One of my all-time favorite books of the Holy Bible is Romans. There are a few reasons I say this. My most common explanation for this, is the parallel to our current day and age. The United States of America has begun to fall the same fate as the ancient Roman Empire. This isn’t a myth. History is the fabric of actual national and regional events occurring daily. This is what makes antiquity, or what is called the past. As with humanity, the world is a fallen place.
​
The Roman Empire may have been a historical foreshadowing of what America later aimed to be in material glory. The end results for all parties involved though are the same. Rome, as with America, existed for itself. The life of a Roman was existence to the State. It was conforming to what society said was acceptable, which again, appears much like American society in our modern era. If the Judeo-Christian principles that were first established by the Founding Fathers are abandoned, then what better are we than the Romans? We are not.

Three things begin to happen to people once they begin conforming to what society tells them to be. Stagnation, rebellion, and then finally, collapse. So let’s say you watch the evening news, a news segment ends and a commercial pops up. Flashy stuff, huh? The problem here is that marketing media moguls force onto the consumer (of cable television and mass media) their vision of how society should act and look. With education being watered down, its to no surprise that the abandonment of the Founding Christian ideas has become more forefront.

Prior to the educational system being messed with at the break of the 1900’s, Christianity was commonplace. It was considered normal to attend church, study scripture, and support your neighbor in their daily affairs. In fact, church at one time was the only place you could receive your political news. It is this fact that evidences the inseparability of church and state function. America was designed into the fabric of its culture Judeo-Christian values. Without them, we are Romans. Without them, we are broken. Without them, we will not stand as one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. After all, are we not the Roman Empire?

Paul the Apostle wrote the Book of Romans around 57 A.D. The theme of Paul’s book was The Righteousness of God. One key verse states: “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the Power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:16-17. Chapters six through eight contain the foundational principles on the spiritual life. Romans answers questions on how to be delivered from a sinful life, and instead show how to live a balanced lifestyle through grace, and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans dives deep into the critical importance of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross at Calvary. Paul, using a question-and-answer format, prepares the most systematic presentation of doctrine in the Bible and balances his narrative with practical encouragement. With undivided application of Scripture to the daily lifestyle of the Christian believer results in a life being lived in righteousness. This virtue is reflective of the open grace of God.

In 1911, President Woodrow Wilson gave delivered a famous speech in Denver, Colorado. His speech was called, “The Bible and Progress.” In his speech Wilson told the crowd, “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.” It was out of this foundational thought, this principle, which laid out the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. It is America that promises us a life to be lived in virtue. In 1976, President Jimmy Carter said, “We have a responsibility to try to shape government so that it does exemplify the will of God.”

Daniel L. Smith, Historian
​ComplexAmerica.org

When I investigate societal breaks, I investigate morals, ethics, and presumptions. I also investigate cultural varieties and similarities through behavioral and customary tendencies. With that all being said, I am aware of a break in traditional (what was once known as normal) academic thinking at the break of the 20th century. This thinking spilled over into political discourse. Of course, this whole phenomena started well before that. I wrote about it in an article recently where I mentioned that there was a hairline fracture that split the thinking of American traditionalists and progressive intellectuals.

In the 19th going into the 20th century, the Unitarian Church (a secular "church") was the catalyst. Traditionalists (such as the clergy and church) began to slowly halt providing leadership in our public schools and university’s (prior to this was a purely homeschooling education). Harvard was taken over by the Unitarian church, and as the quality of public education began to decline, Horace Mann (the "father of progressive education") would convince the state of Massachusetts that the best way for education to grow would be to have the government take control, instead of the private sector (like families and churches).[1]

As traditional American doctrine was neglected, the competing ideology of socialism has taken off. Karl Marx’s book, which was written in 1844, never had much influence in American society. That was until we had backslid from Christian principles of economics and dabbled in greed. Thus, monopolies would form and grow. Wealth was accumulated, instead of employing the extra wealth to meet the needs of the poor and society itself. Self-culture (or individual interest) began to replace the common good of the community. What followed was indoctrination into “self-culture,” a human thought process of “me, myself, and I” which closely follows materialism. To break open a political divide for control and power, there must be a catalyst to enable this cultural shift. Thus, secular humanism was born.

