The prayers that shaped a nation can save it again



I’ve often wondered what our Founding Fathers would think of their great American experiment. Imagine George Washington strolling down the Las Vegas Strip, Thomas Jefferson riding the Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood, or John Adams catching a “throwed roll” at Lamberts in Missouri.

Would they be awestruck by the Independence Day fireworks in New York City? Or cheer at the Super Bowl? Would they marvel at the soaring Gateway Arch in St. Louis? Or the majesty of the Rocky Mountains? Would Betsy Ross wash down a Moon Pie with an R.C. Cola?

‘The greatness of America doesn’t begin in Washington,’ Ronald Reagan said. ‘It begins with each of you — in the mighty spirit of free people under God.’

On the last day of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked if we had a republic or a monarchy?

“A republic, if you can keep it,” he was said to reply.

Without a doubt, America is the most exceptional nation in the world. In the face of great adversity and insurmountable odds, we have overcome. And we have been blessed.

And that’s why I set out on a mission with my friend Michelle Cox to write “Star-Spangled Blessings: Devotions for Patriots.”

It’s a collection of stories about how God has lavished our country with a bounty of star-spangled blessings.

That’s not to say that our great nation has not been through some squabbles. We’ve had more than a few — and some were doozies. We’ve made lots of mistakes, but we’ve also righted many wrongs.

Perseverance is a word that has defined us over the years. Franklin Roosevelt announcing to the nation about a date that would live in infamy. Walter Cronkite relaying to the nation a shocking bulletin from Dallas. President George W. Bush standing on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero with a bullhorn.

Yet, amid great tragedy, our nation has always found strength in almighty God — our defender and our protector.

President Trump knows of that strength, that divine intervention. He survived not one but two assassination attempts.

“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfill that mission together,” he said during a speech in 2024.

I vividly recall watching as the shots rang out in Butler County, Pennsylvania. My heart stopped as Trump dropped to the stage. But then, he rose up, and with blood streaming down his face, he thrust his fist into the air and shouted, “Fight, fight, fight!

President Trump would then urge Americans to read their Bibles, to get back to church, and to pray.

“Let’s make America pray again,” he said.

The president caught quite a bit of grief from the atheists and the Democrats for that altar call.

“Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe that we need to bring them back, and we have to bring them back fast,” the president said at the time. “I think it's one of the biggest problems we have. That’s why our country is going haywire. We've lost religion in our country. All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of people's favorite book.”

Now, that’ll preach, as we say back home in Tennessee.

RELATED: The art of prayer: How to unleash its power

  Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Sure, we have lost our way in this country. We’ve been so focused on taking back Congress and the White House that we forgot to take care of our homes and our communities.

Ronald Reagan said it best in 1984 when he told the nation that “the greatness of America doesn’t begin in Washington. It begins with each of you — in the mighty spirit of free people under God, in the bedrock values you live by each day in your families, neighborhoods, and workplaces.”

As I write in “Star-Spangled Blessings,” we must return to the faith of our founders. A faith that compelled George Washington to pray on bended knee at Valley Forge.

A faith that compelled John Adams to petition the almighty to bless those who resided in the White House. A faith that compelled Franklin Roosevelt to ask Americans to pray for a spiritual awakening.

It’s that sort of American spirit that has resonated with people across the fruited plain. These are moments that define us as a nation.

Lee Greenwood, the singer-songwriter who penned “God Bless the USA,” is a friend of mine, and his anthem to the land of the free and the home of the brave still brings a tear to my eye as I write these words from the hills of Tennessee.

And I suspect that if America’s founders were here today, they would love this land from sea to shining sea. And they would join their fellow countrymen in asking God to bless the USA.

Which will it be, America? God, greed — or the grave?



Worldview is destiny. That’s why I’ve always focused on it during my show — to explain how a powerful nation like ours can draw lessons from history’s triumphs and failures. Right now, I believe America faces three distinct paths forward, each emerging after years of abandoning the foundational values of our forefathers.

But before we can choose any path, we need to face a hard truth: Our current trajectory is unsustainable. We cannot continue pretending this is one nation when some states believe they have the right to seize your children if you don’t consent to irreversible medical procedures — something Colorado voters are considering right now.

Conservatives need to face a hard truth: There’s no political appetite in America for meaningful cuts to government if those cuts involve personal sacrifice or accountability.

Just as we couldn’t share a country with states that once sanctioned slavery, we cannot share one with states that reject basic parental rights. We lied to ourselves back then, too — until a civil war jarred us into reality. History doesn’t let us ignore deep moral divides forever.

We won’t nuance our way out of the three possible destinies we face. Nuance requires spiritual maturity — and we don’t have that. It’s the old question: “What’s the greatest commandment?” If you’re generally aligned with loving God and loving your neighbor, you’ve got room for nuance and a wider range of policy options. But when a nation turns godless — and news flash: We’re already there — nuance disappears. All that’s left is consequence.

The first path forward is spiritual revival. That’s the path of a humble people willing to repent of their foolishness and reorder their priorities. Revival would demand that we live within our means, stop printing money, and return to the principles of limited government.

It turns out that sound economic policy is inseparable from moral clarity. A moral people don’t justify redistributing other people’s money through welfare programs — that’s theft. They don’t dodge consequences by laying claim to what isn’t theirs — that’s covetousness. Strip away morality, and no economic system will save us.

