America Forgot Its Creator. Now It Is Forgetting Its Freedom.
An examination of America's spiritual decline, the transformation of education, and the fragile inheritance of a constitutional republic
A Personal Word Before We Begin
It is not often that I sit down to write something of this nature. My work generally concerns the evidence of God's creation, the extraordinary order of the world around us, and, above all, the love, grace, and salvation offered through Jesus Christ. Yet lately I have found myself increasingly troubled, even frightened, by the direction of our country. The more I examine what has happened to American education, our moral understanding, and the constitutional principles entrusted to us, the more difficult it becomes to remain silent. Writing these thoughts has been a cathartic exercise for me, and I sincerely hope that reading them will encourage thoughtful reflection rather than simply deepen anyone's fears. I write from a profound love for America, but an infinitely greater love for Almighty God. Whatever tomorrow brings, His sovereignty remains absolute. His will, not mine, shall be done.
Thank you for taking the time to consider these things with me.
The Civilization We Inherited
There are occasions when the condition of a nation cannot be adequately explained by examining its politicians, its economy, or even its institutions. Something more fundamental must be considered, something that reaches beneath the visible structures of society into the convictions of the people who inhabit it.
I believe America has reached such an occasion.
We find ourselves surrounded by extraordinary technological achievement, remarkable material abundance, and opportunities that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined. Yet beneath these accomplishments there is an unmistakable anxiety about the direction of our country. Americans increasingly distrust their institutions, question the legitimacy of opposing viewpoints, struggle to agree upon fundamental moral principles, and sometimes seem unable to explain the constitutional system under which they live.
Our national conversations are dominated by political personalities, economic promises, cultural controversies, and disputes over individual rights. The arguments are frequently passionate, occasionally informative, and too often conducted as though the most important questions have already been settled.
But beneath them lies a question that our country once considered foundational.
From whom do human beings receive their rights, and to whom are they ultimately accountable?
The answer offered by America's Declaration of Independence was extraordinary.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a declaration asserting that human beings are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights.
The significance of that declaration is difficult to overstate.
Human rights were not presented as generous privileges granted by government. They were understood to exist prior to government, arising from an authority that government neither created nor possessed the power to abolish.
The Declaration went further, explaining that governments are instituted to secure those rights and derive their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.
The Constitution, adopted eleven years later, translated important principles of limited government into an operating political framework. Powers were divided, institutions were designed to restrain one another, and governmental authority was subjected to law.
The Founders disagreed about theology, government, and many other matters. Their generation also tolerated profound injustices, most grievously slavery, in contradiction of the equality proclaimed in the Declaration. America's founding was neither morally flawless nor uniformly Christian.
Nevertheless, the Declaration's recognition of Creator-endowed rights established a remarkable proposition.
There exists an authority higher than earthly government.
Consider what happens when that understanding is gradually displaced.
If rights are nothing more than arrangements established through political agreement, then the arguments surrounding their permanence become substantially more difficult. A legislative majority may establish one understanding of human dignity, while a later majority adopts another.
Constitutional law can continue to protect fundamental freedoms through enforceable institutions and established legal principles. Those protections deserve our steadfast defense. Yet Christianity asks us to consider the deeper foundation beneath the law itself.
If God created mankind, then human worth does not depend upon the permission, approval, or usefulness assigned to us by other human beings.
Our value exists because He created us and because He loves us.
And no earthly power possesses authority to revoke it.
The Question We Stopped Asking
In my book, Fingerprint of Reality: Science, Design, and the Truth Beyond Matter, I examined questions that have occupied philosophers, theologians, and scientists for centuries.
Why does the universe exhibit such extraordinary mathematical order? Why do living organisms contain elaborate systems for storing and transmitting biological information? Why does human consciousness resist simple explanation? Why do we experience moral obligation as though certain things are genuinely right or wrong, regardless of personal convenience?
The investigation considered cosmology, mathematics, language, biology, archaeology, quantum theory, morality, and human experience.
One question from the book's Author's Note is particularly relevant here:
"Why does morality feel objectively binding?"