Marshall Foster writes that “in the loft restaurant above Peck’s restaurant at 140 Fulton Street in lower Manhattan, a group of young men met to plan the overthrow of the predominately Christian world-view that still pervaded America. At this first meeting five men were present: Upton Sinclair, 27, a writer and a socialist; Jack London, writer; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister; J.G. Phelps Stokes, husband of a socialist leader; and Clarence Darrow, a lawyer.

Their organization was called the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Their purpose was to ‘promote an intelligent interest in socialism among college men and women.’ These men were ready to become the exponents of an idea passed on to them by an obscure writer named Karl Marx—a man who never tried to be self-supporting but was supported by a wealthy industrialist who, inexplicably, believed in his theory of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Although a small group in the beginning, these adherents of socialism more than succeeded in their task.”

“By using the proven method of gradualism, taken from the Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus, these men and others who joined with them slowly infiltrated” the public schools of our nation. By 1912 there were chapters in 44 colleges. By 1917 there were 61 chapters of student study groups of the League of Industrial Democracy. “At that time John Dewey, the godfather of progressive education, was the vice-president of the league. By 1941 Dewey had become president and Reinhold Niebuhr, the liberal socialist theologian, was the treasurer.” [3]

The beginning of the end of traditional America had become entrenched. Dr. Stephen K. McDowell mentions that “the loss Christian tradition, character, and responsibility led to the failure of many banks in the early 1900’s. To remedy this situation, power was granted to a centralized Federal Reserve Board in 1913. But this unbiblical economic structure and lack of character produced many more problems. Within 20 years, the Stock Market had crashed, and America was in the midst of the Great Depression.” [4] With the propagation of socialism, people were ready for Roosevelt's “New Deal,” such as Social Security and other welfare agencies, which ultimately set up the State as provider rather than God.

It was exactly this break in thinking that brought back certain negative concepts of “race.” This time however contemporary and glorified in other ways geared towards bending one’s political thought or will towards the leftist ideology, saturating into any historical topic. Our history, as of the 1900's, has been manipulated to make certain academic agenda's fit the needs to a political end as mentioned before. A great example is the evidence in our academic texts over the course of this time.

Professor Paul C. Vitz in a government funded study he conducted in the 1980s on whether bias exists in public school textbooks. His study clearly showed bias and censorship exists, and the nature of the bias is clear: “Religion, traditional family values, and conservative political and economic positions have been reliably excluded from children’s textbooks.” [5]

Vitz wrote that while the bias may not be deliberate, a “secular and liberal mindset appears to be responsible.” And he points out that the bias is primarily manifested by exclusion. As an example, “sixty representative social studies textbooks were carefully evaluated” and “none of the books covering grades 1 through 4 contain one word referring to any religious activity in contemporary American life.” While these social studies texts mention the family, “the idea that marriage is the origin and foundation of the family is never presented. The words marriage, wedding, husband, wife, do not occur once in these books.” [6] It is not surprising why so many Americans today reject the biblical view of the world (let alone history and family).

An excerpt from Dr. Stephen K. McDowell, co-founder, and President of the Providence Foundation, wrote:

The social studies texts frequently presented 'role models' but 'not one contemporary role model is conservative and male.' High school U.S. history texts almost completely ignored major religious events of the past 200 years and there was “constant omission of reference to the large role that religion has always played in American life.' This was true for elementary texts as well. In one second grade history book, 30 pages were given to the Pilgrims, but they were “described entirely without any reference to religion.” At the end of the first year they observed a day of Thanksgiving, but no mention is made of the fact that they gave thanks to God.

