God Bless the USA!

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Happy Birthday, America!  Today was a great day to think about how blessed we are to live in the United States of America.  While milking the cows this morning, I sang "God Bless America" and this evening before supper, we sang "America the Beautiful."  Our country has it's problems, but we truly live in a great land. 

The freedom that we have in our country is so precious.  The freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, the right to assemble and to petition government.  The big one that I think of the the freedom of religion.  I am thankful that we still have the right to assemble and worship at the church of our choosing.

In a sermon this past Sunday at church I learned about a gentleman named John Leland.  I learned more about him IN THIS POST.  He was a prominent Baptist preacher in Virginia who petitioned his legislator, James Madison, that more needed to be done to ensure religious liberty in the new country.  Here is a snippet from the article referenced above:

Since Baptists represented a significant portion of the vote in Madison’s district, Leland’s threat to run for Madison’s seat in the House of Representatives resulted in a visit by Madison to his home. Coming out of that meeting was a compromise that included Leland agreeing not to run for Madison’s seat and Madison agreeing to champion Leland’s and his fellow Baptists’ concern for religious liberty. Madison kept his word and pushed for the Bill of Rights. Without Baptist involvement in the political process, it is at least possible that the protection of religious liberty from Congress would not exist. 

In fact, it was a group of Baptists in Danbury, Conn., concerned about the infringement of the newly formed federal government upon the consciences of American citizens, to whom Thomas Jefferson responded in a letter with the famous expression of “separation of church and state” that has become such an important part of the American discussion concerning religious liberty. This expression was a summary of the rights guaranteed in the first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The fact that our churches are NOT state churches and the fact that the government cannot prevent you from worshiping at the house of worship of your choosing is, to me, a very important issue and one of the many reasons I value being a citizen of the United States of America.

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.  -Alexis de Tocqueville