#42 The Rebirth of America

IDENTITY POLITICS | Mark Boonstra: As I have been honored to personally tell President Trump: God spared his life for a reason. God isn’t through with America.

Nov 18, 2024

1×

0:00

-8:15

Listen to our audio version of this essay.

The Fourth of July. Independence Day. America’s birthday.

We have celebrated it every year since 1776, and as we approach America’s 250^th birthday less than two years from today, we now have an opportunity to celebrate America’s RE-birth as well.

2024 ELECTIONS

In the wake of the 2024 election, we remain a deeply divided nation.

Those, like me, who voted for Donald J. Trump sincerely believe that America is on the precipice, that it desperately needs saving, that it no longer is the nation it was founded to be, and that it needs to be put back on the right path.

Those who voted differently profess to fear for America’s future now that President Trump is once again poised to take the helm of our ship of state.

The divisions between Americans today are wide and deep. But it’s a gap that we need to bridge. It’s a divide that we must overcome.

Of course, we will continue to have political and policy differences. Debate about such matters can be healthy.

But it’s time that we remind ourselves of what unites us. What it truly means to be an American. To reeducate ourselves about the foundational tenets of the greatest nation the world has ever seen. To teach our children and grandchildren what it was that made America a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, that shining City on a Hill. And to conduct ourselves accordingly.

America is now presented with an opportunity. An opportunity to reunite as Americans. An invitation to embrace the rebirth of America.

But, how?

The answer lies in our nation’s founding documents.

Our Founding Fathers established a nation of individual liberty. Of unalienable rights. Of rights that come from God.

So declared our Founding Fathers in 1776, risking life and limb, yet boldly asserting those rights and proclaiming them the foundation of a new United States of America. Invoking the right of a free people “to assume among the powers of the earth, separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” and “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,” the Founders thus declared:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And as they set out to establish a new form of government based upon the rights bestowed upon them by God, they pledged:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The first governing constitution of the fledgling new nation was crafted as the war for independence raged with the former motherland. That effort gave birth to the Articles of Confederation of Perpetual Union in 1777, ratified by the last of the thirteen states in 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government lacked an executive branch, governed instead by a national Congress of the Confederation, over which presided a president of the Congress. In affixing their signatures to the Articles of Confederation, the delegates to the Continental Congress reaffirmed that the authority by which they did so came from God:

Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, Know Ye, that we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do, by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained.

In 1787, the Articles of Confederation gave way to the United States Constitution, which established a more durable form of government comprised of a bicameral legislature, an executive branch, and a judicial branch. The Constitution was drafted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was first ratified by the state of Delaware in December of that year, became effective upon ratification by the state of New Hampshire in 1788 (ratification by nine states being required), and saw ratification become unanimous among the original thirteen states in 1790, upon the assent of the state of Rhode Island.

The United States Constitution, like the Articles of Confederation before it, set forth a governmental structure, and outlined the responsibilities and authorities of its component parts. Yet, like the Articles, the Constitution described the liberties it assured as “Blessings” from One greater than ourselves:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Proclaiming that our individual liberties and unalienable rights are “Blessings” from “God,” “endowed to us by our Creator,” our Founding Fathers appealed to the “Supreme Judge of the World,” invoked the authority of the “Great Governor of the World,” and with “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” gave birth to a new nation unlike any that had gone before it, the United States of America.

These are the fundamental precepts that underlie America’s birth in 1776. And it is these same fundamental precepts and can bring Americans back together again in a rebirth of America in 2024.

Upon leaving office in 1796, America’s first President—George Washington—implored his countrymen to remember that:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men & citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect & to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private & public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure—reason & experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

As we welcome our 47th President—Donald J. Trump—let us all take heed of President Washington’s wise counsel. Let us reawaken America to the principles that led to its birth in 1776, and that will nurture its rebirth in 2024.

As I have been honored to personally tell President Trump: God spared his life for a reason. God isn’t through with America. And I believe God has chosen him to save America. I believe he understands that. And I believe he understands that he can be successful in that mission only by uniting Americans—all Americans—once again behind the core principles of our founding, in the knowledge that our rights and liberties come from God, and in a shared appreciation that we must all exercise our God-given rights and liberties with a mindset that respects their divine heritage.

Identity Politics, with Mark Boonstra & Dr. Stephen Phinney, is an extension of IOM America’s IM Christian Writers Association. The mission of the authors is to restore faith in God & country.