Published Monday, November 25, 2024 | | Send this newsletter to a friend here. | | | BOB LINN Understanding Thanksgiving | | It is fundamental in American politics that the United States is a nation who owes its prosperity to the benevolence and blessings of God and that future divine blessing is contingent upon our adherence to the Christian moral code articulated in Scripture.
The testimony of the history of our nation, from its beginning to the present indicates that while the forces of secularity have become loud and pervasive, the body politic has yet to have been enabled to enter into the secularity which has engulfed many nations.
Currently, leftist forces press their version of culture upon American education, media, and entertainment. The policies and rhetoric of the Democrat Party have veered to the far left. The party, while in decline, remains prominent in American politics and feeds its leftism to academia and the media. | | By the grace of God, there has yet to be a turning of the corner into a bold and brash secularism on the part of those running for elected offices. The public face that our candidates present is one that is not, in general, in conflict with our Christian heritage.
Apart from a recent comment by our Democrat Vice President, very little in the speeches of candidates for federal or state offices resembles the turn taken by the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin. That was a surge of leftists who, in 1917, assumed total political power over old Russia and established the USSR in the name of statist secularism. Russia’s historic and very public Christianity was then relegated to the status of second-class citizen. | | The many atheistic movements which cover much of the world are a godless minority who have captured the reigns of a nation in order to enforce the idea that the state is their God.
People are made to understand that they need only bow the knee to the state in order to secure their governmental permission to exist. For those nations, government affirmation enables one to continue to live life outside of the gulags, the re-education camps, or the government’s chambers of torture and murder.
In contrast, the idea of complete dependence of the United States as a nation on divine blessing is at the core of its DNA. It is why we celebrate Thanksgiving.
That we are as a nation, a people, with a calling to obey the God of the Bible is reflected in the use of Scripture as a focal point of the swearing in ceremony of each of its Presidents.
All three of the presidents shown below had their Bibles opened to Micah 6:8 as they took the oath of office as President of the United States. It is a passage which, like all of Micah, confesses the complete subservience and dependence of all mankind upon God. | | Micah 6:8 reads:
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
The inaugural speeches of all our Presidents acknowledge the Christian conscience which defines our nation’s soul.
If our government’s only ties to the Bible were the swearing in of our presidents, it would be reason enough to ensure each child in America had easy access to the Bible in the halls of academia from the youngest classroom to the university.
Only knowledge of the Bible enables our children to understand not only the use of Scripture in the nation’s inauguration ceremony, but of its government as well. To know the Bible is to appreciate the great literature of the world, its greatest music, and to understand the origins of scientific discovery.
The Bible is the text upon which Western civilization was built and merits a place of honor and understanding in the American classroom.
Among the most beloved politician in recent times, by far, was Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. He opened the Bible his mother gave him to II Chronicles 7:14, a passage promising that if God’s people would themselves turn from their wickedness, He would allow healing in their nation. | | Without exception, our Presidents have at one time or another quoted Scripture and some have done it often. Each of them has, at one time or another, in one way or another, stated that we are a nation whose past was bestowed on us by God and whose future prosperity is completely dependent on God.
On March 10, 2003, Howard Fineman published an article in Newsweek where he observed certain similarities between the American pulpit and the Oval Office. He wrote:
“Every president invokes God and asks His blessing. Every president promises, though not always in so many words, to lead according to moral principles rooted in Biblical tradition.” | | American Philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat, Michael Novak, wrote this in his book, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in American Politics:
Every four years Americans elect a king - but not only a king, also a high priest and prophet . . . an election of a president is almost a religious task; it intimately affects the life of the spirit, our identity. | | The American drift towards secularism is a backward drift into a cultural midnight. It is a drift made possible by the American ecclesiastical community. A nation’s secular drift is the fruit of impoverished pulpits and emaciated pews.
From the beginning of time, mankind has found it difficult to sustain his comprehension of and appreciation for his utter dependence on God. It was why mankind lost the keys to Eden six thousand years ago. Adam succumbed to the idea that he himself could become like God by simply charting a path in opposition to divine authority. | | The idea of a day of national repentance or a day of formal recognition of our complete dependence on God was an intermittent concept early on. It was an idea codified as an annual day of remembrance of the sacred threat which holds this nation together.
Thanksgiving reminds us that the blessings of our past have written our history and are the reason we occupy our present place in the flow of time. The word “Thanksgiving” tells us that only a continual flow of divine grace and mercy will enable us to prosper moving forward.
In an act of calling the nation to remember its God, The Continental Congress on November 1, 1777 declared:
FORASMUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God . . . to ask for His continued blessings . . . that he would prosper . . . Schools and Seminaries, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety . . . and to prosper the means of religion [Christianity], for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consists “in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
From George Washington forward, presidents have called for national days of repenting before God or national days to remember that it is God upon whom we as a people depend. | | THIS IS NOT A SECULAR WORLD
The Creator is the Sovereign King who guides the pathways of earthly kings and oversees the trajectory of mankind.
This is why we sing the hymn, This is My Father’s World. | | Thank you all for being a part of the preservation of truth in our Oklahoma culture! | Send this newsletter to a friend here. | | OUR LAST MEETING . . . RODNEY SCOTT | | Watch the presentation here.
Watch the entire meeting here. | Soprano Elizabeth Fischborn closed the meeting with this anthem dedicated to a Godly Oklahoma and a firm foundation for our children's future. | | Watch the presentation here.
Watch her video presentation here. | | COMING!!! WEDNESDAY December 4, 2024 MUSIC | COMEDY FREE BLUE BELL | SOME OCPAC FOUNDATION TALENT | | QUICK PEEK AT 2025 January 15, 2025 | | OUR FOUNDATION BANKS AT QUAIL CREEK BANK | | A few of our board members at Quail Creek Bank
From left to right: Joseph Palmer, Alan Loeffler, Suzanne Reynolds, Lucia O'Connor, Father Stephen Hamilton, Bob Linn, and Gaylene Stupic. | | OCPAC FOUNDATION is a 501 (c) (3). Gifts are tax-deductible.
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