This
is a short dramatic reading I wrote for the 1996
National Day of Prayer. All music is taken from
the Turner Network soundtrack album
"Gettysburg", with track information
noted. If you perform this, note that the music
selections were copied from CD to .WAV file and
heavily edited (usually padded by repeating
sections) to produce music that ran the proper
length behind the live-action script. (This was
written in 1996, in those dark hours of
corruption and national depair. Tweak it yourself
for today if you want to perform it!)
Although
it is technically (C) 1996, Andrew
Bartmess, performance rights are freely
granted provided all Glory is given to
God, and this boxed message is visible on
any printed hardcopy or electronic
reprint. |
(Main
Title #1 from Gettysburg,
Up and Under)
From
its bold beginnings, this nation was founded on
the timeless principle of freedom. Our Founders
recognized that this freedom was a gift, and they
made it a regular practice to Honor God in their
thoughts, words and deeds. May Second is the
annual National Day of Prayer, when we all are
called to "Honor God" in prayer. The
Bible cautions up to "render unto Caesar
that which is Caesar's". But do we really
take the time to "render unto God that which
is God's"?
The
Declaration of Independence---our first statement
as Americans of national purpose and
identity---made "the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God" the foundation of the United
States of America. The Declaration further
asserted that the people have "inalienable
rights" that are God-given. These rights are
not conferred by civil
government, whose express task is to secure those
rights. Our Founders did not seek to lock God out
of the lives of His people. Our Founders daily
sought to honor God.
(Music
crossfades to Fife and Drum,
Cut #4)
It
cannot be emphasized too strongly or too
often that this great nation was founded, not
by religionists, but by Christians, and not
on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus
Christ!
Patrick
Henry
Years
later, after the war, they sat in candlelight and
debated long into the night. The nation, 13
states, were loosely aligned, newly free from the
harsh rule of England, and made free---they were
certain---by God's own swift, sure hand.
Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Jay...our
"founding fathers." How to construct a
new nation that did not make the same errors of
the old? What should they do...but move ahead in
prayer?
Whoever will
introduce into public affairs the principles
of Christianity will change the face of the
world.
Benjamin
Franklin
(Crossfades
to Men of Honor,
Cut #2)
The
First Amendment, keystone to the U.S.
Constitution, guarantees that the right of free
exercise of religion and emphasizes the
protection of that right by prohibiting "any
law respecting the establishment
of religion." But the Founders saw this
issue differently than some might today...they
were afraid of the state's power to control the
church, not afraid of people with faith being
active in government. Indeed, the first act of
the First Continental Congress was to appoint a
chaplain. In those Revolution days, and in the
many years until the 1950's, the US government
was pro-religion, and most often,
pro-Christianity.
The great
vital and conservative element in our system
is the belief of our people in the pure
doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
The
Congress of the United States, 1854
(Crossfades
to We Are the Flank,
Cut #10)
The
common view of Thomas Jefferson's
"Separation of Church and State" today
paints that patriot as a anti-religious zealot.
But Jefferson's oft-cited opinion is nowhere to
be found in the Constitution or any other
official law book...it was published as part of a
single personal letter he wrote to the Danbury
Connecticut Baptist Church, who feared the state
would make a single Christian denomination into
the "national faith", and rekindle the
Christian infighting they endured in Europe. But
Jefferson's view that the State should not
control the church did not make him an enemy of
God nor religion. The hands that wrote that
letter also penned this point of view:
...can the
liberties of a nation be thought secure when
we have removed their only firm basis, a
conviction in the minds of the people that
these liberties are the gift of God? That
they are not to be violated but with His
wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when
I reflect that God is just, that His justice
does not sleep forever.
Thomas
Jefferson
In
his "Virginia Bill for Establishing
Religious Liberty", Thomas Jefferson also
wrote that a person's religious beliefs do not
disqualify them from holding public
office, and held officials were perfectly within
their rights to open meetings with prayer or call
the public to prayer on any given day. Freedom TO
worship does not mean "freedom FROM
worship." For all our national
accomplishments, we still need to Honor God.
(Crossfades
to Lee's Solitude,
Cut #13)
The highest
glory of the American Revolution was this:
that it connected in one indissoluble bond
the principles of civil government and the
principles of Christianity.
John
Quincy Adams, 1812
The
Founders would say all people in America should
be free to profess their religious beliefs,
without government interference or prohibition,
whether playing the role of worker, governmental
employee, teacher, neighbor, or parent. By their
law, all people are free to encourage their
fellows to pray. They knew our security as a
nation was built upon prayer, the more to honor
God.
Reason and
experience both forbid us to expect that
national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle.
George
Washington, Farewell Address of 1796
Washington's
legendary Farewell Address was considered for a
hundred and seventy years to be the
example of perfect public speaking, and was
included in almost every history text. Sadly, you
won't find it include in any public school text
today, for it does the unthinkable...it gives the
glory for America's very existance to God
Almighty. But in the past fifty years, those
words, and almost all other evidence of our
Founders' faith, have been quietly erased. Since
the first pro-state court decision in 1947, many
long-standing practices that the Founders found
fully acceptable have been removed from public
life. Among these are school prayer in class and
commencement, the posting of the Ten Commandments
in public schools, and even the bland
government-authorized "moments of
silence" once found in public school. Even
so, the Ten Commandments remain chiseled on the
wall fo the Supreme Court, and both the Supreme
Court and Congress begin each day with prayer.
God has not changed...only we have.
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.
