H.U.G. - The Transformation of U.S. Grant

Everywhere you go in the United States you find high schools, particularly in urban areas, named U.S. Grant High School. Oklahoma City has one. So does Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego and a many other cities. Kids attending one of those schools have no idea how close their school came to being named H.U.G. High School. Ulysses S. Grant, the man after whom these high schools were named, was a Civil War Union General, the 18th President of the United States, and the man credited, along with President Abraham Lincoln, of ultimately preserving the Union. Few people know that Ulysses S. Grant was not his given birth name. In a day when most people were known by their initials or nicknames, H.U.G. was the given name of the man who would become our President.

On April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Hannah Simpson Grant gave birth to our future 18th President. Hannah's husband, Jesse Grant, was a self-educated leather producer (tanner) who suggested they draw names from a hat. Having taught himself the classics - and proud of his knowledge - Jesse wrote down several names from ancient Greek history and Latin literature: names like Ulysses, Heracles, Perseus, and many more. Jesse Grant pulled out the name Ulysses from the hat.

Jesse, in a concession to his devout Methodist wife who wanted a more biblical name for their son, agreed to make "Hiram" the first name of their boy. Hiram is the biblical name of the man who built Solomon's Temple. So, Hiram Ulysses Grant became the given name for the man we know today as Ulysses Simpson Grant.

In pre-Civil War America, people often used their initials as their name. If you look at any census prior to 1850 you will see many names written out with initials. For example, Josh Lee would be  J.L.; Fred Tinsley Cherry would be F.T.C.; and Hiram Ulysses Grant would be H.U.G.

That's right. H.U.G.

These initials caused a great deal of consternation for our nation's future President when he was a schoolboy in Ohio. "H.U.G. (and) stop it." "Give me (a) H.U.G." "Come here (and) H.U.G." -- The jokes were constant. The family was poor in those early days, and since Ulysses was the oldest child, everyone was unsure how H.U.G. could afford to continue his education after high school. Finally, with the help of an Ohio Senator, H.U.G. received an appointment to West Point, which was the best free education of the day, albeit with a military commitment. Jesse Grant was delighted his son was going to West Point to become a military man because "he will never amount to anything in business."

As Ulysses packed up his belongings to move to New York, the initials H.U.G. were placed on his suitcase. Knowing the razzing that would come his way from his classmates - young men who would later compose the infamous Class of 43 at West Point - Ulysses wiped the initials H.U.G. off his suitcase and never allowed them to be used again. It would simply be Ulysses Grant.

However, when he arrived at West Point and signed his papers Ulysses Grant, the enrollment officer told him that the Ohio Senator had nominated him as Ulysses S. Grant. "You either have to sign these papers as Ulysses S. Grant or go home." The "S." assigned young Ulysses by the Senator stood for "Simpson" - the maiden name of Ulysses' mother. The Simpsons were friends of the Senator. Ulysses signed his name Ulysses S. Grant, but shortly his classmates were calling him U.S. Grant, and later by a knick name they gave to him - "Uncle Sam" or "Sam" for short, a play on the U.S. in Grant's name.

The name U.S. Grant and the nickname "Sam" both stuck. U.S. Grant graduated 21st out of his 39 member Class of 43, but first in horsemanship. He went on to serve in the military with distinction during the Mexican War, and afterwards, as a quartermaster for the Army in California and Oregon. He was forced to resign from the Army on July 31, 1854 because of his struggle with alcohol, accused by his superior officer of being drunk while handing out paychecks.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, U.S. Grant was almost forty years old, out of the Army, financially broke because of multiple business failures, and considered a failure by most people. George McClellan, a classmate at West Point, refused to meet with Grant to discuss a possible readmission into the Army when the Civil War began. U.S. Grant's life as a soldier was over.

Dejected and depressed, U.S. Grant went back to farming and shop keeping in Illinois. It was only when the governor of Illinois asked Grant to get into military shape a ragtag group of state volunteers - many of whom were drunkards and former prison inmates - that U.S. Grant got back into the War. He advanced through the state militia ranks, becoming a state appointed General. After many initial, aggressive victories against the south, he came to the attention of President Lincoln. U.S. Grant would eventually become the General-in-Chief of the United States Army - promoted to the position by Lincoln - and the man Lincoln credited with singlehandedly bringing victory to the Union.

 U.S. Grant would later serve two terms as President of the United States  (1869-1877). If you were to compare all the Presidents when they were thirty-nine years of age, U.S. Grant would be the one most people would say had no chance of becoming President.

The fact that he did become President was a testament to timing, fortitude in the face of affliction (war and rejection), and of course, Providence. Two things strike me about the story of U.S. Grant:

(1). It is the man who makes the name, not the name that makes the man, and
(2). It is not nearly as important that a man start well as it is that he finishes well.

The Wizard of Oz and the Flow of Money: An Allegory Illustrating Our Future Economic Collapse

One of my earliest memories as a child is being sick in bed and having my mother read to me The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum, a book most people know by its shortened title The Wizard of Oz. This September Rachelle and I had the privilege of attending the award winning West End theatre presentation of Wicked in London, England, a musical that serves as the prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Fellow Oklahoman and Broken Arrow friend Kristen Chenowith played Glinda the Good Witch of the South when Broadway brought Wicked to the stage in New York City in 2003. Most people are familiar with The Wizard of Oz through broadway or Hollywood's classic 1939 film version starring Judy Garland and not Baum's book.  The differences between the the book, written in 1900, and the later film and broadway versions may at first seem minor, but as is the case in many attempts to bring written material to life through the visual arts, small changes impact the book's overall theme. For example, in order to showcase new improvements in Technicolor, movie producers changed Dorothy's silver shoes in the book version into ruby slippers for the 1939 film version. Unfortunately this small change caused the public to miss the economic allegories in Baum's book. Many today view the The Wizard of Oz as a cute morality play for children. Frank Baum, however, wrote The Wizard of Oz in the late 1890's as a powerful allegory of the economic problems faced by the United States. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz is to economics what John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is to Christianity. If you understand Baum's allegory, you will know why America and European countries are in their current economic crises and why we are headed toward a financial panic in America the likes of which our country has rarely seen. To understand the allegorical parts of The Wizard of Oz, you must have some historical background regarding the economic crisis in America during the 1880's and 1890's. You will not regret reading carefully this post, even if you don't like history or economics. Your retirement savings and your economic future are at risk.

