[OBW]

Z,

I have never said to refrain from praying for the nation. And if you are only focused on Cahn's actual call to prayer, then you might not have any complaint.

But the first half was a run-up to the call to prayer based on the assumption that, like Israel, America was founded in the same manner. And that things like the Mayflower compact, the first inaugural address, and many other statements constituted a basis for Israel-like blessings that we should be able to pray back into existence.

In effect, these historical documents, speeches, etc., are being treated like a contract between America and God upon which we can be blessed. And returning to that state is being treated like a "first love." We love that country so much better than the one we have now. We have the most tolerant country ever (or at least nearly so) and yet we have to have more. It is consuming us. We are willing to redirect the thrust of our prayers to get it back.

I am all for praying for peace within our borders and with the rest of the world. I am for praying for a turn in the minds of those who would call unrighteousness righteousness. I am for prayer to turn hearts from wickedness to God. But even if there is a true revival, I do not dare treat it as some kind of special blessing from God on the nation, but on those who turn back to Him.

We are sojourners in a foreign land. It may be a reasonably favorable land, but it is not the kingdom of God. It is the kingdom of the world. No matter how good an inaugural address is, how righteous the Mayflower compact was, how many references there were to God in various other documents or how many times meetings of the fledgling government were opened with prayer — even of some length — it is a secular nation. No amount or prayer can put on the nation a label that does not apply to all of its citizens. And "followers of God" does not apply to nearly all of them now.

Or even then. They may have had a better percentage. Or at least so if you take into account the fact that much of the major philosophy of the day was Judeo-Christian based. But while a valid study of the scripture is rightly a branch of philosophy, a philosophy merely based upon its tenets does not a Christian make. And there was plenty of that in play in that day and age. Pascal's wager was relatively new and probably was part of some amount of the apparent "belief" of some whose lives did not seem to measure up. Probably a lot of mental hedging of bets.

And I have no problem with them having written our founding documents and leading us into the next century as a nation rather than as a collection of squabbling, independent states.