Feb 7, 2016
Presidents Day and An American Caliphate
2-8-16
In a season, during this time, in American history, when traditions are being abandoned; myriads of concepts and lifestyles are “new normals”; and basic assumptions are no longer basic nor widely assumed… we had an American president, this week, who spoke at a mosque associated with the murderous Muslim Brotherhood. And the next day he argued before the annual National Prayer Breakfast about the “fundamental contributions” Islam has made to American society.
Obama did not mean current contributions, such as his usual focus on voting blocks, or even the negative effect of violence, terrorism, or such fears: those contributions. No, he maintained that Islam has been here from the start. Typically, few lovers of Christianity – or of history, or of common sense – spoke up in protest, there or afterwards in print or speeches. More astonishing, to me, than his bizarre claims.
It was a peculiar re-spinning of history, as if the Declaration of Independence were drafted by Abu-Ben Franklin, or the Constitution advocated by Al-Exandir Hamilton, or that presidents swore upon the Qu’uran or fought the Civil War to uphold Mohammed-sanctioned slavery.
His speech (not his first such with distortions of history and slights against Christianity) was more like a revision of the classic collection of fairy tales, “The Arabian Nights Entertainment,” rich in lore and imagination. His speech could embellish that book’s alternate title: “A Thousand and Two Nights.” Aladdin, Sinbad, Scheherazade, Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves and… Barack Hussein.
On this Presidents Day, in this month when we ought to discern the actual birthdays of two of America’s great sons, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I would like to leave the hot burning desert of our national spiritual wandering, and return to the oasis of America’s Golden Age. Whether we can reestablish ourselves in that cultural oasis, or reclaim our unique birthright… or whether our moment as a blessed society in history’s grand sweep was, to continue the nomadic metaphor, ultimately a mere mirage.
Obama’s greatest display of ignorance, or cultural subversion, has been when he has decried claims of “American Exceptionalism,” as if people think they are special by virtue of their pulses or ZIP codes. American Exceptionalism does not refer to people; it refers to the American experiment of biblical foundations, systems of laws, recognitions of rights, devotion to liberty, a brilliant Constitution, and balance of rights and responsibilities. As a result of these unique factors… we have been blessed with gifted leaders; we have succeeded in correcting inevitable flaws; we have been generous-minded in uncountable ways; we have forged a nation out of many peoples. We have been blessed because we bless.
If we (loosely) turn an Arabic word and Islamic concept to English and the American context, the United States never was tempted to be a Caliphate because its foundation was as a democratic republic; citizenship was borne and maintained by loyalty, initiative, and merit; and its “Caliph” was the God of the Bible. We have stumbled, in my opinion, by the seduction of Empire – the deadly prescription of all of history’s great civilizations – but can redeem ourselves of that, and further distance ourselves from a Caliphate’s model.
Returning here to the presidents we should remember specially this month, I recall first something Lincoln said to a group of visiting ministers who advocated for firmer military measures – in effect that we should not be as concerned that “God is on our side,” as, always, that we be on God’s side.
This, from a supposed skeptic and one who rejected the Bible. Nothing is further from the Truth. Progressively and almost constantly during the last 15 months of his life, Abraham Lincoln read the Bible, quoted scripture, and appealed to God as much as, say, any preacher might have. His speeches and letters often were virtual sermons.
We recall Washington’s words:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Years after Lincoln’s death, his old friend from Kentucky days, Joshua Speed, recalled: “As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible. Approaching him, I said: ‘I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, “I am profitably engaged.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.’ Looking me earnestly in the face and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said: ‘You are wrong, Speed. Take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.’”
To honor these amazing Americans – whose lives and service we must consider as gifts from God, appearing at the right time, in the right places, and doing the right things – I will quote another great American, Theodore Roosevelt:
“As a people, we are indeed beyond measure fortunate in the characters of the two greatest of our public men, Washington and Lincoln. Widely though they differed in externals, the Virginia landed gentleman and the Kentucky backwoodsman, they were alike in essentials; they were alike in the great qualities which made each able to render service to his nation and to all mankind such as no other man of his generation could or did render.
“Widely though the problems of to-day differ from the problems set for solution to Washington when he founded this nation, to Lincoln when he saved it and freed the slave, yet the qualities they showed in meeting these problems are exactly the same as those we should show in doing our work to-day.”
“There have been other men as great and other men as good; but in all the history of mankind there are no other two great men as good as these, no other two good men as great.”
Amen.
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