Let's not forget Providence

Above: The Prayer at Valley Forge, by Arnold Friberg.

Yesterday, encouraged by two friends, I listened to Bari Weiss' interview of Akhil Reed Amar  The Words That Made America - Honestly with Bari Weiss - Apple Podcasts

The interview was the first of a Free Press series designed to elucidate the meaning of America as it approaches its 250th year anniversary. As my two friends did for me, I recommend the excellent Akhil Reed Amar upbeat interview to readers of this blog.

We live in an era where many Americans do not consider America to be the greatest country on earth... where many Americans take the country for granted... a Gallup poll released earlier this week shows that American pride has reached a new low. But, could Thomas Jefferson and the men gathered in Philadelphia who wrote down the words that made our world—“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”—ever have imagined what their Declaration of Independence would bring? The list of American success stories is too long to be rehearsed in this short blog. Hopefully, the Free Press series will spark a renewed appreciation for America amongst its citizenry over the course of the next year. The Amar interview was a great start to reviving appreciation of America in today's world.

Responding to Bari Weiss questions, Yale professor Akhil Reed Amar does a wonderful job in explaining the relationships between the founding fathers and how they brought to fruition the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. As good and instructive as the discussion was, I felt something was missing from the colloquy: and that was the role of Providence in America's founding. To fill in that interview gap I included in this blog the above painting, showing Washington, beside his horse, kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.

Unique, amongst all governments of the world, is that Americans' rights do not derive from government, they derive from God. In the America created by the founders, government is accountable to the people, not the other way around. Rights of Americans are "inalienable"...beyond the ken of government to bestow. As good as the Weiss/Amar interview was, let's not forget the role of providence in our quest this year to understand America's position in the world today... and her iffy prospects going forward lest she lose her providential connection.