Who’s Driving the CAR?
–STACE MASSENGILL
From the founding to present day, this great American experiment has lasted 250 years. If we are at all interested in being wise and preserving the treasures of freedom, we should be examining to learn all the reasons for its longevity. What was in that secret sauce the founders generously sprinkled into our Constitution? Upon reading the Declaration of Independence, it quickly becomes clear that a chief influencer in our country’s beginnings was the Bible. Godly principles regarding moral living were tapped straight from scripture and included within several of our founding documents. The Bill of Rights, those first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, seem to echo biblical concepts.
Infusing such things into the mixture proved to be a very well thought out decision and became a recipe for success. Why did it work so well? Consider that when the founders set out to break free from the tyranny of Great Britain’s King George, they did so having learned some hard lessons and determined to create a nation of self-governed citizens who could live in freedom. By declaring themselves independent from that tyrannical rule, they wisely knew they would need to place their trust and dependence in a higher and more righteous authority. Their independence was born in their dependence upon the Creator.
That was the key. And it worked. For a quarter of a millennium now, the USA has thrived. But there were bumps along the way. When this experiment began, there was still a terrible practice going on which was prevalent throughout the world – slavery. For thousands of years, in fact, slavery had been around. There were slaves back in biblical days, even. But the founders wisely knew that if they were going to get rid of this stain, it would need to be done in stages or many of the populous accustomed to it would revolt. Starting a new nation was the first priority, but they knew they’d have to address the slavery issue eventually.
What did they do? They created a pathway to citizenship and embedded it within the founding documents. Even before framing the Constitution itself, the founders placed that pathway within the context of the Declaration of Independence. The notion that “all men are created equal” was a theme that would gradually draw people’s hearts to a place where the idea of owning slaves would no longer seem proper. It was still a struggle, and indeed a so-called civil war broke out. Many people didn’t like the idea of the federal government imposing itself upon individual states, and “States’ Rights” became a battle cry of many southern states. Slavery was an issue of the war, but not the central reason for it like many tend to believe.
After a lot of unfortunate bloodshed, the northern states prevailed. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation eventually spread through the entirety of the union, and the blight of slavery was placed in our nation’s rearview mirror. We can at least be proud that our country was among the first to put an end to legal slavery within its borders. Even while human trafficking and other forms of slavery still exist in the world, it was the righteous notion of “equality” that steered us in the right direction.
Over the years, many other such wrongs have been righted due to the founding principles of freedom and justice. Those principles having come from the Bible means that, like our founding fathers, we have allowed our morals to be mostly guided by God and His Word. But not everyone chooses to adhere to these concepts. The teachings in scripture that have served to benefit this nation and make her last so long have been largely swept aside in favor of a more humanistic view of morality. Whether you’re on the left or the right politically, this removal of God from the driver seat is easy to see.
Those of us who are among the Christian American Right, conservatives by nature, feel that we can guide our nation back to her foundations and repair the damage that’s been done through misguided, worldly, humanistic thinking. But we ourselves are not the saviors. We can’t accomplish a thing without first making certain that Godliness is again our guiding light. Even as we make strides toward restoring the greatness of America, we have to guard our hearts and minds from traps of the enemy. To succeed, just as the founders succeeded, we must have God behind the wheel. Through prayer and thoughtful execution of biblical principles, reimplementing those beneficial precepts of morality, we have turned the tide somewhat. But all the glory belongs to God.
As always tends to be the case, certain people become the faces of any movement or revolution. To a large extent, Donald Trump has become the face of ours. But that itself is a double-edged sword. When a man becomes the face of such a major undertaking, there are forces at work that will do everything in their power to malign and demonize that man in order to delegitimize the whole effort. Lies have been told, sure. About Trump, about us. But we who sincerely want to get America back to the successful God-fearing country she once was know that Trump’s face is temporary.
He was just the guy who came out and put words to what the rest of us were feeling. It seems at least that God chose to use him, but Trump is not our savior. While he and his administration are indeed a driving force to help achieve our goals, we can’t allow them to be in the actual driver seat. Our ultimate goal is not just to Make America Great Again – it’s to Make America Godly Again. We want to be in right-standing with our Creator, and we want His blessings to be on our country again. We believe that America’s former greatness was tied directly to its adherence to Godliness and morality.
The illegal immigration crisis was at the top of the list of things that needed to be fixed. Legal immigrants have always been welcomed here, but allowing the free flow of millions of illegal aliens into the country was a threat in multiple ways. Letting so many pour into our borders completely unvetted allowed terrorists and criminals to come in. That has proven deadly to many innocent people. Others who came in illegally, even if it was just to find work and support family, ended up working at terribly low wages – that creates a new lower class of slave laborers. Have we not learned our lesson on slavery yet?
That all happened under the poor leadership of people who were not putting the nation’s interests first, let alone the interests of US citizens. And they definitely weren’t allowing those beneficial biblical principles to guide them. Under the current administration, yeah, things are much better, but we have a long road ahead. And as I said, we can’t afford to just sit back and say, “Well, we voted ’em in, now it’s up to them to get it done.” No, we must be active participants. We have to hold our elected leaders accountable. Call or write our representatives when we see them missing the mark. And most importantly, we need to always be in prayer for them to be guided by God.
This Christian American Right will only succeed if the right person is driving the CAR. That’s not Donald Trump. It’s not J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio. It’s not anyone with an “R” or a “D” next to his/her name. It’s God Himself. He’s the only One that can keep us pointed in the right direction. While we’re holding our leaders accountable, it’s important what standard we use. As Christians, our standard is found in the teachings of Jesus Christ. True freedom is found only in Him. Even our founders knew a free nation could only be achieved through the adherence to biblical concepts. That’s why they included them within those founding docs. It’s also why they endeavored to instill those concepts into the citizenry. Such laws as those against stealing and murdering are taken directly from the Ten Commandments. So from the halls of the US Capitol to those within our very homes, we must all keep Jesus at the wheel – lest we AND our country wind up in the ditch.
For more on this topic, I invite you to read Religious Liberty and the Genius of the American Founding. Written by Glenn Ellmers, it is an informative and thought-provoking adaptation of a talk given during a 2024 Hillsdale College conference on “Christianity in America.”
Be well, and God bless.
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