I got another one of those political calls the other night asking if I was a Republican or Democrat. I said, “I am an American.” She hung up on me. I had wanted to tell the caller about my new grassroots movement called the Unhyphenated American Party. Have you noticed that you can’t fill out a form anywhere without a series of boxes to determine what kind of American you are? I don’t see the point except possibly to benefit some special interests groups, which is a completely different discussion. Besides, my box is never there! My German grandfather and Russian grandmother were pushed out of Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1913. My mother’s family came over from Ireland a couple of generations earlier. But German-Russian-Irish-American never shows up on any forms!
America is a nation of immigrants. That has been our strength largely because while generations past honored the heritage of their homeland, they came here to be American and raise their kids as Americans. As a boy, my dad spoke Russian in the home and had to sit out of school a year until he spoke English well enough to attend. That was expected of Americans and Dad’s parents respected that about their new country.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great political scientist and sociologist of the 19th century visited America in the 1830’s and documented his impressions in his eight-hundred-page Democracy in America. It became an immediate best seller! As Tim Moore covers in his book, One Nation Under God, Tocqueville said that one area of particular interest was the deep religious devotion he saw almost everywhere he looked: “One can say that there is not a single religious doctrine in the United States hostile to democratic and republic institutions. All the clergy there speak the same language; opinions are in harmony with the laws, and there is, so to say, only one mental current.” I think that “mental current” was being American, laying claim to “certain truths that are self-evident – that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Be American:
- Cherish Life and the opportunity to influence another – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10.
- Enjoy Liberty within the bounds of the laws of man and of the Lord – “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. … Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2Cor. 5:20-21.
- Pursue happiness as a God-glorifier where He has you – “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for the blessing of growing up as an American. Forgive me for taking the Rights as an American for granted and forgive us as a nation for failing to uphold Your word as foundational to who we are, for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Turn hearts as You have in times past to repentance, that we may pass the Rights on to the next generation unblemished. Amen.
A faithful father passes his faith and the Rights on to the next generation unblemished.
(Click the link to hear Steve Amerson sing God Bless the USA)