In what is now called The Crime of 1873, the United States government took silver out of monetary circulation and went to gold as the standard for the American dollar. From the formation of the United States in 1776 until the year of the 'crime' of 1873,  the United States had been on a bimetallic standard. In other words, for approximately one hundred years after America's founding as a country, an American citizen could go into a reserve bank, hand over any amount of paper currency (i.e. $10, $20, $100, $1,000, etc...) and be given either gold or silver in return. You would be given about 15 times more silver than gold in terms of weight (for silver traded to gold at a ratio of about 15 to 1), but you could choose the metal you wished to exchange for your dollars. But in the "Crime of 1873" the U.S. government decided to take silver out of monetary circulation. That meant you could no longer get silver for your dollars. The money supply shrank. Beginning in 1873 the only metal that could be exchanged for dollars in America was gold. Beginning in 1873 the government could only issue dollars and increase the money supply in proportion to the amount of gold it held in reserve. Silver was no longer a reserve metal for dollars, and for this reason, the money supply shrank, meaning the collective pool of money available for the exchange of goods in the American economy decreased. A decrease in the available money supply will always lead to deflation. Less money in circulation means lower prices.

Let me illustrate how a decreased money supply lowers prices. Let's say you are on the game Survivor and you and your fellow contestants have not eaten food for 20 days. On the 21st day you and the other 10 contestants are each are given just $20 to bid on 11 different dishes of sumptious food that have been prepared and brought to the camp. You are also allowed to bid on new bedding materials which will make your night's sleep more comfortable.  You see what is available for purchase because it is all laid out in front of you. There's a steak and baked potato, there's a cheeseburger, a chicken salad sandwich as well as blankets, pillows, air mattresses, etc...   You are limited as to what you can buy since you have a limited supply of money. Due to the small amount of money in circulation the price of everything goes down!  However, if you and each of your fellow contestants had actually been given $100 each instead of $20 each, then the price of everything goes up! Why? Because the money supply has gone up, and when more money is in circulation, the price of goods for cheeseburgers and other commodities soars. Prices always eventually go up (i.e. inflation) in proportion to an increase in the money supply, and prices always eventually go down (i.e. deflation) in proportion to the decrease in the money supply.

This Survivor illustration helps you understand The Crime of 1873. The government declared that silver could no longer be used as government money. Silver was taken out of circulation. It's like contestants on Survivor having a large portion of their money taken away before they can bid on goods. The government decreased the money supply and prices for goods across the nation fell as did the demand for those goods by the American public. For the next 25 years, from 1873 to 1898, the United States experienced an average yearly deflation of 1.5%. The people who were hurt the most by the government's decision were farmers from Kansas and the midwest. The prices people were willing to pay for the farmers' crops decreased. Even worse, because farmers were already in debt (as most farmers are), they were having to use the dollars from the shrinking money supply to pay off their old debts.  Think back to Survivor illustration and imagine trying to buy food and bedding materials when you have to pay a past debt with the limited $20 you have in hand. It would be much easier to pay off your old debts if your supply of money is greater. Many farmers in the late 1800's were facing bankruptcy because their debts was high, prices were too low, and there was not enough money in circulation for them to survive economically.

There is an important economic principle that can be derived from the 1873 government decision to remove silver from circulation, a principle that will shed light on today's economic problems and the allegory behind The Wizard of Oz.  The economic principle simply stated: When people or nations  (governments) are in debt, the more money pumped into circulation (i.e. "inflation"), the easier it is to pay off  those debts. The more massive the debt, the more critical the need for a massive increase in money supply.  If deflation is occuring when there is indebtedness, then the debtor will struggle to pay old debts with scarcer, more valuable dollars. Debtors always need an ever increasing money supply.

 Enter Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her cast of characters represent farmers (the Scarecrow), industrial workers (the Tin Man), and fearful politicans (the Cowardly Lion), and they all need help. They follow the Yellow Brick Road (the gold standard) to the Emerald City (Washington D.C.). Oz is the abbreviation for the measurement of gold (i.e. "ounces" or oz.), and the Wizard behind the curtain represents the politicians pulling the strings to decrease the money supply by using only gold as a monetary standard and not silver,  harming all the weary travelers. What Dorothy and her friends need is the addition of silver back into the money supply. The entire Oz narrative is the struggle between the common man and the powerful Washington elites over the supply of money. In the Emerald Palace Dorothy and her friends enter 7 passages and climb 3 flights of stairs ( 73 representing The Crime of 73). Silver is found throughout the Wizard of Oz as the answer to the problems at hand, including the Tin Man receiving "a new ax with a handle made of gold and a blade polished so that it glistens like burnished silver and a silver oilcan to oil himself," a statement by Baum which describes his belief that the industrial worker will be helped with the addition of silver to the monetary supply. And of course, Dorothy's passage back to her farm in Kansas is to click her "silver shoes" three times together, representing that the power to solve the farm girl's problems was there all the time (adding silver to the currency). There are so many more economic principles in The Wizard of Oz, and for further study I would recommend that you read The Fable of the Allegory: The Wizard of Oz in Economics.

Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz,  was an economic activist. He was considered a progressive, someone we might call 'liberal,' today. One of his political friends, William Jennings Bryan, was the Democratic nominee for President in the 1896 and 1900 Presidential elections. Bryan rocketed to fame at the 1896 Chicago Democratic National Convention where he delivered his famous Cross of Gold Speech.  Bryan, who was a devout Christian and went on to infamy in the Scopes Trial, was also a liberal economist, and he closed his famous speech by declaring,  "Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." Bryan and Baum eventually got their wish of a bimetal standard for the American dollar, for the U.S. government reversed course early in the 1900's and added silver back as part of the American currency. You probably remember paper bills with the words "Silver Certificate" etched on the top.

