Archive for the ‘our nations godly heritage’ Category
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Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
William Penn (1644-1718)
The origination and descent of all human power [is] from God…first, to terrify evil doers; secondly, to cherish those who do well…
Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself – a thing sacred in its institutions and ends.
William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was the son of a famous British Navy Admiral who discovered Bermuda. He attended Oxford University and later studied law. Young Penn became a Quaker preacher and writer, suffering imprisonment over three times for his faith. Once he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for eight months, during which time he wrote the classic “No Cross, No Crown.” He traveled and preached throughout Holland and Germany.
Upon the death of his father, as heir of his father’s estate he received a land grant from King Charles II consisting of all the land between Maryland and New York. He made friends with the natives and insisted on buying their land rather than just taking it.
It was his emphasis on Christians working together in love that was demonstrated in the founding of Philadelphia, “the City of Brotherly Love.” His faith was the daily basis and inspiration for his life.
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad.
April 25, 1862, “Fame of Government” by William Penn
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The Reverend Clarence Williams, CPPS, Ph.D. Institute for Recovery from Racisms
Father Clarence Williams is a member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. He was the first Black priest ordained in his hometown diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. He served the Archdiocese of Detroit for 28 years, and as Pastor of St. Anthony Church for 15 years.
Fr. Williams earned his doctorate in Global Education and Cultural Communication from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He wrote the following prayer for Black History Month (February), and it is published on the Diocese of Detroit’s website.
Father of creation
Whose Son Jesus incarnated in time
And whose Spirit enlivens our lives today
May we honor the height of your creation, the Human Family
In every hue that you chose to give each person of our family human
Jesus, brother of us all
Your prayer to the Father "that they all may be one"
Through the Holy Spirit
May we witness this Unity of One
Each people with its history of your love
Each people created in your earthly garden seen from above
A people’s story woven in struggle and triumph
Tears of pain and shouts of joy
The journey of a people in its history’s flow
The divine weaver’s loom hand does show
Spirit of God in the month of appreciating
The gift of your children of African descent
May we be inspired to see your kingdom mystery
In one facet of the jewel of our Human Family’s descent
Unity the prayer of your incarnate Son
Disciples praying the Our Father that we may all be one
One in love of the family human
One in hope for the family human
One in faith in the family human
This month, next week and everyday
Henceforth.
Amen.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, January 26th, 2012
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)
When I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wanted to keep nothing of Egypt on me, and so I went to the Lord and asked him to give me a new name …
Sojourner Truth is the self-given (or God-given) name of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist, born into slavery in New York, but who escaped with her infant daughter to freedom. After later going to court to recover her son, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.
She had suffered many hardships at the hands of her slave owners, whom she later described as cruel and harsh and who once beat her with a bundle of rods. After her escape, she found her way to the home of Isaac and Martha Van Wagener, who took her in. She lived there until the New York State Emancipation Act. It was during her stay with the Van Wageners that she became a devout Christian.
I set up my banner, and then I sing, and then folks always comes up ‘round me, and then…I tells them about Jesus.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Fisher Ames (1758-1808)
We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We’re starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools. … We’ve become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children containing fables and moral lessons. … We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principle text in our schools. … The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other manmade book.
- September 20, 1789, article by Fisher Ames in Palladium Magazine
Fischer Ames was born in Dedham, Massachusetts and given a classical education. At age twelve he was sent to Harvard College. Upon graduating he began work as a teacher, while studying law at the same time. He served as a Congressman from Massachusetts in the First Session of the Congress of the United States. It was Fisher Ames who suggested the wording of the First Amendment. He continued serving in Congress for the Second, Third and Fourth Congresses. In 1805, Ames was chosen president of Harvard University, but he declined to serve because of failing health. He died on July 4th, 1808.
On the matter of education, he also wrote:
Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble. … The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and, probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind. In no book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Benjamin Franklin (1708-1790)
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading author, printer, political rhetorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman and diplomat. He earned the title of “The First American” for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity. According to one biographer, Franklin was a proponent of religion in general, and a sometimes adherent to the precepts of Puritanism under which he grew up.