Let’s be honest — we need to go back. Before America even became a nation, its foundation was laid by Puritans, church-chartered colonies, and multiple Great Awakenings. Back then, as now, spiritual revival wasn’t optional — it was essential. Without Christ, we don’t have the supernatural strength to restrain ourselves or sustain self-government. We just don’t.

That’s why one of the first acts of the U.S. Congress was to commission Geneva Bibles for public distribution. The Founders understood that a free people needed more than laws — they needed the fear of the Lord, which Scripture calls the beginning of wisdom. Without that, don’t even bother.

Even as a believer, I once might have tried to pitch you a more measured path back to sanity. But then I watched my fellow citizens wave the white flag — not just to gender ideologues and pandemic authoritarians, but to reality itself.

Instead of drawing lines in the sand, people leaned harder than ever on the same government that had just stripped them of their freedoms. We were made to be ruled — and without a moral foundation, we’ll always find someone else to do the ruling.

This also explains why politicians rarely lose elections by spending too much. Voters want it that way. We live under government by the consent of the governed — and what the governed want is more spending. You might see yourself as a victim of the system, but you’re also complicit in it.

That brings us to the second path: empire. This is the trajectory of a society that craves comfort and rejects consequences — the exact opposite of the humility demanded by spiritual revival. The math doesn’t lie. If we won’t cut spending, we’ll have to raise revenue. Forget fiscal restraint — bring on the second slice.

Conservatives need to face a hard truth: There’s no political appetite in America for meaningful cuts to government if those cuts involve personal sacrifice or accountability. Unless the DOGE saves us through divine crypto intervention, voters aren’t signing up to downsize the welfare state.

We worship our glittering idols of comfort and convenience. So unless someone pries them from our cold, dead hands, we’d better decide who’s going to foot the bill for our national appetite for gluttony and denial.

Democrats plan to bleed their own citizens dry to fund their agenda. The alternative is to make other countries pick up the tab — which is exactly what Red Caesar Trump is trying to do with his grand tariff gambit. Maybe it won’t work. We’ll know soon enough.

That’s why he’s eyeing Greenland. This is what empires do. They demand tribute from weaker nations in exchange for the privilege of doing business with them. I’d love to say we’re nobler than that. But let’s be honest: Nobility doesn’t exactly describe our national mood. We want what we want — and we don’t particularly care how we get it.

Even Ben Franklin — moral failings and all — warned that we could only remain a republic if we made the effort to keep it. But let’s stop pretending that preserving the republic has been a national priority for decades. We’ve chosen empire. That means more mergers, more acquisitions, more demands. That’s the terrain where Trump thrives. Whether we admit it or not, this is the road we’re on — and we chose it.

Unless we’ve simply lost all interest in acting like adults on any level, we’re headed straight for path three: death. But this isn’t just death in the traditional sense. It’s worse. It’s moral collapse. As John Daniel Davidson wrote in his book “Pagan America,” the endgame isn’t America ceasing to exist — it’s America becoming evil.

The real question isn’t whether tyranny will come — it’s who will bring it. Will it be the corporations aligned with the right? Or the communists dressed up as champions of democracy on the left? Call it whatever name you like — “sacred democracy” if you must — but don’t ignore the outcome.

And unlike other Western nations that have walked this path, America owns 300 million guns. So when this collapse hits home, it won’t look like Europe’s slow-motion slide into technocratic authoritarianism. It’ll be faster. Uglier. And bloodier.

That’s not hyperbole. That’s the math of human nature. I’m not offering a prophecy. I’m offering an equation. Our options are few, but we still have agency. We still have a choice.

This is a time for choosing, and what we choose will have consequences that stretch beyond policy or politics. We are staring into something deeper — something metaphysical. The clock is ticking. Everything is at stake.

The only question that matters now is: Who and what are we willing to become?

Democrat senator tries to use Benjamin Franklin to push her narrative about Jan. 6, but it goes horribly wrong



Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) was forced to delete a social media post over the weekend after misquoting Benjamin Franklin to promote her narrative about Jan. 6.

On the third anniversary of the Capitol riots, Shaheen urged her followers to remember the "insurrectionists" who she claimed "put our democracy in jeopardy." And then she tried to quote Franklin.

"'A democracy, if you can keep it,' said Ben Franklin," Shaheen continued. "January 6, 2021, was a stark reminder of just how fragile our democracy is. It is on each and every one of us to never forget the actions that led to that day so we ensure history does not repeat itself."

— (@)  
 

But the problem is Benjamin Franklin did not say, "A democracy, if you can keep it."

Upon the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention in September 1787, a woman named Elizabeth Willing Powel inquired of Franklin what type of government the founding fathers had established.

"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Powel asked.

"A republic — if you can keep it," Franklin responded.

The quote was recorded by James McHenry, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Maryland.

Although the form of government the founding fathers established is a type of democracy, the differences between our constitutional republic and a pure democracy are not insignificant.

Jay Cost, a scholar of American history and government, explains:

Our system is republican in that the Founders understood that the public is the only legitimate sovereign of government. But it is not wholly democratic, in that they feared the abuse of that authority by the people and designed an instrument of government intended to keep temporary, imprudent, and intemperate outbursts of public opinion from dominating the body politic.
...
This is a republican system of government, because there is no point at which a self-appointed or hereditary sovereign can hope to retain power against durable public opposition. Everything flows, ultimately, from the people. But “ultimately” is the key word in that sentence. The people rule, but often not directly. The system is republican, but not entirely democratic.

Shaheen later deleted her social media post, but she did not acknowledge her embarrassing — and telling — error.

 Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!