On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation that established “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer,” and called upon all people to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God. Upon its foundation and at its core, America was established as a people eternally thankful to the bounty and blessings bestowed upon us by Almighty God.
President Washington’s proclamation also included his prayerful request that he and all government officials “perform [their] several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our national government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”
Clearly, our great nation was founded with reverence to the almighty God of Abraham as a Judeo-Christian nation. That reverence was never to be forgotten or abandoned.
Today, we now stand more than two centuries after the proclamation of our first president. The entire moral and spiritual landscape of our country has completely changed, a change that was felt deep within the spirit of nearly half of our county’s population after the last national election. Many asked what happened, others asked how it happened, and fewer still asked why it happened. Perhaps saddest of all, more than half of America has no clue that anything happened.
