The President without a Country

Pat Boone has always been one of my favorite people partly due to his singing ability but mostly due to the fact that he has no problem telling the world that he is a Christian. He has a few words to say frequently on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Pat wrote an article recently which was titled “The President Without a Country.” He was referring to President Barack Obama who made the statement in June 2009 that America was no longer a Christian nation. Boone’s article was sent to me by Johnnie White of Centreville, Ala. Let me share some of his comments with you this week.

Thinking about some of the statements made by the man who wears the title of president, Boone wonders what country he believes he is president of and tells one of his favorite stories about Edward Everett Hale’s “The Man Without A Country.”

A young Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan stands condemned for treason during the Revolutionary War, having come under the influence of Aaron Burr. When the judge asks him if he wishes to say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan defiantly exclaims, “D--- the United States. I wish I might never hear of the United States again!”

The stunned silence in the courtroom is palpable, pulsing. After a long pause the judge soberly says to the angry lieutenant, “You have just pronounced your own sentence. You will never hear of the United States again. I sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea on one of this country’s naval vessels under strict orders that no one will ever speak to you again about the country you have just cursed.”

And so it was. Phillip Nolan was taken away and spent the next 40 years at sea never hearing anything but an occasional slip of the tongue about America. The last few pages of the story recounting Nolan’s dying hours in his small stateroom, now turned into a shrine to the country he foreswore, never fail to bring me to tears, Boone wrote. And I find my own love for this dream, this miracle called America, refreshed and renewed. I know how blessed and unique we are.

Mr. President you surely can’t be referring to the United States of America. America is emphatically a Christian nation and has been from its inception! Seventy percent of her citizens identify themselves as Christians. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were framed, written and ratified by Christians.

Boone continued by pointing out that Obama studied law at Harvard and taught constitutional law in Chicago and asked if he had ever read the statement of John Jay the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Jay said, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

In your studies you surely read the decision of the Supreme Court in 1892: “Our lives and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”

Boone mentioned the fact that Obama had been a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years where Jeremiah Wright was pastor and asked if that is where he got the idea that America is no longer a Christian nation.

His article went into more detail about some comments he said President Obama has made since being in office. Then he closed the article by writing, “Could it be you are the president without a country?”