When the government increased the money supply in the early 1900's, the motive was to help the western farmers, just as Frank Baum and William Jennings Bryan requested. But for the last 100 years the government has continued to RADICALLY and RECKLESSLY increase the money supply in America. Why? Because the U.S. government began taking on massive debt of its own. With World War I and then World War II the U.S. government became a debtor nation. However, with the addition of massive social programs in the mid-to-late 20th century, U.S. government became swamped in debt. The U.S. government has become the Kansas farmer of the late 1800's. Our national debt has crossed the fifteen trillion dollars mark. How do you ever get enough cheap dollars to pay off that kind of debt while continuing to spend for an annual operating budget? Is it even possible? Do you add another precious metal as a standard to the American dollar? No. The United States government did something mind-boggling.

The United States government decided in the 1970's to move the American dollar OFF BOTH THE GOLD AND SILVER STANDARD. What was once an argument in Frank Baum's day over a bimetal standard (silver and gold reserve for the dollar) versus a monometal standard (a gold reserve only), became an argument and an ultimate decision by our government to remove the dollar completely from any gold, silver or precious metal reserve standard.  Frank Baum, William Jennings Bryan and every other 19th century economists--both liberal and conservative--would have never dreamed the U.S. government could or would do such a thing.  But it is exactly what our government has done. Try to go into any bank with a $100 bill today and ask to get paid in silver and/or gold for that $100 bill. It won't happen. It can't happen. There's not enough silver and gold in the world to back the number of U.S. dollars in circulation today. The government's decision to move the dollar off any precious metal standard had its genesis in a highly secretive meeting of bankers and politicans in 1910 as they met on an island off the coast of Georgia called Jekyll Island. You may read about the extraordinary results of the government's decision in a highly readable book entitled The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Look at the Creation of the Federal Reserve. What we now have in America is a system where the supply of money is controlled by the United States Federal Reserve and not by the amount of silver and gold we have in reserve to back those dollars. European countries also have this same kind of currency system. The supply of euros is dictated by European Central Banks, all controlled by European governments. There is no precious metal backing. If governments need an increase in the money supply, then governments simply create paper money. Remember that the people who benefit most with the high inflation caused by an increase in the money supply are those people (or governments) who are in debt. Those harmed by an increase in the money supply are the frugal and the savers. In other words, what Frank Baum wanted in 1900 for western farmers in debt, we now have in spades for western governments drowning in debt. Baum wished to add silver to gold as a metal reserve to increase the amount of dollars in circulation, but he never dreamed of a government currency WITHOUT A STANDARD. Now we have NO precious metal standard. The government cannot have the money supply bound by the amount of gold and silver we have in Fort Knox (if in fact any is still there), because the government needs MASSIVE AMOUNTS of dollars in circulation for the government to pay its massive debts.

The American dollar today is what is called a fiat currency. The government prints it. People trust it and use it. If the government wishes to increase the money supply, they do so by simply allowing the creation of more paper dollars, in a process called fractional reserve banking, where the 'reserves' are paper money deposits, not metals!  The only thing that guarantees the fiat money has value is the trust of the people in the currency. What happens when people begin losing trust in government currency? It becomes worthless. This is beginning to take place in Europe as people flee the Euro. One day people will lose trust in the U.S. government and turn away from the government's fiat currency if our debt continues. When that happens, the U.S. will face bankruptcy like Italy, Greec and other European countries face it today. The worst possible case scenario is for a government to be forced to pay back their debts in another government's currency. When this happens the money supply of the debtor government shrinks because the debtor country's currency is considered worthless by the lender country.  The indebted government is then forced to pay its debts using another country's stronger currency (think China). This is why people find protection in precious metals or a stronger government's currency when governments are swamped by debt. The massive expansion of the supply of money which has no metal standard behind it is recklessly endangering a country's freedom and future. To say what is happening in Europe and America today is ultimately highly inflationary is a gross understatement.  Unless massive and painful spending cuts occur, there is coming a collapse of bankrupt governments and national economies. One day soon people will lose complete confidence in their indebted governments.  There will either be riots because governments try to get their fiscal house in order and shut down social programs, or in the worst case, governments will collapse. As the Bible says, "The borrower is a servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7).

Our problem today is the very opposite of the one Dorothy faced in The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy needed an increase in the money supply. Deflation was ruining the economics of the Kansas farmer. The farmer couldn't get a good price for his crop, and he couldn't pay off his past debts with a shrinking money supply. But over the last forty years we have received as a nation far more than Dorothy (Frank Baum) ever wished. We have had a grotesque growth in the money supply because silver and gold have both been REMOVED as a reserve for the American dollar. With the Feds doing everything in their power to fight off DEFLATION in order to keep money cheap to pay off government debt, there is coming very soon a rate of inflation the likes of which America has never seen. Where are the economic John Bunyan's of our day? Where are the Frank Baum's of our day? Where are the people with enough sense to know that America is in need of being taught lessons that are much more profound than cute children's fables suitable for Broadway and the big screen?

Marquis James: A Tribute to the Unqualified Master of Understated Metaphors

Today, August 29, is the birthday of Marquis James. Marquis, raised in Enid, Oklahoma, won the Pulitzer Prize twice. The first Pulitzer Prize was awarded him in 1930 for James' epic biography of Sam Houston entitled The Raven. It is said that President John F. Kennedy was so captivated by The Raven that the book became one of the first gifts he gave to his fiance Jacquelin Bovier.  The second Pulitzer was awarded eight years later, in 1938, for the massive two volume The Life of Andrew Jackson. Marquis James would eventually write sixteen epic historical books.

A Yale University textbook of the late 1940's declared, "The greatest masters of the understated metaphor are Marquis James and William Butler Yeats." When told of the quote, Marquis James allegedly replied mildly, "Who is this man Yeats?" 