That question extends far beyond the scientific investigation undertaken in Fingerprint. It reaches into the classroom, the courtroom, the legislature, the family, and the conscience of every human being.
If morality is merely an evolving collection of social preferences, what ultimately prevents the powerful from redefining justice to suit their purposes?
History is filled with rulers who considered their decisions righteous, their ambitions necessary, and their opponents expendable.
Christianity offers a different understanding. Moral reality does not originate in human preference. It proceeds from the nature and authority of God.
The same Creator who established the extraordinary order of the physical universe also established the moral worth of the human beings who inhabit it.
This is why the question of creation is inseparable from the question of civilization.
A society's understanding of human origins influences its understanding of human purpose. Its understanding of purpose influences its understanding of responsibility. And its understanding of responsibility ultimately influences the laws, institutions, and cultural expectations under which people live.
What happens when a nation preserves the language of human rights while progressively forgetting the Creator from whom those rights were originally declared to come?
I fear we are discovering the answer.
The Classroom and the Formation of a Nation
Education occupies a unique place in any civilization because it determines, to a considerable extent, what the next generation will know about the world it inherits.
A child enters the classroom largely dependent upon adults for explanations of history, language, mathematics, science, citizenship, and morality. Teachers possess tremendous influence, not simply because of the information they communicate, but because of the assumptions that accompany it.
For much of American history, the Bible and Christian moral teaching were familiar features of public education. Nineteenth-century textbooks frequently incorporated biblical references, moral lessons, and religious language. Prayer and Scripture reading remained common practices in many public schools well into the twentieth century.
These practices varied considerably. Religious minorities sometimes objected to the particular forms of Protestant instruction employed in public schools, and those objections raise legitimate questions about freedom of conscience.
The American Constitution protects religious liberty, not government authority to compel religious conformity.
Nevertheless, the historical prominence of biblical instruction is undeniable.
Education was widely understood to involve the development of character as well as the acquisition of knowledge. Children were expected to learn academic subjects, but they also encountered instruction concerning honesty, self-restraint, duty, responsibility, and the moral consequences of personal conduct.
Over time, the relationship between religion and public education changed substantially.
In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled against government-sponsored prayer in Engel v. Vitale. The following year, Abington School District v. Schempp prohibited state-sponsored devotional Bible readings.
Those rulings did not outlaw Christianity in public schools, prohibit voluntary student prayer, or prevent the academic study of the Bible.
But they formed part of a broader transformation in the relationship between American public institutions and religious expression.
As religion became less prominent within public education, Americans faced questions that remain unresolved today.
How should schools teach the origins of human dignity? What moral assumptions should guide instruction concerning sexuality, family relationships, citizenship, and personal responsibility? How should educators distinguish established knowledge from philosophical interpretation or political preference?
And who possesses the authority to answer those questions on behalf of a child?
For Christian parents, those questions carry profound spiritual significance.
The responsibility to teach children about God was never properly the exclusive province of public education. Scripture places substantial responsibility upon parents and families, reinforced through the teaching and fellowship of the Church.
Yet it would be equally mistaken to pretend that the philosophical assumptions embedded in public education have no influence upon the development of a child's worldview.
Children learn from what they are taught.
They also learn from what they are never encouraged to consider.
A Deliberate Ambition, Recorded in History
The idea of using public education to reshape society is not a recently invented suspicion.
In 1932, influential American educator George S. Counts published a work entitled Dare the School Build a New Social Order?
Counts argued that educators should consciously participate in transforming society, employing their influence over curriculum and instruction to shape the attitudes and conduct of future generations.
His argument emerged from debates within the progressive education movement about economic inequality, democracy, and the social responsibilities of schools.
Counts was not describing an accidental consequence of education. He was advocating a deliberate program of social reconstruction.
His proposals were public, controversial, and debated by other educators. They do not establish that every subsequent educational development descended from his work, nor that educators operated under some unified secret command.
But they establish an important historical fact.
The deliberate employment of education to transform society was openly proposed by influential figures within American educational thought.
