SCRIPTURE: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36 NIV
QUOTE: Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
– George Washington, 1st President of the United States
THOUGHT: I’ve heard it said that “all freedom is God’s freedom,” and it’s a statement worth pondering. If you, like I, believe it to be true, it is the fulcrum on which any free nation stands.
The essence of what George Washington was saying here is that you can have a certain morality derived from education, from refinement, from practicing good manners, but it’s not enough to maintain a nation. The founders were big on education in general, but the difference between them and us is that religious instruction was a large part of education. Even and especially college, as most were founded by the church. To get into Princeton, for example, a 15- or 16-year-old needed to be so versed in Greek that he could read from any of the four Biblical gospels in its original language and translate it into either Latin or English. Harvard had a stated precept that students should be instructed in knowing God and that Christ is the only foundation of all “sound knowledge and learning.”
To separate education from spiritual content is to take the spirit out of education, perhaps to learn the letter of the law without paying attention to the spirit of it. We’ve seen it done, and are left with a hollow system where bad morals are taught as the basis for freedom. It can’t be sustained.
PRAYER: Oh God, mend our every flaw, and confirm the soul of our nation in self-control and its liberty in law.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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