Many of you might be saying,  "Who is this man Marquis James?"  

Marquis James is a literary giant and a master of the understated metaphor, and it is through reading his books that I have learned the importance of adding the color of metaphor to both speaking and writing.

A metaphor is a figure of speech which expresses the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. For example, the metaphor "love is a rose" takes the abstract concept of love and makes it understandable by using the visible, tangible and familiar rose (i.e."love blossoms and grows over time, is sweet to the senses, is in close proximity to the pain of thorns, etc...). The imagination is illumined to understand life better by use of metaphors.

The best speakers and writers are those who most often and most naturally use understated metaphors. Marquis James was a master, and anyone who speaks or writes for a living ought to be familiar with him.

120 year ago, on August 29, 1891, Marquis James was born to Houstin and Rachel Marquis James in Springfield, Missouri. Marquis' father would leave his bride and young son two years later to participate in the infamous September 16, 1893 Cherokee Land Run. With the services of a swift horse, Houstin James became the 15th settler to file a land claim at the government land office in Enid, outracing between 90,000 and 100,000 other land seekers. Houstin laid claim to a quarter section of land located two miles southeast of Enid on the banks of Boggy Creek (SE Quarter of Section 17 Township 22 N, R6W).

Two months later Houstin's wife and son joined him in Enid. Marquis, called Mark or Markey while a youth,  attended the Enid public schools,  graduating from Enid High School in 1910. Marquis only attended one year of college at Oklahoma Christian University in Enid (later called Phillip's University) before leaving Enid and traveling the country working for the next five years as a reporter for various newspapers in major cities including Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Chicago, winding up in New York City as a rewrite editor for the New York Tribune.

Marquis formal education was limited to his one year of college, but his enthusiasm for self-learning and his natural abilities led him to become a successful writer. Marquis turned down a job  at the start of World War One to be the Tribune's war correspondent and he volunteered for the American Expeditionary Force and fought on the front lines in France. Marquis was wounded in battle and received the Purple Heart. Upon his return to the United States in 1919, Marquis took a job as the National Publicity Director for the newly formed American Legion. It was in 1925 that Marquis James and Harold Ross, an editor for the American Legion monthly magazine, joined together to found The New Yorker.  Marquis then went to work as a writer for the magazine he helped found.

In 1925, while covering the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee for the New Yorker, Marquis took a break from the coutroom and went to the local library where he came across a large collection of books on Tennessee's native son, Sam Houston. Reminded that he once met Sam Houston's son, Temple Houston, when living in Enid, and that Temple Houston regaled him with stories about his father, Marquis James determined in that Tennessee library to write a biography on Sam Houston. James spent the next four years researching the life of Sam Houston, and then published his manuscript The Raven in 1929. He won the Pulitzer Prize the following year.

Marquis James eventually wrote sixteen epic books, two of which won the Pulitzer Prize, but his favorite book of all was his autobiography of growing up in Enid, Oklahoma within what was formerly known as the Cherokee Outlet. The book, entitled The Cherokee Strip: A Tale of an Oklahoma Boyhood, was published in 1945, and though it did not win a Pulitzer, it remains one of the finest first hand accounts of early Oklahoma life.

Marquis James died suddenly of a brain aneurism on November 19, 1955 at his home in New York. He was working on the definitive biography of Booker T. Washington at the time of his death. After his death, his wife donated James' original manuscripts of The Raven and The Cherokee Strip to the Enid Public Library, where they remain encased and on display in the Oklahoma Room. One of these days someone is going to write a biography on the master biographer we know as Marquis James.

Happy Birthday, Marquis James. Thanks for illustrating how history can be told in a colorful style with metaphorical flair. We would all be better if we turned off the television for a while and read The Raven or The Life of Andrew Jackson or The Cherokee Strip: A Tale of an Oklahoma Boyhood. Maybe this little birthday wish will point a reader in the right direction.

Who Needs Dave Ramsey When You Have the Cherokees?

I live in the middle of the historic Cherokee Outlet. This 225 miles long and 60 mile wide rectangular piece of land, sometimes called the Cherokee Strip, has been roamed by “Plainsmen” Indians (Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita, Pawnee and Osage) for four centuries. However, in 1836 the United States government “gave” this stretch of land to the 'civilized' Cherokee Indians as payment for forcibly relocating them from Georgia to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The Cherokee Outlet was to serve the Cherokees as a perpetual “outlet” to the West from their national capitol in Tahlequah in the northeastern portion of Oklahoma. The history of the Cherokee Outlet is rich and one anecdote from the 1880's has a great deal of relevance for today's economic conditions.

After the Civil War (1861-1865) cattlemen in south Texas owned hundreds of thousands of longhorn steers that sold for $1 to $5 in Texas, but $45 to $50 in New York. These cattlemen began great cattle drives bringing millions of longhorns from south Texas, right through the middle of the Cherokee Outlet, to Kansas rail heads. The cattle were then shipped by train back east to be sold. The cattle drives were needed because trains were not yet running in and out of Texas, contruction of the railroads having been stymied by the Civil War. Some wonderful cowtowns in Kansas like Caldwell, Abilene, and Dodge City (think of the television show Gunsmoke)  became the final destinations of these Texas cattlemen during the 1870's. Some of the more entrepreneurial cattlemen noticed their steers were losing weight on the grueling trail drives from south Texas to Kansas. Seeing the glorious pasture lands within the Cherokee Outlet, the cattlemen decided it would much better to “lease” the Cherokee Outlet from the Cherokees and let their steers grow fat over the winter by grazing within the Cherokee Outlet and then drive the cattle on the short trip to Kansas in the spring.