The distinction between educating children and intentionally molding their political or cultural beliefs deserves our closest attention.
Certainly, every educational system transmits values. Teaching children the meaning of justice, the duties of citizenship, or the importance of honesty necessarily involves moral judgment.
The danger arises when educational authority is used to discourage independent inquiry, suppress legitimate disagreement, or substitute ideological conformity for intellectual development.
A teacher's influence is enormous. A school system's influence extends across communities. An educational philosophy embedded within institutions can shape generations long after its original advocates have disappeared.
The question is not whether education influences society. It always has.
The question is whether the people entrusted with educating children remain accountable to the families and communities whose children they teach, and whether those students are being equipped to examine ideas or merely expected to adopt them.
A republic cannot remain healthy if its citizens lose the habit of thinking independently.
Nor can it remain free if its institutions begin treating freedom of conscience as an obstacle to be overcome.
The Examination from Another America
Near the conclusion of her October 2026 essay, The Rise of Democratic Socialism, published by Hillsdale College's Imprimis, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley A. Strassel directs readers to an extraordinary historical document.
It is an eighth-grade examination administered in Bullitt County, Kentucky, in 1912.
The surviving examination, preserved by the Bullitt County History Museum, provides a window into the academic expectations of a small American community more than a century ago.
Students were asked to demonstrate knowledge of grammar, arithmetic, geography, history, and civil government.
Among the civil-government questions were requests to distinguish democracy from monarchy and republican government, explain the presidential veto, identify powers granted to Congress and powers withheld from it, and describe the constitutional method of electing the president and vice president.
The examination was demanding.
A student answering its questions would need more than vague familiarity with government. The answers required knowledge of the structure and operation of the American constitutional system.
To be fair, one examination from 1912 cannot establish that all American children of that era were better educated. Educational opportunities were profoundly unequal, and many children never completed eight years of schooling.
But the examination establishes something worth contemplating.
A rural Kentucky school system expected students approaching adolescence to demonstrate substantial knowledge of the government under which they would live.
What should we expect of American students today?
The National Assessment of Educational Progress provides a troubling indication of contemporary academic difficulties.
In the 2024 assessment, approximately one-third of American eighth-grade students performed below the NAEP Basic level in reading. National eighth-grade reading performance had declined from 2022, while mathematics performance remained well below its 2019 level.
I cannot examine the deterioration of American education without considering the deliberate efforts, documented across generations, to employ the classroom as an instrument of ideological transformation. The consequences extend far beyond disappointing examinations and declining academic proficiency. A population deprived of historical knowledge, mathematical competence, reading comprehension, and independent reasoning is a population increasingly vulnerable to manipulation. I believe this weakening of American education has served the ambitions of those who seek to replace the principles of our constitutional republic with an entirely different understanding of government, individual liberty, and moral authority.
The COVID-19 catastrophe provides a particularly disturbing example of the dangers involved. The pandemic originated in communist-governed China, whose ruling Communist Party suppressed vital information, obstructed transparency, and impeded international efforts to establish the outbreak's origins. Questions concerning research conducted in Wuhan and the possibility of a laboratory-associated origin remain consequential. I believe the Chinese Communist Party bears grave responsibility for its conduct, and that accountability must extend to the information it concealed, the investigations it obstructed, and the worldwide consequences of its decisions.
What followed in America was equally alarming in a different way. An international health emergency became the justification for unprecedented restrictions upon ordinary life. Schools closed, businesses suffered, families were separated, and governmental authority expanded into areas that Americans had previously regarded as matters of personal responsibility and constitutional liberty. Children experienced substantial educational losses, while political and institutional decisions prolonged the damage in many communities.
The familiar political maxim about never allowing a serious crisis to go to waste acquired an especially disturbing relevance. Whatever the motives of individual officials, the emergency demonstrated how quickly extraordinary powers could be exercised and how difficult it could become for ordinary citizens to challenge the institutions wielding them.
I believe Americans must investigate not merely the mistakes committed during this period, but the extent to which ideological objectives influenced decisions that inflicted lasting educational, economic, and social harm. The responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party for its documented obstruction must not be diminished, and the decisions of American authorities must be subjected to equally serious scrutiny.
