"Righteousness exalteth a nation" (Prov. 14:34). This statement of eternal truth from Proverbs appeared on the flyleaf and the last page of a booklet at each plate at the President's Prayer Breakfast in the Grand Ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel, February 7, 1963 in Washington, D.C. This annual breakfast wass sponsored jointly by the US Senate and House of Representatives Prayer Breakfast Groups and the International Christian Leadership Conference.
There is another painting by Arnold Friberg set during the terrible winter at Valley Forge depicting General George Washington on his knees in the snow, praying for divine aid. This brings to mind the words of Lincoln during another time of crisis as he said humbly: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."
George Washington acknowledged God's direction and stated: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." (Washington's Farewell Address.)
Lincoln also believed that God rules in the affairs of men and nations. He solemnly declared: "God rules this world—It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow . . . and to recognize the sublime truth that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
This nation was founded on a solid bedrock of faith in God. The Bible has been and is the foundation for this faith.
"It is impossible to govern the world without the Bible," said George Washington.
"The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests," Andrew Jackson proclaimed.
The fathers of our country had to turn to religion in order that their new experiment make sense.
My heart feels to weep as I see all about me evidence of a lessening of moral stability, honor, integrity, love of country—a seeking for the honors of men, of something for nothing—the tendency to lean more and more on government, the result of our ever-increasing demands, even though often economically, socially, and spiritually unsound.
Neal A. Maxwell, an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said,
“We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.” (Meeting The Challenges of Today, BYU Speeches, Oct. 10, 1978.)
Elder Maxwell quoted M. J. Sobran who wrote:
“The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law "respecting" the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge "the free exercise" of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.Sadly, we are now living in a day when religious convictions are heavily discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, "A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it" (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58).
[She continues:] “What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs.” [Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]
Recently, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in response to a court action bearing of same-sex marriage in Utah,
“Just as those who promote same-sex marriage are entitled to civility, the same is true for those who oppose it. The Church insists on its leaders’ and members’ constitutionally protected right to express and advocate religious convictions on marriage, family, and morality free from retaliation or retribution. The Church is also entitled to maintain its standards of moral conduct and good standing for members.”
Elder Maxwell said,
“. . . if people are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold that grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would they be, anyway? Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?”
Where are the men and women of today who possess the moral strength and courage of our forefathers. Where are the modern-day patriots, with pride in our country and faith in freedom? How long will freedom loving people sit on the sidelines as indifferent or distracted spectators while our patriotic symbols are cast aside, our national heroes maligned and our history distorted or worse, re-written. What is needed today more than at any other time in our nation’s history is a sense of patriotism founded on a real understanding of the American ideal—a dedicated belief in our principles of freedom, and a determination to stand up for and perpetuate America's spiritual heritage.
Can our national leaders do this? Can they interpret faithfully the commands of the Almighty? Can we as citizens of this nation? Can we as people of the free world? Do we believe that "righteousness exalteth a nation" (Prov. 14:34), that there is safety only in righteous living?
Fortunately, we are not left to stumble around in the darkness of our national circumstance. We have a guide, not only the Holy Bible, but added modern scriptures. And of the utmost importance for us today, we have the counsel and direction of living oracles. This counsel, this direction—in fact the message of the fulness of the restored gospel is being carried to the nation and world by over 80,000 ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has not abandoned us!
And what is their message? It is that God has again spoken from the heavens. The priesthood and authority to act in his name has been restored again to men on the earth, following centuries of darkness. The fulness of the everlasting gospel is here with all of its saving principles. I testify that this is true!
The Prophet Joseph Smith said the time would come when the Constitution would hang as it were by a thread. Modern-day prophets for many years have been warning us that we have been rapidly moving in that direction. Fortunately, the Prophet Joseph Smith saw the part the elders of Israel would play in this crisis. It seems that some of us don't care about saving the Constitution, others are blinded by the craftiness of men, while others are knowingly working to destroy it. He that has ears to hear and eyes to see can discern by the Spirit and through the words of God's mouthpiece that our liberties are being taken.
The enemy has come and Zion must awake and arouse herself. Latter-day Saints and freedom-loving people everywhere can and should be, the leaven in the loaf for freedom.
Years ago, President Brigham Young stated,
"We all believe that the Lord will fight our battles (D&C 105:14); but how? Will he do it while we are unconcerned and make no effort whatever for our own safety when the enemy is upon us? . . . it would be quite as reasonable to expect remission of sins without baptism, as to expect the Lord to fight our battles without our taking every precaution to be prepared to defend ourselves. The Lord requires us to be quite as willing to fight our own battles as to have Him fight them for us. If we are not ready for the enemy when he comes upon us, we have not lived up to the requirements of Him who guides the ship of Zion, or who dictates the affairs of His kingdom" (Journal of Discourses 11:131).
Elder Maxwell said,
“Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even these, however, must leave a record so that the choices before the people are clear and let others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds—a majority which was, till then, unconscious of itself.” (Meeting the Challenges of Today, BYU Speeches.)
