Dance With the One Who Brought You
January 31, 2026
By Pastor Tim White
Watching current events unfolding in real time feels like one of those sci-fi movies about parallel universes? In one universe, once-oppressed people are celebrating the apparent collapse of the regimes that took over their countries and devastated their lives (i.e., Iran and Venezuela). Then, in measured unbelief, you watch some American cities inaugurating mayors and legislators who espouse the very ideologies that led to the oppression in the first universe.
How is it possible that two wildly conflicting realities can share the same news cycle simultaneously?
George Santayana, the Spanish–American philosopher and writer, understood how such a thing could occur. He said it best in his 1905 work, “The Life of Reason:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
What Santayana is saying is that for a society to avoid the pitfalls of failed political and ideological systems, it must pay attention to the record of history. Wherever consistent patterns exist, learn from them. Sadly, as my college history professor told our freshman class on the first day, “The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.”
Watching the veneration of Socialism and Islam in America, while we witness those who have suffered under these regimes working for (Iran) and celebrating (Venezuela), the hopeful collapse of their oppressors. After all, in the days of World War II, Socialism (Hitler’s version, National Socialism, or Nazi) was evil and needed to be defeated – not elected to office.
Are we suffering from a form of cultural and historical amnesia?
Well, that appears to be the case in New York state. With the new Muslim/Democrat Socialist New York City mayor by her side, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a proclamation declaring January to be, of all things, “Muslim American Heritage Month” (yes, a whole month). As she spoke of “The resilience, compassion, and contributions of Muslim communities…”, she ordered multiple state landmarks to be lit up in green, including the One World Trade Center, which stands as a monument to almost 3,000 innocent Americans murdered by Islamic terrorists.
In that same article, a social media user posted: “Of all the tone-deaf things, this is the deafest.” Who could argue otherwise?
The merit of Islamism as a political system is not my focus. My point is this: to claim that the teachings of Muhammad and the Qur’an have a claim as an American heritage is not just a stretch, but a complete rewriting of history.
The historical and legal record reveal that America’s heritage is uniquely Christian.
For the sake of limited space, I will refer to the 1892 Supreme Court decision (Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States), which held that “America is a Christian nation.” In support of this statement, Justice David Brewer wrote, “…the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity,” and then recounted historical evidence in support of such a claim.
That historical evidence began with Christopher Columbus’s commission (1492) and Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonial grant (1584), which called upon the Christian God to grant success to their efforts and to support His laws. Then, turning to the Jamestown colony charter of 1609 and the Mayflower compact of 1620, both of which call for the establishment and propagation of the Christian faith. As other colonies were established, their charters also included similar statements in support of the Christian religion.
Justice David Brewer, who wrote this majority opinion, further clarified what it means that America is a “Christian nation”: “Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law ... not Christianity with an established church ... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.”1
The truths and themes within Christianity permeated the colonial era in both culture and law. There can be no question regarding the primary force that shaped our traditional American values, principles of freedom, and God-given individual rights – it was Christianity.
In the century and a half that followed, leading up to the War for Independence from Britain, the colonial pulpits laid the scriptural foundation for the Declaration of Independence. Among the multiple principles of liberty written by Pastor John Wise (1652–1725) in the early 1700s was the concept of “taxation without consent is tyranny,” for which he was arrested for opposing such taxes.2
Moreover, one historian, Tom Barrett, observed, "I do not consider it a stretch at all to say that were it not for the pastors and churches of colonial America, our land would be a British colony today" [The Forgotten Holiday].3
Quoting attorney and historian, John Wingate Thornton (1818-1878), who summed it up most concisely in his book, The Pulpit of the American Revolution, “To the pulpit, the Puritan pulpit, we owe the moral force which won our independence.” A majority of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were professing Christians, and while some were not, the “overwhelming majority of Founding Fathers and early leaders wrote openly, and often about the influence of Christianity, the Bible and Jesus on their lives.”4
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the most frequently cited book was the Bible, particularly Deuteronomy. The concept of “Due Process & Two or Three Witnesses” comes from Deut. 17:6 and 19:15. Sermons on Rom. 13:1-7 laid out the truth that all authority comes from God, not from the government, and that earthly leaders are to be held accountable to Him.
Many pulpits proclaimed themes of liberty and personal rights from passages like Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free…” Similarly, the statement in Genesis 1:27 that “God created man in His own image…” further developed their understanding of individual rights, human dignity, and equality, which made its way into the Declaration, where it states, “…all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…”
And then the most quoted account of the Constitutional Convention is the stirring words of the elder statesman, Benjamin Franklin. The convention was stalled and on the verge of failing when Franklin stood to speak. First, he reminds them of the many prayers offered in that same hall during the war with Britain, and how they needed to do the same.
Quote: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings (i.e., the Bible), that ‘except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages.”5
Jonathan Dayton, a delegate from New Jersey, recorded the reaction to Franklin’s speech. He recalled the transformative impact these words had upon the delegates, and stated, “We assembled again; and...every unfriendly feeling had been expelled, and a spirit of conciliation had been cultivated.”6
What is also unique is what our predominantly Christian founders did NOT create. Namely, unlike in Socialist and many Muslim regimes, they did not establish a state religion that favored their chosen majority religion (i.e., Christianity). True freedom of speech and religious liberty are unparalleled but sometimes copied.
Without question, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are documents that amaze and astound legal scholars to this day. What is also notable, these documents, which serve as the very foundation of American law, culture, and values, bear the marks of a uniquely Bible-based Christian influence.
Here is the relevance to our current day. Someone, somewhere, said, “Dance with the one who brought you.” And as Ben Franklin observed, the One who guided the Colonists to victory over the most powerful military of their day was the One they needed to turn to again as they sought to establish a nation that would endure the tests of time. We are there today.
The leftists and liberals have become Marxists whose ideology despises Christianity, the nuclear family, parents’ rights, free speech, a free market, and many other values that make America so great. And the father of Marxism, the devil, hates most of all the monumental missionary works Americans fund throughout the world. Stopping this massive work of spreading the Gospel is the ultimate goal of the devil and his blinded servants.
As I recently shared with my congregation, America needs Jesus’ Church to be alive, vibrant, humble, filled with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, or this nation will fall to the radicalism that has already poisoned so much of society and culture.
Notes
1. https://americanminute.com/blogs/todays-american-minute/supreme-court-america-a-christian-nation-bill-federer (and the two preceding paragraphs)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wise_%28clergyman%29?utm_source=chatgpt.com
3. https://earstohear.net/America/didyouknow.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
4. https://wallbuilders.com/resource/the-founding-fathers-on-jesus-christianity-and-the-bible/
6. https://earstohear.net/America/didyouknow.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com