A nation whose children are denied a sound education, whose citizens have forgotten their constitutional protections, and whose institutions become accustomed to exercising extraordinary power during emergencies is a nation placing its own liberty in jeopardy.
The tragedy is not simply what happened during the pandemic. It is the possibility that future generations, inadequately educated in the history of tyranny and the principles of constitutional government, may no longer recognize the danger when those circumstances arise again.
A child who struggles to read cannot easily investigate competing historical arguments.
A young adult without elementary mathematical understanding may struggle to evaluate economic promises.
A citizen unfamiliar with the Constitution may find it difficult to distinguish lawful reform from proposals that fundamentally alter the distribution of political power.
And a population accustomed to receiving conclusions rather than examining evidence becomes increasingly vulnerable to manipulation.
Strassel argues that inadequate instruction in civics, history, economics, and the consequences of authoritarian government has contributed to the renewed appeal of socialism among younger Americans.
Her interpretation is an argument, not a demonstrated explanation for every political preference among young voters.
But the underlying concern is substantial.
How can Americans intelligently evaluate proposals to reconstruct their government if they have never been adequately taught why their government was constructed as it was?
The Slow Transformation of Institutions
Political movements do not necessarily disappear when their immediate objectives are defeated.
Ideas survive elections. Organizations preserve their networks. Advocates recruit younger supporters, change their language, revise their proposals, and pursue opportunities through whatever institutions remain available to them.
This process is not peculiar to socialism. It occurs throughout political history.
Indeed, incremental reform is sometimes necessary and beneficial. The gradual expansion of civil rights, for example, demonstrates that constitutional societies can correct profound injustices through sustained public effort.
The character of any movement must therefore be judged by its actual objectives, methods, and consequences, not merely by its willingness to organize patiently.
But gradual change can also weaken protections that earlier generations deliberately established.
The danger is especially serious when proposed reforms would concentrate political authority, diminish constitutional restraints, or make government less accountable to the people it governs.
Strassel's October 2026 essay examines the contemporary growth of the Democratic Socialists of America and its efforts to gain influence within American electoral politics.
The organization's published political program deserves examination in its own words.
Its proposals include abolishing the Electoral College and the United States Senate, replacing the presidency and Supreme Court with institutions subordinate to Congress, and establishing public ownership of major corporations and essential industries.
Supporters argue that these changes would make government more democratically accountable and economic life more equitable.
Their opponents argue that such restructuring would threaten federalism, weaken the separation of powers, and place extraordinary authority within institutions insufficiently restrained by independent constitutional checks.
Whatever one's economic preferences, these are not inconsequential proposals.
They concern the architecture of the American republic.
A citizen may support expanded healthcare access, stronger protections for workers, or greater economic assistance without embracing wholesale constitutional reconstruction. Likewise, the programs of political organizations should not automatically be attributed to every candidate or voter associated with them.
But when an organization publishes proposals for fundamental institutional transformation, Americans should examine those proposals with the seriousness they deserve.
The Constitution is not an inconvenience merely because it makes political change difficult.
Many of its restraints were designed precisely because those entrusted with power are human beings, susceptible to error, ambition, corruption, and the temptations of authority.
From a Christian perspective, those vulnerabilities are hardly surprising.
Scripture has never portrayed humanity as morally perfect.
Why, then, would we construct a government that requires moral perfection from those who administer it?
The Moral Order and the Human Person
A nation's transformation is not confined to its educational methods or political institutions.
It is also reflected in the way its people understand life, family, sexuality, childhood, and personal responsibility.
These questions are among the most emotionally charged in contemporary America because they concern matters deeply connected to human identity, relationships, suffering, and conscience.
For the Christian, their moral significance begins with creation.
Genesis teaches that God created humanity in His image, male and female, and declared His creation good.
That understanding establishes human dignity before society assigns status, achievement, or usefulness to any individual.
It also informs the historic Christian understanding of marriage, family, and sexual morality.
