives in government with demands that something be done to correct the situation.
With an election looming on the horizon, liberal Democrats (and their RINO buddies) reverted to their standard election year schtick: making whatever noises they thought the voters wanted to hear, with no intention of ever actually following through.
Suddenly, the very legislators who have continuously blocked opening up federal lands for energy exploration were all on board the "drill here, drill now" express. The voters are upset - gas prices are too high - so let's put on a show!
Everyone from House Speaker Comrade Pelosi to the lowliest junior Rust Belt congressman was suddenly barking about energy independence. Democrats brayed in loud TV sound bites about lifting the congressionally-imposed ban on offshore drilling that has been in effect for decades, and which has hampered our domestic energy production.
And we the people, being the gullible dunces we are, once again bought it. Liberals were swept into power in 2008, and given total control of the government. It reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. For some reason, poor old Charlie Brown always tells himself that THIS TIME Lucy will do the right thing.
Have we heard a peep out of Democrats in Congress about increasing our energy production since they won the election? That answer would be NO! Liberal politicians never intended to follow through on those snake-oil campaign promises. Imagine that.
So, boys and girls, back to our economics lesson. Though some people say that the only sure things in life are death and taxes, I feel confident in adding a third: the law of supply and demand. If supply exceeds demand, prices fall. If demand exceeds supply, prices rise.
(This principle is too simplistic for sophisticated Ivy League Liberals to grasp, but trust Professor Dave on this one, it is a cold hard fact of life.)
Early last year, before our economy took that nose-dive into the Great Recession, we had shared in several years of robust growth in the global economy. Business was booming all over the world, and especially with the Indian and Chinese economies growing by leaps and bounds, demand for oil and refined petroleum products was at an all-time high. Supplies were being squeezed. Prices were rising accordingly.
In the U.S., demand for gasoline had grown to the point that our domestic oil refineries could not keep up, and we were forced to import gasoline from foreign refineries. (We can also thank liberals for the fact that we have been unable to construct a new oil refinery in this country in the past 25 years.) Under those circumstances, why was anyone with an IQ above room temperature surprised that prices would rise?
It's all about supply and demand. Demand was higher than supply, so we paid through the nose for our gasoline.
But as events unfolded, and the Great Recession of 2008-2009 cooled down the global economy, the world's demand for oil plummeted. Oil reserves grew while demand kept falling, and we witnessed the inevitable result: gasoline prices fell 50% in less than a year. Last spring, prices in central Indiana were down to around $2 per gallon.
So we all fell asleep at the switch. Minus the prodding of public pressure for action, liberals in Congress reverted to their default mode of stifling our domestic energy production. All of those campaign promises about energy independence were wiped off the table, and since gasoline was cheap again, most of us didn't pay much attention.
For some reason, it has not dawned on the majority of us that the only reason gasoline prices dropped was because the economy was in the toilet, and that as the economy begins to recover and global demand rises, we will be back to record high oil prices in the very near future.
The global demand for energy will keep growing, and unless the supply grows with it, we will be sending billions more of our dollars (and hundreds of thousands of energy-sector jobs) to our friends overseas like Hugo Chavez and the Mullahs of Iran.
Thanks to the inaction of our government, we are stuck in exactly the same vulnerable position that we occupied two years ago. We are constrained from developing and expanding domestic energy production, and forced to purchase the lifeblood of our economy at premium prices from unstable foreign suppliers, many of whom don't like us very much.
Unless we change direction, we'll soon be filling up with some more of that $4 gas. Shucks, if we throw in a little Obama-stimulus-induced inflation and a hiccup in the Middle East we might even get to see prices of $5 or $6 per gallon.
And since this is just a Remedial Economics lesson, we won't even begin to discuss the obvious national security dangers of depending on hostile nations to supply us with the fuel that we need to survive.
Our only hope is to move aggressively towards energy independence. We need to unleash the brains, brawn and capital of the domestic energy companies that can make that goal a reality. We need to demand that our government get on board the energy express, or at least get out of the way.
Repeat after me: "Supply and demand. Supply and demand."
Class dismissed.
