The Nation & The Gospel

It was a chilly night in November 1938 when Kate Smith, the First Lady of Radio, went on-the-air in New York City and indelibly enshrined these words into American lore:

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

At a time that Adolf Hitler was on the rise and Americans were looking for hope, it was more than fitting that a song commemorated the fact that God was undeniably involved in the birth and survival of this country and it was only right to pray that His grace would continue to shine upon us. So from the mountains, to the prairies, etc., our countrymen joined in song, “God bless America, My home sweet home.”

Since that Armistice Day and even before it, innumerable sermons, songs, and speeches have broached upon the premise that God has blessed America. Rightly so, for God has blessed America! Of course, humanists and militants will trip over themselves to dispute that point with you. Some people are so argumentative and hostile that they’ll insist that the sky is not blue and the moon really is made of bleu cheese (“That’s not how you spell ‘blue’”)! These people, so spoiled by the blessings that God has heaped upon these United States, with iphone in hand and tacos in belly, willfully reject God and deny Him as Creator, Saviour, and Benefactor! If recent door-to-door soul winning excursions have showed me anything it’s that Americans believe they don’t need God anymore – they have stuff!

America is only blessed with God in it! There really is no need to quibble as the facts of history stand for themselves. Interpret those facts so that they fit your worldview if it so pleases you! You have that right (because God blessed America).

As for me, let me just share with you the words of American poet, editor, diplomat and Harvard professor James Russell Lowell in an article he wrote entitled The Nation and The Gospel.

“The worst kind of religion is no religion at all, and these men living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusement of going without religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides like the monsters of the French Revolution…
…When the microscopic search of skepticism, which had hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet ten miles square…
…where a decent man can live in comfort and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted;
…a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard-
…when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundation and made decency and security possible,…
…it will THEN be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and then ventilate their views.
But so long as these men are dependent upon the religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope, and humanity of its faith, in that Savior who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its glooms.” ~The Nation & The Gospel, James Russell Lowell