AMERICANS - Where Are We?

by Dr. Del Tackett, 
author of the Truth Project



I’m taking a much-needed break—a week off to be with some Air Force buddies somewhere on the surface of this current planet.   Here are some hints: I swam with a sea turtle today; it is minus 20 degrees at my home, but 78 degree here; I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a delicious loaf of homemade mango bread; yesterday I saw three whales “exhaling” a large column of air and water…But the much more important question is, “Where are we?” Our country is somewhere—but where?
Our President just issued a state-of-the-union, but I’m not sure we dealt with the most important question.

Where are we as a nation…morally?

It seems to me that this is the underlying issue that we must deal with.
All the rest are mere symptoms. Throughout the crafting of the U.S. Constitution, Benjamin Franklin’s attention was drawn repeatedly to a carving on the back of Washington’s chair. The carving depicted a sun on the horizon—half-up and half-down. He wondered whether it was rising or setting. And he wondered if it was an omen for America.

The fledgling nation was at a serious crossroads. The Articles of Confederation had proven insufficient. There were serious doubts whether or not what they had all fought valiantly to achieve would survive.
He wondered if the sun on Washington’s chair represented their future. Was it rising, or setting?
At one point, the Convention was teetering on disaster. Some had departed in disgust at the inability to craft any solution because of the bitter bickering among the delegates. It was at this point that 81 year-old Franklin arose and took them all to task. He basically reminded them of where they had come from and how they had repeatedly called upon God for guidance and help. He testified for them all that they recognized God’s kindness to this nation, His answering of their prayers. He then asked them “…and have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?”
He then challenged them to return to prayer.

Cut to the quick, they all began to pray…daily…for God’s guidance.
The Constitutional Convention turned toward success from that moment.
There was a lot of hard work still before them, but it began to finally come together. At the conclusion, Franklin remarked to the delegates that he had been pondering this carving, wondering whether or not it was a rising sun or a setting sun. With a confident gleam in his eye, he declared, I believe, my dear friends, it is rising.

I wonder the same.

We have a serious list of issues in this nation. If we deal with them properly, I believe we could confidently declare the sun to be rising. But if we do not, we may see it set.
We must deal with a huge financial tsunami that is bearing down upon us. We cannot, cannot ignore the mountain of debt that we have amassed in the last few years. We are at the top of indebtedness among the developed nations. This is not the possibility of a tsunami, it IS a tsunami and it will require quick and serious action.

We must not forget that an enemy has arisen unlike any enemy in our past. It is an enemy that is birthed not out of a nation-state, but out of a worldview. There are no military uniforms that identify them. There is no restraint to target only military personnel, but they are bent on destroying us through terror. Strapping bombs to babies or women or packages or subways with the intent to kill innocent bystanders is not deemed to be wrong, but actually part of their plan. We must not allow our politically correct mantras to hinder us in dealing with this new brand of enemy.

We must recognize that the sphere of labor is the economic engine in this country, not the state. We must remove the mass of encumbrances that hinder growth and job creation.

The list is not short.
It goes on and on.
But it is not an amoral list.
       
        Debt is not amoral.
           A bloated state is not amoral.
             Abortion is not amoral.
               Calling evil evil is not immoral.

I believe there is a solution to all of our issues today, but those solutions must come from a true ethical base, not an amoral, smorgasbord of relativistic notions that are destroying the basic fabric of our culture.

The major question is that we are losing our identity as a nation. Caught up in the mantra of postmodernism and liberalism, we have come to abhor any notion that anyone can be right about anything except their own opinions. Nothing is transcendent. There can be no absolute truth. Everything is reduced to one’s own truth. No one has anything to say to anyone else. This includes our nation. There is a reticence to stand for good because who are we to say that there is a transcendent good? The terrorists who killed thousands of innocent lives on 9/11 were hailed by liberal academia as the heroes.

Under this mantra, nothing can be declared to be “wrong”.
  Terrorism cannot be declared to be “wrong”.
   Abortion cannot be declared to be “wrong”.
    Pornography cannot be declared to be “wrong”.
     Unbounded spending cannot be declared to be “wrong”.

 If American no longer stands for what is right, then we will fall for what is wrong.

If the Founders were consistent on anything, it was the insistence that this nation was built upon two foundations, and two alone. The top was morality. They believed that the Constitution and liberty and freedom would only thrive and survive in a culture where the citizens were moral. That morality was supposed to spring from the underlying foundation, religion. Without it, there could be no morality.  This is what they believed and I believe it is just as true today as it was over 200 years ago.

Where are we?
Who are we?

Our thanks to Cross Examine www.CrossExamine.com and Dr. Del Tackett for this article.