By Jeff Larson, The Back Pew
Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote in a letter to a friend: ‘A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have real goodwill towards men? Can he be a patriot who, by an openly vicious conduct, is undermining the very bonds of society?… The Scriptures tell us ‘righteousness exalteth a nation.’” In other words, true patriotism feeds off of virtue. It cannot be sustained without a firm belief in God and our sole accountability to him. Regardless of contentions to the contrary, patriotism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. To undermine Christianity or to exclude it may undoubtedly be one’s right; nevertheless, it is a most unpatriotic act. In a republic like our own, freedom and liberty, shrivels and dies without the love and fear of God. Without a code any higher than ourselves by which we govern our lives, we tend to make ourselves king and thus become the tyrant of others.”
-Rev. Mark H. Creech