"America has been arrogant." - President Barack Obama
"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."- President Barack Obama
"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."- President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009
Thinking about these and other statements made by the man who wears the title of president. I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.
In one of my very favorite stories, Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without a Country," a young Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan stands condemned for treason during the Revolutionary War, having come under the influence of Aaron Burr. When the judge asks him if he wishes to say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan defiantly exclaims, "Damn the United States ! I wish I might never hear of the United States again!"
The stunned silence in the courtroom is palpable, pulsing. After a long
pause, the judge soberly says to the angry lieutenant: "You have just
pronounced your own sentence. You will never hear of the United States again..
I sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea, on one or another of
this country's naval vessels - under strict orders that no one will ever speak
to you again about the country you have just cursed."
And so it was. Philip Nolan was taken away and spent the next 40 years at sea,
never hearing anything but an occasional slip of the tongue about America. The
last few pages of the story, recounting Nolan's dying hours in his small
stateroom - now turned into a shrine to the country he fore swore - never fail
to bring me to tears. And I find my own love for this dream, this miracle
called America , refreshed and renewed. I know how blessed and unique we are.
But reading and hearing the audacious, shocking statements of the man who was
recently elected our president - a young black man living the impossible dream
of millions of young Americans, past and present, black and white - I want to
ask him, "Just what country do you think you're president of?"
You surely can't be referring to the United States of America , can you?
America is emphatically a Christian nation, and has been from its inception!
Seventy percent of her citizens identify themselves as Christian. The
Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were framed, written and
ratified by Christians. It's because this was, and is, a nation built on and
guided by Judeo-Christian biblical principles that you, sir, have had the
inestimable privilege of being elected her president.
You studied law at Harvard, didn't you, sir? You taught constitutional law in
Chicago ? Did you not ever read the statement of John Jay, the first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark "Federalist
Papers": "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers - and
it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation
- to select and prefer Christians for their rulers"?
In your studies, you surely must have read the decision of the Supreme Court
in 1892: "Our lives 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."
Did your professors have you skip over all the high-court decisions right up
till the mid 1900's that echoed and reinforced these views and intentions? Did
you pick up the history of American jurisprudence only in 1947, when for the
first time a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson about a "wall of separation
between church and state" was used to deny some specific religious expression
- contrary to Jefferson' s intent with that statement?
Or, wait a minute . were your ideas about America 's Christianity formed
during the 20 years you were a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ
under your pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is that where you got the idea that "
America is no longer a Christian nation"? Is this where you, even as you came
to call yourself a Christian, formed the belief that " America has been
arrogant"?
Even if that's the understandable explanation of your damning of your country
and accusing the whole nation (not just a few military officials trying their
best to keep more Americans from being murdered by jihadists) of "not always
living up to her ideals," how did you come up with the ridiculous, alarming
notion that we might be "considered a Muslim nation"?
Is it because there are some 2 million or more Muslims living here, trying to
be good Americans? Out of a current population of over 300 million, 70 percent
of whom are Christians? Does that make us, by any rational definition, a
"Muslim nation"?
Why are we not, then, a "Chinese nation"? A "Korean nation"? Even a
"Vietnamese nation"? There are even more of these distinct groups in America
than Muslims. And if the distinction you're trying to make is a religious one,
why is America not "a Jewish nation"? There's actually a case to be made for
the latter, because our Constitution - and the success of our Revolution and
founding - owe a deep debt to our Jewish brothers.
Have you stopped to think what an actual Muslim America would be like? Have
you ever really spent much time in Iran? Even in Egypt? You, having been
instructed in Islam as a kid at a Muslim school in Indonesia and saying you
still love the call to evening prayers, can surely picture our nation founded
on the Quran, not the Judeo-Christian Bible, and living under Shariah law.
Can't you? You do recall Muhammad's directives [Surah 9:5,73] to "break the
cross" and "kill the infidel"?
It seems increasingly and painfully obvious that you are more influenced by
your upbringing and questionable education than most suspected. If you
consider yourself the president of a people who are "no longer Christian," who
have "failed to live up to our ideals," who "have been arrogant," and might
even be "considered Muslim" - you are president of a country most Americans
don't recognize.
Could it be you are a president without a country?