A meeting was called at the historic cow town of Caldwell, Kansas, (60 miles north of Enid) in March of 1883 to discuss this lease proposition. Many different cattle companies were represented at the meeting, and an association was formed called the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association. These Texas and Kansas cowboys, cattlemen and businessmen joined together to convince the Cherokees to allow them to graze their cattle within the Cherokee Outlet. Representatives from the newly formed Cherokee Strip Livestock Association were dispatched from Caldwell, Kansas to the Cherokee National Capitol at Tahlequah to propose the lease agreement. On May 19, 1883, the Cherokee Council granted the lease of the entire “Outlet” to the Livestock Association for a period of five years, requiring payment to the Cherokees of $100,000 per year, payable semi-annually in advance. In short, the lease required two payments of $50,000 a year to the Cherokees, and if the lease payment was late by even one day, the lease would be considered null and void by the Cherokees.

The Cherokees Refused “Greenbacks” for Payment

There arose a problem, however, after the lease was signed. The cattlemen wished to pay the Cherokees in “greenbacks,” but the Cherokees refused to accept them. Since the Civil War, the U.S. government had experienced with printing dollar bills on paper with green ink as a “medium of exchange.” When the United States government needed money to prosecute the war against the south in 1863, but access to additional gold and silver was virtually non-existent for the government, Abraham Lincoln authorized the Union to “print” paper money to pay soldiers, buy war supplies, and fund the war against the south. Surprisingly, the paper money succeeded. Why? Northerners, in the midst of patriotic fever in the war against the south, chose to accept the medium of exchange.

But nobody else accepted the funny money. This non-acceptance of greenbacks included foreign countries, Indian nations, and of course, the Confederate States of America. After the Civil War the U.S. government went back to a gold and silver coinage medium of exchange for America. This lasted for about a decade until the 1870’s when the United States suffered two very severe economic downturns. To “spur the economy” (sound familiar) the government decided to print more paper money—in essence, to give Americans paper “cash” since the average U.S. citizen had little access to silver or gold coinage.

This time, however, the government’s attempt to create money failed. People didn’t trust the money. Notes issued by prosperous railroad companies, called “railroad currency,” were more trusted by Americans than the federal greenbacks. The U.S. government realized that the greenbacks needed the backing of silver for people to trust them so a proclamation was issued in January 1879 that “the Secretary of Treasury shall redeem in silver coinage the United States all legal tender outstanding.” This meant that if you possessed a greenback you could go into any bank and receive a silver dollar, and the banks had the U.S. government promise that the greenbacks could be redeemed by them for silver dollars from the U.S. Treasury.

That government promise of silver backing for the greenback ended quickly however. The Treasury knew that if people were to make a run on the banks, there would not be enough silver dollars on deposit. The government rescinded their “silver” promise by September of 1879.

By 1883, the Cherokees wanted nothing to do with the American dollar. Due to hyperinflation, the greenback was worthless to the Cherokees. They wanted silver bullion coins—Morgan Silver Dollars.

So in the fall of 1883 the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association sent a wagon with heavily armed escorts from Caldwell, Kansas to Tahlequah, Indian Territory with a treasure chest of $50,000 Morgan Silver Dollars for a six month lease of the Cherokee Outlet. It is said that the Cherokees, upon arrival of the armed caravan, counted out each silver dollar one by one. This practice of delivering chests containing $50,000 silver dollars to the Cherokee Indians continued for several years, until the U.S. government took the land from the Cherokees and the Livestock Association in order to open the Cherokee Outlet for white settlement in the infamous 1893 Cherokee Run, classicly portrayed by Ron Howard’s 1992 movie Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The Cherokees may have lost the Cherokee Outlet, but by 1893 their decades long demand for payment in the form of silver bullion set the Cherokees up to be the most successful tribe financially of all the Indian tribes in Oklahoma during the early portions of the 20th Century.

The moral of the story?

(1). When the government is broke, it prints more money.
(2). When more money is printed, smart people begin demanding gold or silver.
(3). When gold or silver is in demand, the value of the greenback continues to fall.
(4). Hyperinflation is the natural consequence of the devaluation of the paper dollar.
(5). The paper dollar will eventually be taken off the market when it is not trusted and a new “medium of exchange” will be introduced.

It’s coming. Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat its failures. Who needs Dave Ramsey when you know the history of the Cherokees?

Smiling,



Wade Burleson

Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?

On Monday, March 7, after making a couple of stops in Oklahoma City, I ventured twenty miles south to the campus of the University of Oklahoma. My destination was Monett Hall, formerly the University's Law Library, but now the building that houses the Western Heritage Museum. The Museum is free, but my desire was to be able to see something that I knew the staff at the Western Heritage Museum kept in the vault. A poem, handwritten on both sides of a legal size piece of paper by Abraham Lincoln, was my objective. The poem, authored by William Knox (1789-1825), is a dark narrative on man’s mortality. Lincoln considered Knox's poem, entitled "Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" to be the finest poem ever penned.

President Lincoln quoted portions of Knox's poem from memory so often that many thought he was the original author. While campaigning in Illinois in 1849, Lincoln and his associates were entertained by a trio of ladies who sang for them. Lincoln, pressed by the trio to sing something himself, politely declined but offered to quote a poem. When Lincoln finished reciting the verses of Knox’s poem, those who heard him had been moved to tears. One of the young ladies in the trio requested a written copy of the poem. During the night Lincoln wrote out the verses on a piece of parchment and gave it to the woman at breakfast the next morning. Henry Benjamin “Heine” Bass (1897-1975) from Enid, Oklahoma purchased this piece of Lincoln memorabilia in the 1930’s and he considered it the most valuable artifact in his vast Lincoln collection. It is part of the Bass Collection at the Western Heritage Museum, but is not displayed for the public. I would estimate the artifact's worth to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Museum staff pulled the poem out of its vault for me to see. There is something deeply moving when sitting at a table and reading a poem you know to be Lincoln's favorite, written with his own hand. This particular piece of Lincoln memorabilia has never been photographed, at least in terms of published photography. I was surprised by a couple of curious things regarding Lincoln's handwriting and the piece of parchment itself. But it was the somber tone of Knox's words, read slowly by me at the table out loud (on behalf of the archivist who wished to hear the poem read) that moved me the most. Below is the poem in its entirety. The book I am writing on John Wilkes Booth and Boston Corbett takes its title from one of the lines in the poem - "A Transient Abode."


OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?
by: William Knox (1789-1825)

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.


The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.


The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,--
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.


The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,--her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.


The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.


The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.


The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.


So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.


For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.


The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.


They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
The scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.


They died, aye! they died; and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.


Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.


'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,--
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

One of the Costs of Real Leadership Is Being Misunderstood and Misperceived

By all accounts President Abraham Lincoln was a Christian man full of mercy and compassion. Several anecdotes from his life reveal a genuine love for his fellow man, even his enemies, including the ability to forgive and pardon those who personally wronged him. The United States Department of War complained of an increased lack of discipline within the ranks because troops knew that President Lincoln often pardoned soldiers who deserted the army. Lincoln spent the last week of his life granting hundreds of pardons to both Confederates and Union soldiers, sparing many from a death sentence.

However, Lincoln could also be tough as steel. Word reached President Lincoln that the Confederate States of America had issued orders that any black Union soldier captured in Confederate Territory was to be executed instead of taken as a prisoner.  The Confederates were furious with the January 1, 1863 implementation of Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" and the resultant recruitment and deployment of black soldiers within the Union army. Upon hearing of the CSA's orders to execute black prisoners of war, President Lincoln issued his July 1863 "Order of Retaliation" which stated in part:

"The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered that for every [Black] soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for everyone enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war."

It seems to me that principles of justice demand that when people full of grace are faced with the prospect of the weak and defenseless being unjustly harmed, the only appropriate response is an "eye for eye" approach to the abuser. That kind of tactic is not easy. It requires both moral discipline and strong leadership. In addition, when people don't know their leader personally, as was the case with most regarding President Lincoln, they will often base their opinions of the leader on his public writings alone. This would have led to a false impression. But being misunderstood is one of the costs of leadership. Those who lead should know this. It is also a sign of weak leadership when one is constantly trying to correct false perceptions of himself (or herself).

I consider President Lincoln one of the best leaders our nation has ever seen.

Thunder Win Over Lakers Not that Big of a Deal in the Grand Scheme of Eternity

Logan, my sixteen year old son, and I have just finished a three day, 1200 mile research tour for a forthcoming book. He was particularly helpful as we traversed some lands, rivers, and locations that are difficult to find, even with GPS and a four wheel drive vehicle! Our trip was preparation for a duplication of the same journey that I will take next week with award winning photographer Mike Klemme. Mike and I will be developing an exhibit for Enid's new Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center. In addition, we intend to publish a book which will tell an incredible story, one that the Oklahoma Chronicles called in 1936 "the most colorful narrative in the official 140 volumes of the Civil War."  Within the story is a great deal of American and Oklahoma history, lessons in leadership and courage, and an excellent picture of God's sovereignty over man's affairs. This is my first history book, and I hope it will be of interest to people both in Oklahoma and across the nation. It has definitely been profitable to me and my ministry in terms of the research and preparation.

We ended our journey last night by arriving just in time for the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Los Angeles Laker basketball game. One of our church members couldn't make the game and he gave Logan and I his courtside tickets. My ears are still ringing! Someone told me TNT said that the crowd last night was the loudest in the history of their NBA telecasts. I guess they use an instrument to measure "decibals" and never before has the reading from a professional basketball game reached the level it did at last night's game. I believe it.

Logan and I left the Ford Center at 11:30 p.m.., and we didn't arrive home until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with my youngest son, and our discussions were possibly more profitable to me than him. One of the things we opined about on the trip back to Enid was the incredible frenzy people get into when it comes to basketball or football in our beloved state. We both wondered what it would be like if people were just as excited about living their lives for Christ as they are about sports. It seems to us that people get particularly frenzied about sports  because there is a void in their lives spiritually. Now, don't get me wrong. I love sports too! Most who know me can tell you of my passion for Oklahoma football (and now Thunder basketball), but I also understand that in the grand scheme of things, sports are of minor importance. Thankfully, having my son with me for three days as we discussed the history of 150 years ago, and as we looked forward in our talks to the future 150 years and our impending experiences after death, allowed us to come to the same conclusion after the game. The Thunders' win over the Lakers was part of GREAT night for sports in Oklahoma, but in the end, it is not really that big of a deal. A grasp of history and theology will ensure sports are put in their rightful place.

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson

The Great Treaty: A Priceless Document Burned in Oklahoma in April 1861

It was my privilege Friday to enjoy lunch with Kerry Holton, President of the Delaware Nation, and his mother, Helen Holton. The Delawares, also known as the Lenape Indians, played a prominent role in United States history. Chief Tammany of the Delawares met with William Penn in 1682 and the agreement between them, called "The Great Treaty," showed the world that whites and Indians could live together in peace and harmony. The city built on the spot of that agreement and named in its honor was Philadelphia--"the city of brotherly love." Voltaire called it "the only treaty never sworn to and never broken." The stone relief, pictured left, portrays the agreement between the Delawares and Penn and is found in the famous frieze of history in the United States Capital. The document held in the left hand of William Penn is "The Great Treaty" itself, given to the Delawares to seal Penn's resolution "to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with you."

Americans idolized Chief Tammany for his peaceful spirit, wisdom, and willingness to co-exist with colonists, and "Tammany Societies" cropped up all over the colonies in honor of Chief Tammany. These political activists cherished justice, liberty and freedom, and would often dress up as Chief Tammany when going to their meetings. One of these Tammany Societies in Boston, on the night of their weekly meeting (December 16, 1773), decided to go to the harbor and dump out the tea from British cargo ships in protest of the aggressive British taxes without corresponding American representation in parliament. Thus, contrary to some historians, the Boston Tea Party was not an attempt by Americans to blame the Indians, but freedom loving Americans who were honoring Chief Tammany and his principles of freedom and justice through non-violent protests by simply wearing the Indian garb they always wore at the Tammany Society Meetings. Eventually, Tammany Societies, deteriorated into political machines like the one in New York (Tammany Hall) and controlled the Democratic Party and all political appointments.

