The heritage we leave to our children will determine America’s next 250 years
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As America reaches a major milestone on July 4, there will be elaborate fireworks, long parades, and plenty of talk about what this nation has accomplished and endured. These are all worth celebrating.
But if we are honest, the real question is not what we commemorate, but what we convey. What we teach the next generation of Americans will determine what this country looks like at its next great turning point.
We are now in danger of giving them a version of America stripped of what makes it extraordinary: faith.
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Let me start with something that is misrepresented almost every day in our culture. The First Amendment does not say that God has no place in American public life. It says that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. It was written by courageous leaders who quoted Scripture and opened the Constitutional Convention with prayer.
America’s next 250 years will depend largely on the faith we pass on to future generations. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
America was not born out of a desire to eliminate religion and become some kind of aimless, secular utopia. Instead, our founders built a nation where no church was coerced by the government because they believed faith was too important to be weaponized by the government.
God is mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Our rights are defined as endowments from a Creator. These rights do not come from a king, a parliament or a constitution. They come from God. The state does not give it to them. The government is only responsible for protecting them.
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At this point we lost the script.
Over the past several decades, we have allowed the phrase “separation of church and state,” a phrase that appears nowhere in the Constitution, to be used as a crowbar to completely uproot faith from public life. We taught a generation of young people that patriotism and faith do not mix, that loving America means putting religion aside, and that public squares must be cleared of anything that looks spiritual or resembles prayer.
Conclusion? A generation ashamed of their country and disconnected from their God.
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I have learned a lot in 30 years of working with girls; Many of the Girl Scouts left the Girl Scouts because the organization eliminated faith and God-given identity from its programming, as many other organizations have done over the years. When a young woman does not know who she is in Christ, she will not know what to do about her country. One group will tell him to love America uncritically, while another group will tell him to be ashamed of it. He will navigate identities, trying to figure out which version of himself is acceptable in which room.
This is not freedom. Confusion disguised as progress.
The true freedom that our founders recognized and that Scripture promises is not something any government invented. It existed before the Constitution was drafted, before the Declaration was signed, before anyone fled Europe to this continent. It touched on how God created man. America’s genius was not that it created freedom. It was his recognition that freedom was already a God-given thing, and he established a government designed to protect it.
God is mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Our rights are defined as endowments from a Creator. These rights do not come from a king, a parliament or a constitution. They come from God. The state does not give it to them. The government is only responsible for protecting them.
This distinction is especially important for the children we are currently raising.
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If we want America to look like America at its next great turning point, we must teach the next generation that their identity as Christians and their identities as Americans are not in conflict. They are complementary. A girl who is confident in her faith, who knows that she is a citizen first of heaven and then of this republic, is exactly the kind of person a free nation needs. He doesn’t need the government to tell him what’s right or good. It can bear the complexity, beauty and wounds of its nation’s history without shaking, because its foundation is not the nation, but God who placed it there!
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America’s birthday parties are going to be spectacular this Fourth of July. I hope they are. My backyard will be full of family, friends, and more food than any hostess should prepare. I love the joyful, celebratory spirit of this time of year. But when the fireworks die down, the real work, as always, will be to raise children who know the God who sets them free and who understand that freedom comes with the responsibility to pass it on to others.
This is how we commemorate our 250th anniversary. This is how we win the next one.