Christian bias via exclusion continues in current textbooks. For example, one recent history text quotes the Mayflower Compact: 'We whose names are under-written … do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politick.' What was omitted from this important historical document? Their clear Christian motive: “for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northern parts of Virginia.”

Bias is not only expressed by exclusion but also by changing the meaning of a text or writing. One U.S. History Advanced Placement textbook summarizes the Second Amendment as, "The people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia,” which is an inaccurate meaning of the amendment which clearly states, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This same text says the First Amendment gives us a "separation of church and state," failing to explain this amendment does not separate God from government or religious ideas from public life. Rather, it acknowledges a jurisdictional separation between the institution of civil government and the institution of the church.

Misrepresenting motives is another means of bias. Under the heading 'Roots of American Government,' a popular seventh-grade Houghton Mifflin Social Studies textbook expounds: 'Enlightenment thinkers in the American Colonies were excited. Here they were, the first people in history to have the chance to create an entirely new government based on Enlightenment Principles.' However, America was not created by Enlightenment thinkers on Enlightenment ideas, but according to John Adams, the general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were … the general principles of Christianity.'

This is confirmed in a study done on the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on the political ideas of the Founding Fathers. Professor Donald Lutz conducted an exhaustive ten-year research of about 15,000 political documents of the Founders’ Era, recording every reference our Founders made to other sources. By far, the most quoted source of their political ideas was the Bible, 34% of citations, and about 50% of the other citations came from men with a biblical worldview.

Some texts teach direct lies, like a high school history textbook published by Pearson that teaches Trump is mentally ill and his supporters are racists. In other texts the Founders of America are often presented as atheists, agnostics, or secularists who wanted no religious influence in public life, when in fact, all but a couple of the Signers of the Declaration and two or three members of the Constitutional Convention were orthodox Christians who believed the foundation of free nations rests on the Christian faith."[7] 

It is the above-mentioned analysis on education that feeds into the most common misconceptions and errors; of replacing traditional thought and history which was considered normal daily prior to 1900. I feel this is the most harmful to developing an accurate history and historical interpretation of the early American encounters upon which the course has focused. But of course this is just one opinion of many out there.
 
 Daniel L. Smith


​Resources:

[1] Beliles, Mark A., and Stephen K. McDowell. America's Providential History: Including Biblical Principles of Education, Government, Politics, Economics, and Family Life, 253. 1989.
[2] Field, Peter S. 2001. ""the Transformation of Genius into Practical Power": Relph Waldo Emerson and the Public Lecture." Journal of the Early Republic 21 (3) (Fall): 467-493.
[3] Foster, Marshall, and Mary-Elaine Swanson. The American Covenant: The Untold Story, xvii. Mayflower Inst, 1983.
[4] Beliles and McDowell, 250-251.
[5] Paul C. Vitz, Censorship, Evidence of Bias in Our Children’s Textbooks, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Books, 1986, p. 1.
[6] Vitz, 1.
[7] McDowell, Stephen K. "A Nation at Risk: Changing Textbooks Reveal the Secularization of American Education." Providence Foundation. Accessed February 13, 2021. https://providencefoundation.com/a-nation-at-risk-changing-textbooks-reveal-the-secularization-of-american-education/.

Many people have found hope in these words. Many people have also been misled.

​St. Paul's Church mentions "legend has it that the Desiderata was inscribed on a wall at Old St. Paul’s Church in the late 17th century. In reality, it was written in 1927 by Max Ehrman, an Indiana attorney, poet, and author. Old St. Paul’s is in no way accountable for the poem."

This excerpt is taken directly from a publication made directly from Old St. Paul's Church:

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” So begins the popular poem known as Desiderata, which has comforted and inspired millions of people throughout the world. Known for its words of reassurance, Desiderata has been reprinted in national magazines such as Reader’s Digest, been recited at countless weddings and funerals, and was recorded as a hit pop song in 1972.