My lunch guests are descendents of Tammany and the great Delaware scout Black Beaver. Black Beaver, a captain in the United States army and one of the most heroic men in American history, guided Union Troops out of Indian Territory (Oklahoma) at the beginning of the Civil War (April 27-May 20, 1861). Abraham Lincoln needed these experienced, professional troops in Indian Territory for the war back east. The United State soldiers had entered Indian Territory through Arkansas, a state now in Confederate hands, so to make their way back east they had to avoid the Confederates and travel north to Kansas through untraversed Indian Territory. This land in northern Oklahoma was controlled by the Cherokees and other tribes sympathetic to the Confederacy. The Delaware Indian scout, Black Beaver, who was 55 at the time and retired from military service, agreed to guide the soldiers, civilians and support personnel out of Indian Territory. He succeeded in getting nearly one thousand U.S. troops to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, many of whom became Generals in the Union Army during the next four years. Black Beaver was later given The Peace Medal by the President of the United States for his efforts in support of the Union. When the Confederates found out what Black Beaver had done, they burned his house and his crops. After the Civil War, Black Beaver returned to his home to find he had lost everything.

But the one thing I learned at lunch Friday that startled me is what was lost in April 1861 when Black Beaver's house (near Anadarko, Oklahoma) was burned to the ground. Helen Holton, Black Beaver's great-great- grandaughter said Black Beaver was tremendously grieved because he had been given the responsibility of caring for "The Great Treaty" that William Penn had given to Chief Tammany. Tammany had given it to an honored Delaware for safe keeping. The treaty was then passed down for generations, kept as the most treasured possession of the Delaware people. Again, the document in question is shown in the stone relief above as being held in the left hand of William Penn. It had been cherished by the Delawares for a total of  one hundred and eighty years. But when Black Beaver's house burned, "The Great Treaty" burned with it.

I can't help but wonder two things:

(1). How much would "The Great Treaty" be worth today if it were still in existence?
(2). How many other documents of historic value are lost for all time through the devilish actions of mankind?

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson

History is the Prologue to the Future: The 1843 International Indian Council

This photograph of me was taken on Goat's Ridge on the eastern side of the Illinois River about 10 miles north of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I've been speaking at FBC Tahlequah this week and Pastor Buddy Hunt and a few friends went touring with me through the historic area on Monday. Tahlequah is the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and beginning with the Trail of Tears in 1839, the city has played an important role in Oklahoma and United States history. When the Cherokees and four other "civilized" Indian tribes (Choctow, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole) were removed by the U.S. federal government from Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and other eastern states, they were forcibly marched to Oklahoma to live in the land given them by the United States "as long as the waters run." The U.S. would eventually break their promise after the five civilized tribes sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, but for two decades prior to 1861, the Indians had other problems of their own in Indian Territory.

When the largest number of Cherokees arrived in northeastern Oklahoma in 1839 at the end of their Trail of Tears, they discovered they weren't welcome by other Indians. The Osage Indians had fished and hunted the rivers and woods of northeastern Oklahoma for centuries, and other wild "Plainsmen" Indian tribes had hunted the land for migrant buffalo and other wild game and considered it their land. By 1844 the wars between the various Indian tribes were numerous and fierce. The United States government built and staffed a few forts in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to try to protect the "civilized" Indians from the native Indians, but the troops were largely unsuccessful. If something wasn't done, and soon, the Indians would fight and kill themselves out of any meaningful existence. It was the Cherokee Indians who proposed what ultimately became the solution.

In September of 1843, the International Indian Conference was held in the capital square of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It was, and is to this day, the largest official pow wow and peace conference among Indians held on this continent. The agreements that came out of this conference formed the basis for a lasting peace among the Indian various tribes. It just so happens, that an American artist named John Mix Stanley, had accompanied a couple of tribes to the 1843 conference. His painting of the event, entitled "International Indian Council," is displayed at Smithsonian American Art Museum.

One of these days, hopefully soon, there should be a similar conference among Southern Baptists. The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has issued their report. It is a difficult challenge to find common agreement among Southern Baptists in 2010, and I commend them for trying. But as long as some groups see other groups as the enemy (and want them gone from the SBC), it will be difficult to focus on the Great Commission. No group is able to expand her mission while the focus and energy is on fighting tribes of the same heritage. Someone has said that history is the prologue to the future. I would be thrilled for Southern Baptists to model the Indian nations of 160 years ago and actually sit down together and come to some kind of mutual understanding for a peaceful co-existence.

Then, the Great Commission can come into focus.

In His Grace,

Wade

The Baptism of General Sam Houston by Rufus C. Burleson

This authentic photograph from the 1850's portrays the pool near Little Rocky Creek in Washington County, Texas, where one of my ancestors, Dr. Rufus Columbus Burleson, baptized General Sam Houston (1793-1863), on 19 November 1854. General Houston, the man for whom the city of Houston is named, was the only person in U.S. history to serve as Governor of two different states--Tennessee (1827-1828) and Texas (1859-1861). He was a very good friend of Rufus Burleson, pastor of the Baptist Church in Independence, Texas, who later served as President of Baylor University. Houston was also a close friend of Burleson's predecessor, the Reverend George Washington Baines, the maternal great-grandfather of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson. George Washington Baines would also later serve as President of Baylor University.

This little pond where General Houston was baptized was on the Little Rocky Creek which runs just south of College Station, Texas and the Texas A & M University. There is a ton of Burleson history in that area of the world. After baptizing Sam Houston, Rufus Burleson declared to the General “Your sins are washed away”, to which Houston is said to have replied, “God save the fishes!" My baptismal views are not quite as regenerative in nature as my ancestor's, but I can't help but laugh at the wit and humor of the patriarch of Texas. For more on General Houston, see a short biography of his life. For more on Rufus C. Burleson see here.

