Read Online America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great by M. D. Ben Carson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: M. D. Ben Carson
Tags: Politics
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have lost many of our freedoms in America because we have been asleep. I feel if we do not become involved and support the annual National Day of Prayer, we could end up forfeiting this freedom too.” 6 However, in April 2010, US district judge Barbara Crabb in Wisconsin ruled that the government-sanctioned National Day of Prayer, established by Congress and supported with a proclamation from the president, is unconstitutional.
I believe the problem arises from misinterpretation of what our founders intended with respect to government and religion. Having lived in Europe’s Old World they were very familiar with the deleterious effects of state-sponsored religion. They never wanted to see the government endorse a specific religion, but neither did they want to see faith and religion suppressed. There is nothing at all in our founding documents forbidding or denigrating religious expression in public life. The judge in this case was responding to a lawsuit filed by a group of atheists and agnostics called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They complained that the government did not have the right to tell them to pray, but perhaps they didn’t notice that prayer was not a requirement, but rather a suggestion. A government requirement would be something like paying your income taxes. If you owe taxes and refuse to pay them, you will quickly learn the difference between a suggestion and a requirement.
Speaking on the separation of church and state, Joel Oster, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, added, “The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith — it does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.” 7 Not only have polls shown that most Americans feel positive about a national day of prayer, but interestingly a Rasmussen report from February 2010 showed that 65 percent of Americans prefer having prayer in schools! Unfortunately, the very vocal minority trying to suppress religious expression in America has been successful in getting this issue to the top of the political correctness list. Even though most Americans believe in God and many have a strong personal faith, political correctness decries publicdeclarations of that faith. Yet even both houses of Congress begin each session with public prayer. Because I do a lot of public speaking, people regularly thank me for being bold about my belief in God. If most people believe in God and yet we are afraid to speak of that belief in public, what does that say about the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died for?
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin, who was eighty-one years old, gave the following address on June 28 when hostilities and bitterness threatened to totally disrupt the convention:
Mr. President: the small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other — our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of our assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine
I believe the problem arises from misinterpretation of what our founders intended with respect to government and religion. Having lived in Europe’s Old World they were very familiar with the deleterious effects of state-sponsored religion. They never wanted to see the government endorse a specific religion, but neither did they want to see faith and religion suppressed. There is nothing at all in our founding documents forbidding or denigrating religious expression in public life. The judge in this case was responding to a lawsuit filed by a group of atheists and agnostics called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They complained that the government did not have the right to tell them to pray, but perhaps they didn’t notice that prayer was not a requirement, but rather a suggestion. A government requirement would be something like paying your income taxes. If you owe taxes and refuse to pay them, you will quickly learn the difference between a suggestion and a requirement.
Speaking on the separation of church and state, Joel Oster, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, added, “The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith — it does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.” 7 Not only have polls shown that most Americans feel positive about a national day of prayer, but interestingly a Rasmussen report from February 2010 showed that 65 percent of Americans prefer having prayer in schools! Unfortunately, the very vocal minority trying to suppress religious expression in America has been successful in getting this issue to the top of the political correctness list. Even though most Americans believe in God and many have a strong personal faith, political correctness decries publicdeclarations of that faith. Yet even both houses of Congress begin each session with public prayer. Because I do a lot of public speaking, people regularly thank me for being bold about my belief in God. If most people believe in God and yet we are afraid to speak of that belief in public, what does that say about the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died for?
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin, who was eighty-one years old, gave the following address on June 28 when hostilities and bitterness threatened to totally disrupt the convention:
Mr. President: the small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other — our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of our assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine
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