Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
On July 4, we as Americans will commemorate the 250th anniversary of our nation.
I have lived during 27% of that history! There are two family lines that go back to the American Revolution and ancestors who served. Two other family lines came here in the late 1800s from Norway and Denmark. There are forebearers in my family who have served in every war our nation has been in since 1776.
When I entered school every morning the teacher would read a Bible verse and pray. We recited the pledge of allegiance to start our day as well. I remember when President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated and how things changed, later with the killings of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
Time Magazine proclaimed in 1965 that “God Is Dead” after prayer and the Bible was removed from our classrooms. By 1984 then-President Ronald Reagan said, “If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”
There are many raising the alarm that America is drifting away from morality and traditional values. Division is eating at the core of our society. As Lincoln warned, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
As we celebrate these 250 years (I remember the bicentennial in 1976 and we were healing from division over Watergate and Vietnam) we need to go before our Creator who is the author of liberty and seek his forgiveness for our national and personal sins. John Adams once said, “Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
If America is to survive we need to remind ourselves, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.” - Proverbs 14:34.
Ken Locke is the retired corps administrator of The Salvation Army in Warsaw and director of the Greater Warsaw Ministerial Association. Have ideas for this column? Go to www.gwma.info.
