I am always fascinated by the number of people today who claim to be Christians but are unwilling to let God be God, to accept His sovereignty.
To the tiniest nuclear particle anywhere in the universe, nothing is outside God’s direction/plan. He created it all and He directs/allows it all!

Sports events? Human pride wants to claim that win for ourselves, but the One Who actually produced the win is God! Those who publicly acknowledge Him are simply obeying His teaching in Scripture! In the meanwhile, enjoy the sporting events He has given us, and delight in Him!

Over the Gates of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, a sign read
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/n-c-church-to-burn-satans-books-including-works-of-mother-theresa/

Like it or not, whether comfortable with the idea or not, we must recognize that America has been a Calvinist-Puritanical Garden of Eden philosophically since long before it was American.

We have to remember, the very heart of our common national core value system was laid down by the Puritans who settled New England and the Calvinist settlers of places like Jamestown, VA who had a very much sterner view of the Deity than anyone today would have. These people were here quite literally to found a New Jerusalem and they wrote, spoke and lived under that world view.

The Protestant Work Ethic is the very foundation of how we judge each other and ourselves. If I am not doing well, I am obligated as an American to try harder, even unto my own death.

This is just how we are put together.

We seem to think in our secular world today that our view is very common. It is not, it is very uncommon.

These ancestors of ours were the people who wrote the Mayflower Compact, the various colonial laws in the Colony Assemblies under Britain, and finally the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Although they were secularists as much as a 18th Century politician could be, their documents are filled with allusions to God and his grace.

It was a different world then and the Deity was simply a necessary part of that world. Our legal system, our educational system, even our prison system reflects this sense of “judgment from On High” and a very, very Calvinist, “black and white with no shades of gray” view of how a community should operate.

Like it or not, Deism is a part of the American characer.

Now, how do we deal with this reasonably in a largely secular and post-Christian age in a world that is quickly seeing religion as a sister to mythology, or worse, to superstition?

How do we deal with this while we are actively engaged in two or possibly three West Asian wars (Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) where Muslim ultra-Orthodox reactionaries are insisting that “their” view of Islam is the proper view and anyone else is an apostate or a backslider?

I submit, we open our eyes, let people worship or not worship however they want directed at whomever they want and absolutely insist that we be left alone when it comes to anyone prostelytizing us.

Remember, we have freedom OF relgion in this country, not freedom FROM religion. Like it or not, that is law of the land here.

I am not comfortable with all the Calvinist parts of our national character either, but it is who we are. Like it or not, we are still the Puritans, regardless of our religion, our nationality or whether or not we have been here 150 years or 15 minutes.

Calvinisn is who we are. In my opinion, that is what gave the Bushites such incredible power. They tapped into this deep vein of our national psyche. They understood it like a secularist never could.

This is our greatest strength in times of trouble and our greatest danger in times of potential imperialism. We truly believe that we are the Chosen Ones of the Deity.

May God help us. We are not going to change. It is too late for that.

Although the Bible clearly indicates Christians are to be ambassadors of Another world, too many try to rule This one, which means that they are aligned with Satan.