Our national morality

If a visitor arrived here by spaceship from another world and walked into a home or office to check today’s date, then thumbed through the other months, he might ask, “Why does this country have so many Christian holidays?” There’s Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, plus Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (named after a Baptist preacher) and New Year’s Day, which signifies the beginning of calendars here and all over the world containing the current year numbered by the time since Jesus Christ was said to be born. Despite claims to the contrary, America is a Christian nation.

It’s no accident that our national identity, intricately woven with a once-healthy relationship with the God of the Universe, has made the USA the most powerful and prosperous nation on the face of the earth. Without divine aid, no other nation could have liberated so many millions from bondage, including some of our own, and defeated wannabe world conquerors and other despicable despots.

Our ET visitor might also notice that our most widely-used currency (dollar bills and quarters) bears the portrait of the Father of His Country, George Washington, a leader of great moral character and religious faith. We would do well to remember GW’s words from his Farewell Address: Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Dale Roloff

Spokane