Reclaiming our Christian Heritage

     The school bus is rolling again, and the parking lot at the high school is full before 8:30 each morning.  Classes have begun.  Even though the heat hasn’t let up much, summer vacation is over. The kids are back in school, but what are they learning?  I am more concerned than ever about what we are teaching our children.  I for one would never have believed we would live to see that day when we would see our history re-written in order to support biased belief systems.  That’s right, you read it correctly, and this is no conspiracy theory.  It has actually been a concerted effort to distort the truth about the undeniably Christian roots of our nation, and her founding fathers.  
Do you realize the first English Bible printed in America was printed by the U.S. Congress in 1782? The records state that this Bible was an edition of the Holy Scripture for the use of our schools! If you think that’s surprising, note that on the inside of the cover it was printed that this edition of the Bible was recommended by Congress to the inhabitants of the United States! Hey, it’s been a long time now since I was in school, but we certainly never heard anything like that! I attended high school in the 70’s, graduating in 1975, and by that time we were hearing plenty about the separation of church and state, and surely our government would never be guilty of such blatant support of religion, as to both print and promote and addition of the Bible authorized by Congress! Now we are told that they don’t want any kind of religion in schools, and certainly no prayer in our public schools, not even before our football games.
 
      Did you know that in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building there are four paintings commissioned by Congress in 1830 to represent the Christian History of the United States? The paintings span a hundred and twenty eight years, from Columbus in 1492 to the Pilgrims in 1620. They depict prayer meetings, a baptism, and bible study. Our heritage has an undeniably biblical, Christian foundation.  

     Have you heard contemporary educators claim that our founding fathers were more deist, than Christian? Often they select Thomas Jefferson as one of their primary examples, with claims that he was the least Christian of all. Perhaps then you will find it most interesting then that Thomas Jefferson was responsible for turning the Capital building into a church on Sundays, and during his eight years as President he attended church in the Capitol. Church services in the Capitol continued for next hundred years, and by 1857 there were over 2000 people in attendance in these worship services.  

     No one has done more exhaustive work to restore our historical foundation than David Barton, the Founder and President of Wall Builders, which is a national organization dedicated to presenting our forgotten history and its heroes. We can join our voices with Mr. Barton and others demanding that we teach the whole truth in our schools.  Now is the time for us to come together reclaiming our Christian heritage.
 
Mr. Barton has several great resources available, including America's Godly Heritage, a hour long DVD presentation of these truths, and The American Heritage Series, a collection of ten DVD's with 26 sessions filled with awesome insights from our history.