The president without a country
By Pat Boone
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"We're no longer a Christian nation." - President Barack
Obama, June 2007
"America has been arrogant." - President Barack Obama
"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her
ideals."- President Barack Obama
"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."-
President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009
Thinking about these and other statements made by the
man who wears the title of president. I keep wondering
what country he believes he's president of.
In
one of my very favorite stories, Edward Everett Hale's
"The Man without a Country," a young Army lieutenant
named Philip Nolan stands condemned for treason during
the Revolutionary War, having come under the influence
of Aaron Burr. When the judge asks him if he wishes to
say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan
defiantly exclaims, "Damn the United States ! I wish I
might never hear of the United States again!"
The
stunned silence in the courtroom is palpable, pulsing.
After a long pause, the judge soberly says to the angry
lieutenant: "You have just pronounced your own sentence.
You will never hear of the United States again.. I
sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea, on
one or another of this country's naval vessels - under
strict orders that no one will ever speak to you again
about the country you have just cursed."
And
so it was. Philip Nolan was taken away and spent the
next 40 years at sea, never hearing anything but an
occasional slip of the tongue about America. The last
few pages of the story, recounting Nolan's dying hours
in his small stateroom - now turned into a shrine to the
country he fore swore - never fail to bring me to
tears. And I find my own love for this dream, this
miracle called America , refreshed and renewed. I know
how blessed and unique we are.
But
reading and hearing the audacious, shocking statements
of the man who was recently elected our president - a
young black man living the impossible dream of millions
of young Americans, past and present, black and white -
I want to ask him, "Just what country do you think
you're president of?"
You
surely can't be referring to the United States of
America , can you? America is emphatically a Christian
nation, and has been from its inception! Seventy percent
of her citizens identify themselves as Christian. The
Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were
framed, written and ratified by Christians. It's because
this was, and is, a nation built on and guided by
Judeo-Christian biblical principles that you, sir, have
had the inestimable privilege of being elected her
president.
You
studied law at Harvard, didn't you, sir? You taught
constitutional law in Chicago ? Did you not ever read
the statement of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark
"Federalist Papers": "Providence has given to our people
the choice of their rulers - and it is the duty, as well
as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation -
to select and prefer Christians for their rulers"?
In
your studies, you surely must have read the decision of
the Supreme Court in 1892: "Our lives and our
institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody
the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is
impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this
sense and to this extent our civilization and our
institutions are emphatically Christian."
Did
your professors have you skip over all the high-court
decisions right up till the mid 1900's that echoed and
reinforced these views and intentions? Did you pick up
the history of American jurisprudence only in 1947, when
for the first time a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson
about a "wall of separation between church and state"
was used to deny some specific religious expression -
contrary to Jefferson' s intent with that statement?
Or,
wait a minute . were your ideas about America 's
Christianity formed during the 20 years you were a
member of the Trinity United Church of Christ under your
pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is that where you got the idea
that " America is no longer a Christian nation"? Is this
where you, even as you came to call yourself a
Christian, formed the belief that " America has been
arrogant"?
Even if that's the understandable explanation of your
damning of your country and accusing the whole nation
(not just a few military officials trying their best to
keep more Americans from being murdered by jihadists) of
"not always living up to her ideals," how did you come
up with the ridiculous, alarming notion that we might be
"considered a Muslim nation"?
Is
it because there are some 2 million or more Muslims
living here, trying to be good Americans? Out of a
current population of over 300 million, 70 percent of
whom are Christians? Does that make us, by any rational
definition, a "Muslim nation"?
Why
are we not, then, a "Chinese nation"? A "Korean nation"?
Even a "Vietnamese nation"? There are even more of these
distinct groups in America than Muslims. And if the
distinction you're trying to make is a religious one,
why is America not "a Jewish nation"? There's actually a
case to be made for the latter, because our Constitution
- and the success of our Revolution and founding - owe a
deep debt to our Jewish brothers.
Have you stopped to think what an actual Muslim America
would be like? Have you ever really spent much time in
Iran? Even in Egypt? You, having been instructed in
Islam as a kid at a Muslim school in Indonesia and
saying you still love the call to evening prayers, can
surely picture our nation founded on the Quran, not the
Judeo-Christian Bible, and living under Shariah law.
Can't you? You do recall Muhammad's directives [Surah
9:5,73] to "break the cross" and "kill the infidel"?
It
seems increasingly and painfully obvious that you are
more influenced by your upbringing and questionable
education than most suspected. If you consider yourself
the president of a people who are "no longer Christian,"
who have "failed to live up to our ideals," who "have
been arrogant," and might even be "considered Muslim" -
you are president of a country most Americans don't
recognize.
Could it be you are a president without a country?