We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without this concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg to have to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be required to officiate in that Service.
- A speech before the Constitutional Convention, July 28, 1787
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
Justice David J. Brewer
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.
No purpose of action against a religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true.
The goodness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality.
David Josiah Brewer (1837-1910) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for 20 years. He was born in Izmir, Turkey, where his father was running a school of Greeks. When the family returned to the States and settled in Connecticut, Brewer attended college at Wesleyan University and Yale University, and he received his law degree from Albany Law School.
President Chester A. Arthur nominated him to the U.S. Circuit Court, and after 28 years on that bench, Brewer was nominated by President Benjamin Harrison to the United States Supreme Court. He served the court for 20 years.
He was a vigorous defender of minority rights, and argued for stronger labor protections for women.
No Book contains more truths, or is more worthy of confidence than the Bible; none brings more joy to the sorrowing, more strength to the weak, or more stimulus to the nobly ambitious; none makes life sweeter, or death easier or less sad.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Robert Morris Page, American Physicist
The authenticity of the writings of the prophets, though the men themselves are human, is established by such things as the prediction of highly significant events far in the future that could be accomplished only through a knowledge obtained from a realm which is not subject to the laws of time as we know them.
One of the great evidences is the long series of prophecies concerning Jesus the Messiah. These prophecies extend hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ. They include a vast amount of detail concerning Christ himself, His nature and the things He would do when he came – things which to the natural world, or the scientific world, remain to this day completely inexplicable.
Robert Morris Page (1903-1992) was an American physicist who was a leading figure in the development of radar technology. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, he was the son of a Methodist minister. After obtaining his degree in physics, he joined the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He later earned an M.S. from George Washington University.
He was a devout Christian and creationist. He lectured on the relationship of science and Biblical scripture throughout his career. Among the many honors he received was the Presidential Award for Distinguished Civilian Service, presented in 1960 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
His life and lectures are proof of the compatibility of faith and science.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
William Bradford (1590-1657), Governor of the Plymouth Colony
Last and not least, they [Pilgrims] cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least making some ways toward it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work.
Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise. – Of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford, 1647.
William Bradford was born in Ausenfield, Yorkshire, England, in 1590. The Bradford family owned a large farm and was considered comparatively wealthy and influential locally. He was influenced by the Puritan ethic when he was a youth, and saw their form of worship as “more pure.” Reform was not encouraged in England, and Bradford was among others considered “disobedient” and “disloyal to the archbishop,” and was thus imprisoned.
Bradford left England in 1608 with a small group of separatists who relocated in Amsterdam. Within a few years, that congregation began to plan establishing their own colony in the New World. He was among those who sailed aboard the Mayflower and after a crossing that lasted 64 days reached Massachusetts.
Despite illness and infirmity, Bradford worked alongside the other settlers, and he was elected the second Governor of Plymouth Colony. He served four additional terms, and died after a long illness in the winter of 1657.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
Benjamin Franklin
The Constitutional Convention had been meeting for five weeks, and had hit a perilous deadlock. The large states were insisting that congressional representation be based on population; the smaller states wanted a one-state-one-vote rule. The entire effort to create a stronger union was in jeopardy. Eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin, quiet during most of the deliberations, then addressed the group:
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.
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Our Nation’s Godly Heritage
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration.
Dr. Peter Marshall was born in Coatbridge, Scotland in 1901. He had a strong calling to the ministry at a young age. Despite having no money, he nevertheless migrated to New York at age 24. He graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary and served in the pastorate of several Presbyterian Churches, including Westminster in Atlanta, and New York Avenue Presbyterian in Washington, D.C. He served as the U.S. Senate Chaplain from January 1947 until his sudden death just over two years later. He is remembered most popularly from the biography, A Man Called Peter, and the film made from it.
I am rather tired of hearing about our rights and privileges as American citizens. The time is come – it is now – when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship. America’s future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God’s government.
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