Abraham Lincoln Foreshadowed Cure to Poison Infecting America’s Culture: ‘We Have Forgotten God’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I’m old enough to remember when pledging allegiance to any one particular politician was something to condemn, when singing affectionately about a president was problematic , and when Christianity in-name-only was inexcusable .
But it’s 2019 now, and times have changed.
Those on the progressive left are, these days, picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to invoke, using Jesus’ words as a political cudgel to hammer away at their ideological foes while some on the right are trading in the moral high ground for a pragmatic counterfeit, failing to acknowledge their own shortcomings.
For example, some on the left have modified their faith to fit around issues like abortion and sexuality and well-known figures on the right have reversed course on personal morality in order to make sense of the 2016 presidential election.
These things are just symptoms — signs of an illness, a poison infecting America’s political discourse. America is, as President Abraham Lincoln once famously described it, “intoxicated with unbroken success,” and there’s only one remedy.
We are a prideful people who have lost our way; we’ve chosen to recreate a god in our own image rather than embrace the image in which God created us. There is a path, though, to restoration, and the blueprint has already been laid.
More than 150 years ago, in the wake of the Civil War, Lincoln issued a proclamation for a “Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.” Today, the United States is torn and her society tormented by the same sin with which the former president wrestled: “We have forgotten God.”
Lincoln wrote in his March 30, 1863, proclamation:
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!
Because we have believed our successes to be ours alone — that morality and rightness are dependent upon our own flawed determination — we’ve become arrogant and eager to dismiss one another, willing to split the nation in half in hubris rather than listen to one another in humility.
We have chased healing without the only true cure: recognizing what Lincoln described as the “supreme authority and just government of Almighty God.”
The words written by Lincoln, whose own faith remains something of a mystery, seem, even in their age, to create a fascinating parallel between then and now.
The president prescribed the only appropriate solution to the divisions plaguing America at the time, and it seems the remedy is just as right today. Lincoln declared, “It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
“I do hereby request all the people to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion,” Lincoln wrote.
Lincoln’s words may be more than a century-and-a-half old, but as the 2020 presidential election draws closer, I cannot think of a better blueprint to bring healing to this broken and divided land.
It may be 2019, but the path to restoration was laid 156 years ago, when Americans were divided in much deeper and more dangerous ways than we are today. The only way back from the brink, as Lincoln rightly recognized, is not by looking to the left or to the right, but by looking up.
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No wonder the once Grand Old Party of Lincoln is now known merely as the gop...
The corruption that caused this was not the lack of Christ. It was a lack of humanity.
Let me remind the damn gop of something Christ actually did say. He said, "I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you comforted me. I was imprisoned and you visited me. I was a refugee in your land and you welcomed me".
When those around Christ asked Him, "When did we do these things for you, Master?" He replied, "Whatever you did for the least among you you also did unto Me"...
Lincoln's GOP was trying to end human suffering. Trump's gop to inflicting it.
Today they seem to suffer from segmental amnesia. Funny thing that they can easily find the passages justifying slavery, child brides and the like when needed.
So what are you getting at, are you saying that the gov't should be governing using Jesus' words and to enforce through taxes, Jesus' humanity on everyone whether they believe or not?
The best way I see to accomplish what Jesus said is what XX stated in 2.1, if everyone is employed they are feeding themselves, clothing themselves, taking care of their own medical needs, keeping people from being imprisoned because of poverty in the first place, and if you come to this land, without deception, with skills and/or willingness to learn then you are welcome.
How about the people using Jesus and god to make a point actually follow the tenets of love one another, be judged by how you treat 'the least of these', and other values. It's not about 'buy your own health insurance if you want medical care!' Its not about 'bootstraps'! Those aren't spiritual ideals. Its disgusting to use Jesus to justify cruel and inhumane behavior.
I am saying that the base line for our basic human decency as a society, the humane ways in which we and our government should treat the poor, the sick, criminals and refugees at our borders has not changed in over 2,000 years. One need not believe in Christ to believe He was speaking wisely in this regard. It is the exact same conservative evangelicals who elected Trump, who claim to be Christian, that are clamoring for our government to do the exact opposite off what Christ advised while claiming the problem with America today is not enough of God and Christ in our lives. If you don't get how very wrongheaded that is then I must give up...
So what are you getting at, are you saying that the gov't should be governing using Jesus' words and to enforce through taxes, Jesus' humanity on everyone whether they believe or not?
This "separation of church and state" nonsense should really end..what this country needs is to put back the GOD in GOVERNMENT!
(Ever since the idolaters and worshippers of Satan have proliferated throughout the land (i.e. the liberals) this country has gone downhill!
Charitable causes like the NRA? Trump Foundation? Church dues? Church functions? All those mega church donations are included. All those tax exempt cults like Scientology. I don't know how they could count all the giving, they wouldn't even know anything about my religion. And frankly that wouldn't make up for what is going on today with their supposed values. Some are evil, like the race baiting and hating. And the lying, the immorality, the willful ignorance, the greed, the lawlessness, the corruption, the attempts to control others, the inhumanity, the list of acceptable side effects of Trumpism is endless, because politics is more important. Money is right up there too. You can not get out of this problem, when you join the Trump team, you get in the swamp and the stench doesn't wash off. I will never forget the lack of true values when it comes to politics, they are truly shameful, and some are evil.
To yourselves.
You need to stop interpreting everything so literally.
Weird... Trump does, he took 10k out of his own charity to buy a picture of himself.
Yes, Abraham Lincoln wrote and spoke in terms of protestant Christian faith. But Lincoln invoked God to represent higher ideals whose pursuit required humility rather than hubris.
Today's politics has devolved into a competition of prideful defiance. Popular appeal isn't grounded in humble pursuit of higher ideals.
If those that profess to be Christians cannot follow their own fucking bible, don't blame others for calling them out for it. Try following the bible and the evil left won't be able to call you out for violating your own damn bible.