Over the years, the source of this well-loved poem has been shrouded in mystery. Legend has it that the Desiderata was inscribed on a wall at Old St. Paul’s Church in the late 17th century. In reality, it was written in 1927 by Max Ehrman, an Indiana attorney, poet, and author. Old St. Paul’s is in no way accountable for the poem.

So how did Desiderata become associated with Old St. Paul’s? To find the answer we must trace back to the season of Lent in Baltimore in the mid 1950’s. The Reverend Frederick W. Kates, rector of Old St. Paul’s from 1956 to 1961, plays a key role in this story. During Lent it was Father Kates’ custom to distribute inspirational poems and quotations to his parishioners. One particular Sunday he placed Desiderata in the pews on parish letterhead, which contained the church’s founding date of 1692. One can only surmise a visitor then copied the poem, along with the misleading credit line, and distribution began in earnest. Even today it is rare to find a copy of Desiderata that fails to include the line “Found in Old St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore, Dated 1692.”

The parish has received inquiries on this piece of poetry from every state in the Union and from countries throughout the world. Desiderata’s popularity endures and so does its mistaken association with Old St. Paul’s.

Further inquiries regarding the Desiderata should be made to:
The Chrysler Building 405 Lexington Avenue New York NY 10174-1299
tel: 212-554-7800 fax: 212-554-7700

​In an era of clues becoming unraveled daily about our human origins and ethnic ancestry, it's important to bring up research that has lately been swept under the rug. This is a topic that requires patience and attention to gain an honest understanding. I bring up this debate of worldviews amid our ever-present culture war in complete grace. My new large-scale historical non-fiction currently being written is titled Providence and the North American Indian. It is a piece of work that brings a topic front-and-center that has not been thoroughly explored since early 20th century’s Edward S. Curtis wrote The North American Indian. Even further, it’s a topic not explored since John Eliot preached to the Indigenous tribes of New England in the early 1600s. 

There is a special relationship, cloaked under a blanket of misinformation, between the nation of Israel and the North American Indian. Over four centuries ago (400 years), it was widely theorized that the Indigenous peoples of the New World were part of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The unique relationship that is uncovered is shockingly similar. There is certain evidence that should be presented, and it will arguably be pushed back against by some individuals as well. Let's start by certain similarities in religious understanding that God indeed created the world, and also came down to destroy civilization.

Archaeologist Ron Wyatt explains, “The Aztec nation, located in southern Mexico, claimed they had lived somewhere in northwestern Mexico or the southwestern US for over 1,000 years before migrating south sometime in the 1000s or 1100s AD. Most of our knowledge of these people comes from the Aztec sacred books, known as ‘codices’, which were kept in their temples and which the native Aztec historians used when they wrote their chronicles. In the first half of the 1500’s, the Aztec chieftain Ixtlilxochitl, wrote Ixtlilxochitl Relaciones, a history relating the archives of his family and the ancient writings of his Aztec nation.” He claims they were descendants to the Toltecs, who had passed down the following tale. In this account, Ixtlilxochitl presents the most complete and accurate account of the flood and events at Babel that have ever been found in any ancient civilization other than the Biblical account:

“It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world, as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in water ‘caxtolmolatli’ (translated to read ‘fifteen cubits’); and here they added other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a ‘toptlipetlocali;’ that this word nearly signifies a close chest; and how, after men had multiplied, they erected a very high ‘zacuali’, which is to-day a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently their languages were confused, and not being able to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth….” [1]

​The Los Lunas Inscription (The Decalogue Stone)

The Los Lunas Inscription is an abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, carved into the flat face of a large boulder resting on the side of Hidden Mountain, near Los Lunas, New Mexico, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque. The language is Hebrew, and the script is the Old Hebrew alphabet, with a few Greek letters mixed in. The stone was found originally in the 1880's.