Within that framework, abortion raises an especially grave question.
If the unborn child is a developing human life possessing inherent moral worth, what obligations are owed to that child, and how should those obligations be considered alongside the dignity, health, and circumstances of the mother?
The Christian conviction I hold is that human life deserves protection from its earliest beginning.
The numbers alone ought to command serious reflection.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 613,000 abortions were reported from participating jurisdictions in 2022. Because reporting was incomplete, that figure does not represent every abortion performed in the United States.
The same surveillance system revealed substantial racial disparities. Among reporting areas providing usable racial and ethnic information, non-Hispanic Black women accounted for 39.5 percent of reported abortions, with an abortion rate considerably higher than that of non-Hispanic White women.
These disparities deserve examination with compassion, historical awareness, and concern for both mothers and children.
For the Christian who regards unborn life as sacred, however, the moral question does not disappear simply because a pregnancy is in its earliest weeks.
There are also serious contemporary disagreements surrounding the medical treatment of minors experiencing gender distress.
Questions concerning puberty-suppressing medications, hormonal interventions, irreversible procedures, informed consent, and long-term outcomes require extraordinary care. These treatments differ in their medical effects and risks, and the quality of evidence supporting particular practices remains the subject of substantial medical and ethical debate.
Children deserve compassion, protection, and careful treatment grounded in reliable evidence. Parents deserve truthful information and appropriate involvement. Medical professionals bear profound responsibility when considering interventions that may have lasting consequences.
My Christian convictions concerning God's design for humanity are not diminished by recognizing that individuals and families facing these circumstances may experience genuine suffering.
Nor does disagreement about moral or medical questions diminish the dignity of any human being.
We are all created by God, all accountable to Him, and all in need of His grace.
The greater concern is whether our institutions are approaching such consequential matters with adequate humility, transparency, evidence, and respect for parental responsibility.
When the meaning of human life and moral obligation becomes entirely negotiable, the consequences extend far beyond any individual controversy.
A civilization must eventually answer whether moral truth is discovered or invented.
And if it is invented, who receives the authority to invent it for everyone else?
The Spiritual Conflict Beneath the Political One
It would be easier to approach these developments as exclusively political problems.
We could attribute our national difficulties to a particular administration, ideological movement, judicial philosophy, or generation of educators.
But such explanations cannot account for the deepest condition of humanity.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12 of a struggle extending beyond flesh and blood into the spiritual forces of evil.
For Christians, spiritual warfare is not a literary metaphor describing ordinary political disagreement. Scripture teaches that evil is real, that deception is dangerous, and that Satan opposes the purposes of God.
The biblical diagnosis reaches into every human heart.
Pride is not confined to one political party.
Deception is not confined to one ideology.
And sin is not confined to those whose conduct we find most objectionable.
This is precisely why Christianity cannot be reduced to a political movement.
We do not merely require better rulers. We require transformed hearts.
We do not simply need more effective laws. We need a deeper recognition of the moral authority to which law itself is accountable.
And we do not overcome spiritual evil through hatred of other human beings.
Christ commanded His followers to love their neighbors and even their enemies.
That command does not require abandoning truth or approving conduct contrary to Scripture.
It requires remembering that the person before us is never beyond the reach of God's mercy.
The enemy of humanity is not the confused child, the frightened mother, the unbelieving neighbor, or the person whose understanding of morality differs from ours.
The Christian struggle against evil must be conducted through truth, prayer, righteousness, faith, and the proclamation of the Gospel.
We are called to oppose what we believe is wrong without forgetting whom Christ came to save.
What the Church Must Remember
It would be easy to direct our concerns entirely toward public institutions and demand that they restore the moral understanding earlier generations once possessed.
Yet Christianity places a substantial responsibility much closer to home.
What have Christian families taught their children?
What have our churches emphasized?
Have we faithfully studied Scripture, demonstrated genuine love, practiced repentance, and helped young people understand why Christian belief is intellectually and morally serious?
Or have we gradually allowed religious instruction to become something reserved for occasional attendance, ceremonial observance, and the convenient portions of our lives?
