June update and July 4 comments

We have just finished our first Vacation Bible School since the hurricane that was run entirely by ourselves. In each of the previous two summers, we have had teams of volunteers who have helped organize and staff our efforts. But this year, it was wholly and entirely on our shoulders. And able-bodied shoulders they were too! Even though we are still without a church building of our own, we braved the heat and the inconvenience of not having a permanent place to set up and use. And I, for one, think this year’s VBS went very well. Many people worked especially hard to make this past week a success. A word of thanks goes out to Roddy Russell and VBS co-coordinators Gail Theiler and Jennifer Richard, along with Lucy Russell, Opal Bowden, Lyn Oerting, Lois Leavengood, Monica O’Mara, Mary Ruth Ruffin, Heidi Norris, John and Carolyn Miller, Janet and Hannah Burnett, J.J. Hammond, Katie Sanders, James and Shannon Jordan, Alice Entrekin, Melinda Jones, Linda Jordan, Kimberly Jackson, Chris Carter, Phillip and Anne Shroyer, Catherine Nassar, Lisa Ladner, and the many jr. and sr. high youth who gave their time to help out. We look forward with eager anticipation to the permanence and convenience that a building of our own will give to us in the future!

On a slightly different note, since we are celebrating this year the 232nd anniversary of our nation’s independence, I thought I would include a few comments about the explicitly Christian influence upon the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the freedoms of this great nation that we call our own. The following excerpts are taken from Alvin J. Schmidt’s book How Christianity Changed the World (Zondervan, 2004). I hope they help to make your celebration of the 4th of July that much more meaningful. May we never forget to be grateful to our great God and Savior not only for the salvation that we will enjoy for eternity but also for the freedoms that we currently experience here and now in this country.

“Many today who disparage Christianity may not know or believe that, were it not for Christianity, they would not have the freedom that they presently enjoy. The very freedom of speech and expression that ironically permits them to castigate Christian values is largely a by-product of Christianity’s influences that have been incorporated into the social fabric of the Western world.” (p. 13)

“Given that the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, which are extensions of the Magna Carta and other British documents of freedom, bear the marks of Christian influence is not to say they are Christian documents, like the Nicene Creed, for example. But it is to say that civic freedoms and liberties would not have occurred had it not been for the Christian values that prompted and shaped the formation of these documents.” (p. 258)

“Wherever Christian ideals have been generally accepted and their practice sincerely attempted, there is a dynamic liberty; and wherever Christianity had been ignored or rejected, persecuted or chained to the State, there is tyranny.” (p. 270, citing Carlton J.H. Hayes)

“The American civilization rests on the basic principles of Christian morality which have their origin in the Hebrew Scriptures….Remove the Bible as the constellation that guides the American Ship of State and the whole edifice of American civilization collapses.” (p. 270, citing Kevin Abrams)

Let’s think about that!