In 1996, Prof. James D. Tabor of the Dept. of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina - Charlotte, interviewed the late Professor Frank Hibben (1910-2002), a retired University of New Mexico archaeologist, "who is convinced that the inscription is ancient and thus authentic. He reports that he first saw the text in 1933. At the time it was covered with lichen and patination and was hardly visible. He was taken to the site by a guide who had seen it as a boy, back in the 1880s." (Tabor 1997) 

At present the inscription itself is badly chalked and scrubbed up. However, Moorehouse compares the surviving weathering on the inscription to that on a nearby modern graffito dating itself to 1930. He concludes that the Decalogue inscription is clearly many times older than this graffito, and that 500 to 2000 years would not be an unreasonable estimate of its age.

The inscription uses Greek tau, zeta, delta, eta, and kappa (reversed) in place of their Hebrew counterparts taw, zayin, daleth, heth, and caph, indicating a Greek influence, as well as a post-Alexandrian date, despite the archaic form of aleph used. The letters yodh, qoph, and the flat-bottomed shin have a distinctively Samaritan form, suggesting that the inscription may be Samaritan in origin. See Lidzbarski (1902), Purvis (1968).

Further evidence of a Hellenistic or Byzantine influence on Los Lunas is provided by Archaeologist Skupin  in 1989. He analyzes the orthographic errors of the Los Lunas text itself, and concludes that it appears to have been written by a person whose primary language was Greek, who had a secondary, but verbal, comprehension of Hebrew.

The two apparent challenges to this physical evidence of Native Americans being related by DNA to the Ancient Hebrew Israelites are a) carbon dating, and b) the argument that the Paleo-Hebrew etchings are not made to perfection, as would be expected by sacred Jewish scribes of the ancient era. [2]

*NOTE: My defense of the Biblical account of Dispersion stands opposite to this critical theory of Carbon Dating--which has been proven non-accurate and actually works for Biblical evidence, and not against it. Paleo-Hebrew etchings not made to perfection as explained above is completely logical. The author who sketched the stone spoke Greek (which was as common as English in the Biblical era--even in differing continents), and knew verbal expressions of Hebrew itself. From my own private research and regardless of the critics, the Indigenous North American Indians are certainly related by DNA to the Ancient Hebrew Israelite Jews.

​The Decalogue (Artifact)

In November of 1860, David Wyrick of Newark, Ohio found an inscribed stone in a burial mound about 10 miles south of Newark. The stone is inscribed on all sides with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters. The robed and bearded figure on the front is identified as Moses in letters fanning over his head.

The inscription is carved into a fine-grained black stone that only appears to be brown in the accompanying overexposed color photographs. It has been identified by geologists Ken Bork and Dave Hawkins of Denison University as limestone; a fossil crinoid stem is visible on the surface, and the stone reacts strongly to HCl. It is definitely not black alabaster or gypsum as previously reported here.

According to James L. Murphy of Ohio State University, the limestone used was not an immediately local raw resource, however, we need not look any farther than the next county over to find a potential source for the stone, contrary to the previous assertion here that such limestone is not common in Ohio.

The inscribed stone was found inside a sandstone box, smooth on the outside, and hollowed out within to exactly hold the stone. The Decalogue inscription begins at the non-alphabetic symbol at the top of the front, runs down the left side of the front, around every available space on the back and sides, and then back up the right side of the front to end where it begins, as though it were to be read repetitively. [3]

 
Daniel L. Smith,
​ComplexAmerica.org

​
​Resources:

[1] "Myths of the Americas." Wyatt Archaeological Research. Last modified September 11, 2011. https://wyattmuseum.com/mythsof-the-americas/2011-591.
[2] "Los Lunas NM Decalogue Inscription." College of Arts and Sciences |Accessed January 31, 2021. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/mcculloch.2/arch/loslunas.html. 
[3] "The Newark "Holy Stones"." College of Arts and Sciences |Accessed January 31, 2021. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/mcculloch.2/arch/decalog.html.
[4] Ibid.