The responsibility for teaching God's Word cannot be delegated to a legislature, a school board, or a president.
When Moses instructed Israel to teach God's commandments diligently to their children, the responsibility was woven into everyday family life.
When Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations, He did not condition that responsibility upon the approval of earthly rulers.
The Church was established to proclaim Christ, teach His Word, care for His people, and carry the Gospel into the world.
Its mission is eternal.
America's constitutional institutions deserve our thoughtful defense. Its history deserves honest instruction. Its children deserve academic excellence, sound moral formation, and protection from exploitation.
But the Church possesses a responsibility that no government can fulfill.
It must proclaim the salvation available through Jesus Christ.
If we successfully defend every constitutional protection yet neglect the spiritual condition of our neighbors, we will have accomplished something important while failing in something infinitely greater.
The Gospel must remain our first calling.
A Nation That Forgets Why It Is Free
The most frightening possibility confronting America may not be a sudden constitutional crisis.
It may be a slow erosion of understanding.
A society can preserve institutions long after it has forgotten the reasoning that produced them.
Courthouses may remain standing. Elections may continue. Legislatures may convene, laws may be enacted, and public officials may deliver eloquent speeches concerning freedom and democracy.
Yet the meaning of those words can gradually change.
A generation unfamiliar with constitutional history may come to regard restraints upon government as unnecessary obstacles.
A generation insufficiently educated in the consequences of tyranny may underestimate the danger of concentrated authority.
A generation that regards moral truth as entirely subjective may struggle to explain why certain fundamental rights must be protected even against the wishes of a powerful majority.
These developments need not originate from one organization or one comprehensive plan. Some result from deliberate ideological ambitions, others from cultural change, institutional mistakes, neglected responsibilities, or ordinary human weakness.
Their cumulative effects can nevertheless become destructive.
America's constitutional experiment depends upon more than the existence of written documents.
It depends upon citizens possessing sufficient knowledge, character, and courage to preserve the principles those documents embody.
As we examine our schools, our institutions, and our changing cultural expectations, we should ask whether we are preparing the next generation to exercise freedom responsibly or simply teaching it to pursue desired outcomes without understanding the restraints that make freedom possible.
A republic cannot be sustained indefinitely by constitutional machinery alone.
It requires people willing to recognize limits upon their own power.
From the Christian perspective, that recognition begins with a truth as old as creation itself.
We are not God.
Beyond the Constitution
The journey undertaken in Fingerprint of Reality began with a question about whether the extraordinary world we inhabit bears the marks of accident or intention.
It eventually led beyond scientific inquiry into the nature of morality, consciousness, suffering, and humanity's relationship with its Creator.
The Author's Note contained a simple invitation:
"Follow truth wherever it leads."
That invitation applies equally to our examination of America.
We should follow the historical record even when it challenges our assumptions. We should examine political movements through their documented objectives rather than slogans. We should demand educational excellence without romanticizing the imperfections of earlier generations. And we should be willing to examine our own moral failures with the same seriousness we apply to those of others.
But the Christian investigation cannot conclude with constitutional history.
It must return to the Creator.
The God who brought the universe into existence is not merely a convenient explanation for the moral principles embedded within an eighteenth-century declaration.
He is the living God.
The author of creation.
The source of truth.
The righteous Judge of mankind.
And the Father who sent His Son into the world to redeem sinners.
Jesus Christ did not enter human history to establish a political party, defend an economic ideology, or construct an earthly republic.
He came to reconcile sinful humanity to God.
He lived without sin, willingly suffered upon the cross, bore the judgment our sins deserve, and rose from the dead.
The same fallen nature that makes constitutional restraints necessary also explains why humanity cannot save itself through political institutions.
We may improve our laws. We may correct educational failures. We may preserve our liberties and restore respect for the principles upon which our country was founded.
We should pursue those responsibilities diligently.
But no act of Congress can forgive sin.
No Supreme Court decision can redeem a soul.
No educational curriculum can accomplish the work of the Holy Spirit.
And no earthly government can offer eternal life.
Only Jesus Christ can save us.
