OPINION:
President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., called America a “republic” — check — said America’s “faith in God” is the nation’s “ultimate source” of “strength” — check, check — and insisted “we have to bring religion back” if we want to fix the country’s problems — check, check, check. Winning.
American Exceptionalism is the idea that individual rights come from God, and government only exists to preserve and protect those rights and liberties to the individual. It’s what framers put forth in the Declaration of Independence, about rights coming from a Creator. It’s how founders intended the proper role of government, as they wrote in this same Declaration of Independence, “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed —“ and so forth, and so on, and so goes the concept of American Exceptionalism
It’s both refreshing and optimistic that Americans finally have a president who recognizes that yes, his White House job is important — but that more importantly, so is the state of the nation’s faith in, and walk with, God.
Trump, at the breakfast, said this: “From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation.”
And then he said this: “We have to bring religion back. We have to bring it back much stronger. It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time. We have to bring it back.”
And then he also said this: “Thomas Jefferson himself once attended Sunday services held in the old House Chamber on [this] very ground … so there could be nothing more beautiful than for us to gather in this majestic place — it is majestic — and reaffirm that America is and will always be ‘one nation under God.’”
That’s not just a call for national unity.
It’s a recognition and public reminder of who’s in charge of America — and guess what, leftists; guess what, secularists and atheists; guess what Marxists and socialists and communists and collectivists — it ain’t government.
Government is not the true source of leadership in America.
That’s the story of other nations. That’s where citizens of other countries turn for aid and assistance and resources — and liberties and rights. But it’s never been that way — rightly — in America.
The spirit of this country is one of God-given, not government-granted.
So when the people lose faith, and stop attending church, and quit reading the Bible, and fail to apply Judeo-Christian principles to modern day events — and fail to insist on their political leaders doing the same — then the society at-large turns down a dark corner of humanist materialism and fleshly desires. The concerns of the citizens turn more to collecting stuff and making money and accruing wealth and power, than to living moral lives and raising virtuous children. The offices of our political world, and the classrooms of our public schools, and the CEO and board rooms of our corporate entities become filled with people who care little for principle, and even less for individualism and the concepts of limited powers, and much, much less than the tie between God and freedom.
America, without God, is just another parcel of land.
America, without a culture of faith-based people, is just a piece of property prepped for the political class to exploit and control.
“[W]e have to make religion a much more important factor now,” Trump said. “It unifies people. It brings people together. Democrats are going to be able to have lunch again and dinner with Republicans.”
Yes.
And American citizens will be able to recapture and retain for the long-term, beyond even the next political races and upcoming campaign seasons, the core of this country’s exceptionalism and the foundation of all freedoms. It’s either God-given or government-granted; the two can’t coexist peacefully.
In America, rights and liberties for the individual always, always, always come from God.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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