The Case For Prayer On America’s 250th Birthday

The celebrations of our country’s 250th birthday should provide an opportunity for Americans to think, reflect and to pray.

Yes, I said it —pray. While some might find it out of fashion, the founding generation gave us much to be thankful for — and an example of giving thanks to God for those blessings.

Contrary to popular belief, most of our nation’s Founding Fathers were not agnostic Deists; and although none of them were perfect, they agreed that faith played a role in their lives and in the lives of the new nation. In fact, they put it down on parchment.

Many people know that, in the Declaration’s final phrase, the 56 signatories pledged “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” But that last sentence began by noting that “for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other.”

There it is: an emphasis on faith, right in our nation’s founding document—Providence, with a capital “P.”

And the United States needed to rely on divine Providence to win its independence. Consider the Providential fog that enabled the Continental Army to escape near-certain destruction after the Battle of Long Island, or the weather conditions that allowed George Washington and his troops to cross the Delaware River, delivering a major victory when poor morale threatened the Army’s disbandment.

Time and time again, America’s fate during the Revolution was a close-run thing—but each time America came through. As “America the Beautiful” notes, truly God has shed his grace on us.

George Washington, of all people, knew how much Providence had bestowed on America.

At the war’s end, he wrote to state governors offering