There Is Still Time
I love America, and I have had the privilege of serving her in the United States Navy. Like many fellow graduates of Reed-Custer High School who also answered their country's call to military service, I carry a deep and abiding gratitude for America's remarkable history, its constitutional inheritance, and the sacrifices of generations of Americans who have defended its liberty. Having worn the uniform myself, those sacrifices are more than distant chapters in a history book. They are part of an inheritance I hold dear, one I pray our children and grandchildren will never take for granted.
My concerns for America's future arise from that gratitude.
I do not want our children or grandchildren to inherit a country whose citizens have forgotten the principles that made their liberty possible.
I do not want them to mistake political promises for moral truth or government authority for divine wisdom.
And I do not want them to inherit a civilization so consumed by material achievement and cultural conflict that they never seriously consider the God who created them.
Yet my hope does not rest upon the preservation of any earthly nation.
America may endure for centuries. It may undergo changes we cannot presently imagine. Its institutions may be strengthened, weakened, or fundamentally altered by generations yet unborn.
God's sovereignty will not be diminished.
His Word will not become less true.
And the salvation offered through His Son will remain sufficient for every person who comes to Him in faith.
The responsibility before Christians is therefore both immediate and eternal.
We should teach our children to read, reason, and understand the world around them. We should help them comprehend their history and the responsibilities of citizenship. We should defend the dignity of human life and insist that those entrusted with power remain accountable.
But above everything else, we must tell them about Jesus Christ.
We must tell our neighbors.
We must tell those with whom we disagree.
We must tell those who are suffering, confused, frightened, ashamed, or convinced that God could never forgive them.
We must tell them because no human being is beyond the reach of His grace.
And because the question confronting every soul is infinitely greater than the future of any republic.
One day the political controversies of our generation will be history. Our arguments will have ended, our institutions will have changed, and the achievements we considered so important will belong to a world that has passed away.
But eternity will remain.
If America recovers its academic excellence but forgets God, what have we truly restored?
If America preserves its Constitution but loses its moral understanding, how securely have we preserved its liberty?
And if we succeed in defending everything we love about this country but fail to share Jesus Christ with those who are perishing, what have we accomplished that can compare with the value of a single soul?
My deepest fear is not simply that America may lose its freedom.
It is that, having forgotten the Creator, we may no longer understand what freedom was given to us for.
My deepest hope is not that a political movement will reverse our national decline.
It is that hearts will turn toward God, that families will return to His Word, that churches will boldly proclaim His Son, and that people who have never known the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ will finally discover the grace that has been waiting for them.
The world may change.
Nations may rise and fall.
But Jesus Christ remains the same.
And until the day He calls us home, there is work to be done.
To God be the glory.
Sources and Further Reading
Foundational American documents
The Declaration of Independence (1776), National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
The Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights, National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
American education and historical change
George S. Counts, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? (1932). Southern Illinois University Press, 1978 reprint.
https://www.siupress.com/9780809308781/dare-the-school-build-a-new-social-order/
Bullitt County History Museum, 1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools.
https://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912.html
National Center for Education Statistics, The Nation's Report Card: 2024 Reading and Mathematics Assessments.
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963).
Contemporary political and social questions
Kimberley A. Strassel, "The Rise of Democratic Socialism," Imprimis, Hillsdale College, October 2026, Vol. 55, No. 10.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-rise-of-democratic-socialism/
Democratic Socialists of America, DSA Program.
https://program.dsausa.org/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2022, published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, November 2024.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/ss7307a1.htm
Christian theological foundation
The Holy Bible: Genesis 1:26–27; Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Psalm 139; Romans 1:18–32; Romans 3:23–26; Ephesians 2:8–10; Ephesians 6:10–18; Colossians 1:15–20; Matthew 28:18–20; John 3:16–17.
Related reading
Gary Dearing, Fingerprint of Reality: Science, Design, and the Truth Beyond Matter (2026), Author's Note and chapters concerning moral reality, creation, and Christian faith.
Read the complete book free:
https://solomonforjesus.org/reader/fingerprint/