Bible Banging

In those years previously, when this country called itself “Christian,” it was prosperous in ways we can only dream of now. Americans were really free–free of nitpicking regulations, ACLU types, and ugly demonstrations from people who have been blinded by the lies of selfish and jealous tyrant-wannabes.

People were patriotic in those days, from old grandpas at parades wearing the last few pieces of their military uniforms that still fit, right down to little kids who recited the Pledge in school every morning, and never wondered what it meant, trusting their teachers to show them the truth. These little kids would be taught the uniqueness of America and her exceptional greatness, her founders, and her Constitution, and when those kids got older and recited the pledge, they KNEW they were free, and why. People got tears in their eyes when they saw the flag go by in a parade, and those old grandpas stood up unsteadily and saluted as well as their shaky arms would permit. That was the flag they’d risked their lives for.

It was okay then for people to make public expressions of religion, because we all believed in something, and we belived that the Constitution gave us each the right to worship as we chose, and to show our faith without fear of prosecution from some sorehead with a seared conscience. Mormons stood and worked shoulder to shoulder with Catholics who stood next to Baptists and Jews, and the world was a much safer place. The Bible was the guidebook, and we knew that if our lives were out of control, it was because we’d stopped reading the Instruction Manual and set ourselves up on His throne.

Nowadays, in this enlightened country, we’ve kicked God out of the public square. We have laws against Him everywhere. We take people to court for expressing Christianity in public. Patriotism is frowned on as something that “might offend,” and people literally poop on the flag in public so they can “make a statement.” Now that America is no longer called “Christian,” what do we have? A nation of debt. A land of loans, credit cards, foreclosures, and bills. No longer Christian, and no longer prosperous. Our economy is a house of cards built on the shifting sands of toxic loans, bailouts, and an overtaxed workforce. Our prosperity has been done away with along with our public expression of our religous freedoms.

Now, we who believe are called “Bible bangers” by unbelievers. By “banging” on the Bible, I presume those unfortunate people mean that we are using it as the foundation for our lives, for our states in life, or for our expectations of a country that was founded on a faith in the very God Whose Book that Bible is. I plead guilty of this exercise, and know of many others who will come and stand beside me.

WE are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the ones who will make the real change. We are the Americans who understand hope and cling to it daily. This nation was not founded on a lie. It began in a time of great faith in God and hope in a people who expressed that faith freely. It will not die of a lie. Inevitably battered, but it will rise to once again be the proud beacon of opportunity and hope the founding fathers prayed America would become; the land the “wretched refuse” risked everything to reach, just for the opportunity to try their hand at prosperity. They brought their faith with them, along with their willingness to work and better their lives. Don’t write America off yet.

Proudly banging away…