D. James Kennedy - What if America Were a Christian Nation Again?

Copyright 2003 by D. James Kennedy

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003110937
ISBN 0-7852-7042-6 (hc)
ISBN 0-7852-6972-X (sc)

1 2 3 4 5 6 RRD 09 08 07 06 05

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This book is dedicated to Tom Rogeberg, Executive Vice President
of Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc., who is doing a wonderful
job directing our television, radio, print, Internet, and affiliated
ministries in order to restore America to a Christian nation again.

Where Our Nation Could Be Headed:
A New Birth of Freedom

Where We Came From:
Americas Godly Heritage

The wicked shall be turned into hell,
And all the nations that forget God.

PSALM 9:17

L ITTLE DID J EREMIAH D ENTON J R., AN A MERICAN pilot who was captured in Vietnam in 1965, realize he would return to a virtually different country. He served his country in isolation and torture at the Hanoi Hilton for almost eight years. Cut off from the rest of the world and the news back home, how could he know how much the American landscape was changing? He was released in 1973 and experienced more than the usual culture shock on his return.

Consider the differences between the United States of 1965 and that of 1973. During those eight years the floodgates of pornography were opened. Abortion became legal and was becoming widespread. Many marriages floundered, and the divorce rate skyrocketed. Millions were beginning to live in sin, only they resented anyone calling it that. The gay movement was just getting started and marching down the streets. They were just a couple years behind the womens liberation movement, which had also taken to the streets.

Television producers were pushing the envelope at every turn. (I have to admit, we have become so jaded that the risqu or questionable programs of the 1970s seem rated G compared to some of todays fare.) And in the movie theater, anything went. In fact, the year of Dentons imprisonment, the Academy Award winner was The Sound of Music. A few years later, that honor was bestowed on Midnight Cowboy, the first X-rated movie to win such a prestigious prize. In some cases, X-rated movies had gone from back-alley, out-of-the-way hellholes populated by dirty old men in their raincoats, to mainstream movie theaters.

Here is what Jeremiah Denton said about that:

When I came home and was driven from NAS, Norfolk to the hospital at Portsmouth and saw all these signsX-rated movies, massage parlors, these dumpy-looking placesand I asked [my wife] Jane, What are those? And then saw the magazines on the magazine racks in the Naval Hospital, I was shocked. I couldnt believe that my country, a country which had succeeded in getting one nation under God placed back in the Pledge had gotten to this place... [for example,] Sodom and Gomorrah, homosexuality, the practice of it being viewed as a lifestyle choice, as if its sugar or cream in your coffee. I have nothing against people who have abnormal sexual inclinations. But I have everything against regarding that as normal.

In 1980, Jeremiah ran for the United States Senate and won. He became a powerful advocate for positive values. He promoted abstinence programs and pro-family legislation. But he lost his bid for reelection in 1986. Apparently, even the state of Alabama was not ready for a full return to the Judeo-Christian values that had helped create the United States of America.

In less than forty years, our culture has gone from the strong family values of a society with a Christian consensus to a society that glorifies violence, illicit sex, and rebellion. We have severed ourselves from the roots of what made us great in the first place. We have gone from Leave It to Beaver to Beavis and Butthead in some thirty to forty years.

During the Civil War, in his classic Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln said that this nation needed a new birth of freedom. Today, we are engaged in another type of civil war, and we are again in need of a new birth of freedom.

All nations that have ever existed have been founded upon some theistic or antitheistic principlewhether the Hinduism of India, the Confucianism of China, the Mohammedanism of Saudi Arabia, or the atheism of modern China and the former Soviet Union. If we know our history, we know that America was a nation founded upon Christ and His Word. But that foundation is crumbling in our time.

Today some in our country are busily tearing apart that foundation. They would gnash their teeth at the idea that this is a Christian nation and will not be satisfied until they have removed every vestige of our Christian heritage from not only the minds, but also the monuments of this country.

What made us great in the first place is our rich Christian heritage. Its time to reclaim it. In this book, I set out to document the incontrovertible facts that America began as a Christian nation; that background comprises Part One, Americas Godly Heritage. In Part Two, The Culture Clash, I will examine several of the issues that are tearing us apart as a country. Finally in Part Three, A New Birth of Freedom, I will discuss how we can get back on track before its too late.

Please note that in no way am I advocating a theocracy. Nor are any reputable members of the so-called religious right. Not one of them. There was only one true theocracy in the history of the world, and that was ancient Israel. All I am advocating is a return, as much as possible, to the faith of our nations founders. I am calling for full religious liberty once again so the gospel can go forth unhindered and uncensored. I am calling for an end to the secular witch hunt against any sneaky vestiges of religion left in public places.