John
Jay, 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
Because
of our Founders' faith, civic prayers and
national days of prayer have a long history in
our republic, dating clear back to the First
Continental Congress. On July 12, 1775, John
Handcock sighed the first Congressional order
establishing the first day of national prayer
"throughout the continent." This event
symbolized the unity with which the fledgling
nation could come together before God for
guidance and wisdom. Troubles and conflict lay
ahead for America, but God was always there.
(Crossfades
to Kathleen Mavourneen
#17)
To
many, the civil war saw our nation's darkest
hour. Brother set against brother, destruction
and death on our own shores, a union at war with
itself. One of our greatest presidents, Abraham
Lincoln, considered the war a Divine judgment
upon our nation when he signed his name to these
words, words that ring with meaning today:
An
Effective Remedy for National Ills
for all People in all Nations; a
Proclamation for a National Day of
Prayer. Abraham Lincoln, 1863. WHEREAS,
the Senate of the United States;
devoutly recognizing the Supreme
authority and just government of
Almighty God in the affairs of men
and nations, has, by a resolution,
requested the President to designate
and set apart a day for national
prayer and humiliation.
As
we know that His divine Law, nations,
like individuals, are subject to
punishments and chastisement in this
world, may we not justly fear that
the awful calamity of civil war,
which now desolates the land, may be
bust a punishment inflicted upon us
for our presumptuous sins?
We
have been the recipients of the
choicest bounties of heaven. We have
been preserved these many years in
peace and prosperity. We have grown
in numbers, wealth and power as no
other nation has ever grown. But we
have forgotten God. Intoxicated with
unbroken success, we have become too
self-sufficient to feel the necessity
of redeeming and preserving grace,
too proud to pray to the God who made
us!
It
behooves us then, to humble ourselves
before the offended power, to confess
our national sins, and to pray...to
God.<p>
I
do hereby request all people
to abstain on that day from their
ordinary secular pursuits, and to
unite, at their several places of
public worship and their respective
homes, in keeping the day holy to the
Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties
proper to this solemn occasion.
All
this being done, in sincerity and
truth, le us then rest humbly in the
hope, authorized by the Divine
teachings, that the united cry of the
Nation will be heard on high, and
answered with blessings, no less the
pardon of our national sins, and
restoration of our now divided and
suffering country to its former happy
condition of unity, and peace.
Abraham Lincoln,
1863
|
(Crossfades
to Reunion and Finale,
Cut #18)
In
1952, Congress unanimously passed a joint
resolution, signed by president Harry Truman,
stabling a National Day of Prayer. This law was
amended in 1988 and signed by president Ronald
Regan, permanently declaring the first Tuesday in
May as the National Day of Prayer. In 1994, the
states of New Jersey and Alabama also officially
recognized the day, and Pennsylvania and other
states are preparing to sign on officially as
well.
Without God,
there is no prompting of the
conscious...without God, there is a
coarsening of the society; without God
democracy will not and cannot long
endure...If we ever forget that we are 'One
Nation Under God', we will be one nation gone
under.
President
Ronald Regan, 1984
(Crossfades
to General Lee at Twilight,
Cut #5. Music fades under the following section
as lights fade to black. A slow "Big
Ben" kind of chime begins softly during
fade, growing in volume as the music recedes,
until it is noticable, but not overpowering, in
the background of the spoken word.)
In
triumph, and in catastrophe, there is the need
for honest prayer, connecting us to God. In 1995,
in the shadow of the Oklahoma City bombing
tragedy, the governor of Oklahoma signed an
official proclamation:
...It
is eminently fitting and proper
that we in Oklahoma observe a day when
all communities may acknowledge our many
blessings and express gratitude to God
for them, while recognizing the need for
the strengthening of religious and moral
values in our land. The
United States of America is
beset with a tidal wave of violence, both
juvenile and adult, teenage pregnancies,
dysfunctional families, and a host of
problems which are tearing apart our
social fabrics...
It
is no coincidence that these
problems are occurring as values of faith
are swept from the public square, to be
replaced by postmodern moral relativism
which rejects concepts such as right and
wrong, and personal responsibility.
"Such a philosophy is at odds with
the heritage of Americans, who
historically have shared a broad
consensus of
religiously-inspired...values, even while
insisting on religious freedom, and
Whereas
the power of prayer, and the power of God
through prayer have been at the core of
the shared American experience through
out history...I, Frank Keating, Governor
of the state of Oklahoma, do hereby
proclaim...A DAY OF PRAYER
in the state of Oklahoma.
|
(Music
up, Dawn,
Cut #37)
In
our glories, and in our tragedies, America turns
to God in prayer. This year, for the first time,
the governors of all 50 states, Puerto Rico and
the Virgin Islands joined the President in urging
people to pray.
Today, we need God
more than ever. We are his children, seeking to
honor Him and follow Him. But what kind of
children are we?
Families
are the very foundation of America; God's primary
tool for training small children to lead moral,
honorable lives as they grow to become our
nation's next generation of leaders. Tragically,
America's families are unraveling in record
numbers. Is it any wonder that crime, violence,
drugs, suicide and hopelessness have stolen a
generation of his children?
We have no
government...which is capable of contending
with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion. Our constitution was made only for
a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate for any other.
John
Adams
May
second: a chance to "Honor God". In our
homes, in our workplaces, let us do as our
Founders did...let us come together to pray for
our nation. Pray for our children; pray four our
schools. Take time from your day and join us. The
Sanctuary will be open from seven to eight PM for
your prayers. If you cannot make it, please pray
in your homes. But wherever you are, take the
chance to connect with God.
FINIS
|