In His Grace,

Wade

The Diluted Church: Why America's "Christian" History Matters Not

Many small groups in our church have used Focus on the Family's The Truth Project as the basis for study this past year. The retelling of America's history in Lesson 10 of The Truth Project has inspired many of our church members to political action in order to "reclaim America" for Christ. I commend the idea of a "biblical worldview" as advocated by The Truth Project, but there has been something nagging me in the back of my mind about the current penchant of conservative, evangelical Christians, even those within our church, to "take back America" through social, political and cultural activism. I wasn't quite sure what it was that was bothering me until I read a book yesterday entitled The Diluted Church, written by Timothy Price. Tim writes:

Many think that America's founding was "Christian" in the best sense of the meaning. However, if being Christian is having a personal relationship with God, it becomes impossible collectively speaking, for a nation to have that kind of relationship with God. Therefore, America at best could only be influenced by Christian thought, it cannot be an institutional example set up by God such as Israel. This then debunks the concept of America attaining covenant nation status as some teachers have tried to espouse, in trying to buttress the need to go out and re-take what is ours, according to their estimation.

Tim goes on to explain the problems American Christians run into when they try to advocate a particular "Christian" view of American history. Though the following quotations from the book run long, it is well worth your time to read them. They should help entice you to purchase Tim's book and read the rest of the cogent, biblically supported 275 pages that helps us understand our Christian identity is never to be wrapped up in the rise or fall of any nation, including the United States.

The Secular View of America's History

Conservatives judge the public school's rendition of American history to be revisionistic. This word describes the purposed removal of certain bits of information that do not support a presupposed theory or philosophy employed to analyze any certain era. In plain words, Christians accuse secularists in the education system of systematically eliminating all references to God or Christianity which naturally occurred in American History. Since many of the educational elite do not believe in God, they don't want others to see His hand in any historical affair and be tempted to believe in Him. In an effort to carry out their agenda, they simply delete historical accounts referencing God or Christianity's influence in the events of this country. Christian conservatives are reasonably accurate in their concerns and analysis of what is happening in the public education system.

Now, can we learn from this rendition (the secularists') of history? Not really; this view is inaccurate. It has been purposely twisted and is therefore unreliable.

The Providential View of America's History

Now that we have perspective on the secular view of American History, let's look at conservative Christians themselves to see how they fare at an accurate telling of America's founding. A small group within the conservative Christian populace reacted to the public school system squelching God out of the picture in the historical accounts of this country's founding. In turn, they have gathered a telling of their own about this period to reassert "the truth." Their rendition of America's origin is termed providential; meaning that events of the founding were controlled and/or orchestrated for God's divine purpose.

In the 1970's there was one book published which sparked unprecedented interest in this perspective, entilted "The Light and the Glory." This book is a fanciful reinterpretation of many real historical events. It is devoid of many facts that would otherwise deflate the theoretic position that America was ever a Christian-Nation. "The Light and the Glory" is not an accurate telling of history, just a very partial one. We cannot divorce all the realities while recounting an era of history and still call it correct. What is godly about rebellion, slavery, the (mis)treatment of Indians, Freemasonry, Unitarianism, Deism and Enlightenment thinking, which are all intrinsically part of the fabric of this country's founding? Where in the Bible do you find the ideas of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" Why was this country in such need of the Second Great Awakening if this country was a Christian-Nation, as the authors suggest? The authors blatantly gloss over many other facts to arrive at their conclusion that America was a special nation of destiny in God's economy, a "convenant nation" as some term it.

Can we really learn from this view of history? Not really.

Politically conservative believers that allow themselves to subscribe to this particular retelling of history are nothing more than pots calling the kettle black. Without realizing it, they have become just as revisionistic as their archnemesis, "the liberal education system."

The Conspiratorial View of America's History

To add confusion to the mix, there is yet a third perspective with a different approach to history than the first two. The "conspiratorial" view contends that history is being engineered or purposely designed by certain entities or power groups rather than being accidental or providential as the other two pwerspectives espouse. Conspiratorialists believe that there are "dark forces" at work behind the scenes at all levels of government to subject the world and its population to a one-world government. They have support to look at history in this fashion and they have published reams of facts and documentation over the years.

So, can we really learn from this view of history?

Not really. This view is known to be questionable in its assumptions and is therefore unreliable. The conspiracy theories create a paranoia and build an unnatural suspicion in its readership. Conspiratorialism questions the scriptural teaching that Christ has overcome the world. Believers should not be afraid and always suspicious. Most conspiracies are not as pervasive as many conspiratorialists would like to make it appear. Certainly, there is conspiracy within the human realm. Yet it is no stretch biblically speaking to say that conspiracy is also a device of the enemy of our souls. It is just as plausible to believe that the enemy and his minions orchestrate much of what the conspiratorialists interpret to be a strictly humanly devised affair on the physical level.

Conclusion

The subject of the importance of American history and the lack of validity of an emass political push to "reclaim America" over the past 40 years could be quickly resolved if we went back to scripture as our source of objectivity and truth. The significance, or more correctly the insignificance of recent historical events to the follower of Christ, such as the founding of America, could also be addressed. We could see that our identity as Christians is not established in the ethnicity or nationality we acquired through entering this world. As followers of Christ we would not be divided against the rest of the Body of Christ around the world by allowing ourselves to maintain an identity with America after conversion, through any telling of history. Finally, we could also see that we would have a better worldview if we didn't cloud it by giving ourselves signficance through accepting American History as being anything other than the rise and expected fall of another human empire, even as extraordinary as it has been.

As a lover of history, and a conservative, evangelical Christian who believes in the supremacy of God's word, I don't think I have ever read a more appropriate sentence on the subject of a believer's identity in Christ--particularly the believer who happens to live in the United States of America--than the one highlighted in bold print above.

That little nag in the back of my mind caused by Lesson 10 of The Truth Project has been satisfactorily scratched. Thanks Tim.

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson