January 16th is “Religious Freedom Day” in America, which has been proclaimed by the President since 1993.
“This commemoration marks the passage on January 16, 1786, of a significant document authored by Thomas Jefferson: the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.”(heritage.org)
Today is the time to reflect on our great freedom to believe or not believe in any religion you want. Around the world many others do not have the religious freedom that we do and often have to pay in their death, here are the top 10 Persecution stories of 2008.
Our founding fathers escaped persecution from their King in order to give every human, freedoms and rights that were given to us not be government, but by our divine creator.
May Americans not be sued for not wanting to do something, because of their religious beliefs. May we all look towards God more instead of the government. May “so help me God,” always stay at the President’s inauguration. May “Under God,” always stay in
America’s pledge of allegiance. May “In God we Trust,” always stay on America’s currency.
“Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”
Daniel Webster
“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”
Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
Benjamin Franklin
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
Patrick Henry
“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”
Daniel Webster