One Nation Under Fill-in-the-Blank (Reed Heustis)

Reed Heustis of the Christian Constitutionalist wrote a very compelling article our American culture’s views of “God”.

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From the Archive: Christmas, the Schools, and the Constitution

Sent November 28, 2005
by John W. Whitehead

“I think there’s something wrong with me. I just don’t understand Christmas. I like getting presents, sending cards, decorating trees and all that. But instead of feeling happy, I feel sort of let down.”

–Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965

When I was a child in the 1950s, my parents didn’t have much money to spend at Christmastime. I remember one Christmas when I wanted a cowboy gun and holster from Santa Claus. I got the toy pistol, but Santa, it seems, couldn’t afford a holster. So my dad made one for me out of one of my mother’s old leather purses. It didn’t look like the ones on TV, but it worked pretty well. And it made me feel good that my dad cared enough to do what he could to make a little boy’s Christmas dream come true.

Being poor didn’t really matter all that much because there was magic in the air. And the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. We sang Christmas carols in the classroom. There were cutouts of the Nativity scene on the bulletin board, along with the smiling, chubby face of Santa and Rudolph. We were all acutely aware that Christmas was more than a season to receive—it was a special time to give as well.

But times have changed. Violence and turmoil surround our schools. Police officers walk the hallways, and embattled teachers act more like wardens than instructors. Sadly, the timeless celebration of Christmas seems to have been lost in the mix as well. Schools across the country avoid anything that alludes to the true meaning of Christmas—such as angels, the baby Jesus, stables and shepherds. For example, a member of a parent/teacher organization at a Connecticut elementary school was in charge of decorating a large display case in the school’s entrance. For the upcoming December holidays, she was planning to put up a display called “Festival of Lights” and feature a display with a crèche for Christmas and a Menorah and Star of David for Hanukkah, along with a document that explains the histories of both events. However, she was told by school officials that no religious objects could be used in the display.

A kindergarten teacher in a Texas public school was informed that he could not mention the word “Christmas” or tell the historical Nativity story because someone in the district might sue. All other secular customs of the “winter holiday” were deemed to be okay, just not the religious symbols of Christianity. According to the school principal: “We cannot tie candy canes, trees, wreaths, Santa Claus, etc, as a religious symbol. What we can teach is the secular side of holidays. We can have the tree, candy cane, wreath, Santa Claus, etc, anything that is secular. No religious words can be attached. We cannot read aloud to the students any book pertaining to religious beliefs or happenings brought by you [the teacher] or the students. The student who brings a book can read/look at the book silently.”

Another incident that highlights this extreme Christmas phobia involves a Michigan elementary school, where the principal issued a directive specifically forbidding references to God, Christianity or the birth of Jesus Christ. This is censorship, pure and simple.

I have yet to understand how anyone can discuss the true—or even historical—meaning of Christmas without at least a reference to Christ. Surely something has gone wrong when America’s children are encouraged to celebrate the fictional Rudolph but are refused the opportunity to even mention Jesus, who was an actual, historical person. To claim that Christmas is something other than it is—a holiday with a religious foundation—is both dishonest and historically unsound.

Indeed, Christmas (Old English Cristes Moesse, “the Mass of Christ”) was instituted, and for centuries kept, as a religious holiday (as in “holy day”). Originally, Christmas included festivities, but its primary purpose was to provide a time for spiritual renewal.

Unfortunately, far too many parents, students and teachers erroneously believe they cannot celebrate the religious nature of Christmas in the public schools. Whether through ignorance or fear, Americans are painfully misguided about the recognition of religious holidays. Ironically, the most targeted religious holiday for exclusion is Christmas—also the most popular in American culture. Are our schoolchildren to be forbidden from learning about one of the most culturally significant events because it has religious overtones?

There are constitutional ways to celebrate Christmas in the public schools without violating the United States Constitution. These are succinctly set forth in The Rutherford Institute’s “Twelve Rules of Christmas.” While it is true that public school teachers, as agents of the state, may not advance religion, they are allowed to discuss the role of religion in all aspects of American culture and its history. And this includes the religious aspects of the Christmas holiday.

Indeed, teachers can use Christmas art, music, literature and drama in their classrooms, as long as they illustrate the cultural heritage from which the holiday has developed. Religious symbols, such as a Nativity scene, can be used in this context as well. Of course, any holiday observance should occur in an educational setting, rather than in a devotional atmosphere. Teachers should also remember to offer students and their parents the school district’s opt-out policy as an alternative to the teaching about any particular religion.

While our Constitution does not give carte blanche to promote religion in the public schools, neither does it dictate a cleansing of Christmas from the classroom. Students may enjoy the same freedom of religious expression that is allowed any other time of the year—in or out of the classroom. This means that students can freely distribute Christmas or Hanukkah cards to their friends and teachers, just as they would a birthday card. Such cards can even mention the words God and Jesus Christ.

The trend toward erasing traditional Christmas practices from our daily life is discouraging and disheartening. In a society already known for its selfishness and consumerism, it seems that a religious holiday would be an opportunity to celebrate something more essential, something wholesome and good and also something that would remind us of our nation’s history—one that is dominated with a spiritual and religious heritage.

In fact, rather than making Christmas the height of the selling season, why can’t the focus be on celebrating family and friendship, camaraderie and memories? Why can’t it be a time to reflect and celebrate our freedoms? Why can’t it be a season of extending a helping hand to the less fortunate? Why can’t it be a time to step back and meditate on the original meaning behind the Christmas holiday? And why can’t these important traditions be taught in our schools?

It has been 40 years since Charlie Brown, as he puzzled over the glitz and commercialism of the modern age, asked, “Doesn’t anyone know the true meaning of Christmas?” Linus responded by telling the story of Jesus Christ’s birth, as recounted in Luke 2:7-14, to his friends and classmates. What Charles Schulz’ beloved 1965 cartoon did not capture, however, was the growing aversion on the part of many school officials and public figures to anything remotely related to the true Christmas story. Hopefully, as our children ponder what Christmas is all about—a subject that almost certainly arises in the classroom—our teachers at least will realize that they have the right to truthfully answer the question. If so, our children will have the opportunity to experience the richness of our traditions and culture. And what better time than Christmas?

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. Information about the Twelve Rules of Christmas and The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

Want to read more? Visit The Rutherford Institute website!

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The Rutherford Institute 1440 Sachem Place Charlottesville, VA 22901 Phone: 434-978-3888/ FAX: 434- 978-1789/ website: http://www.rutherford.org

Separation of Church and State? Not According to our Founding Fathers

Here are some quotes that I believe obliterate the notion that our Founding Fathers intended a grand separation of church and state.

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It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Patrick Henry.

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The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: that it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.John Quincy Adams.

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Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of Supreme Court: One of the three men most responsible for the Constitution.

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Do not let anyone claim the tribute of American patriotism if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics.George Washington from his Farewell Address to the Nation.

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Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind…It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in the sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892. The Court cited 87 precedents.

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The purest principles of morality are to be taught. Where are they found? Whoever searches for them must go to the source from which a Christian man derives his faith–the Bible.Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 1844.

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Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government.People v. Ruggles, 1811: 2 decades after the 1st Amendment.

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.First Amendment.

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By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing.Runkel v. Winemiller, 1796.

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The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall; it keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government.Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States January 1, 1802 in an address to the Danbury Baptists.

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Had the people, during the Revolution, had any suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle…At the time of the adoption of the constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect…in this age there can be no substitute for Christianity…That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendents…the great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.House Judiciary Committee Report, March 27, 1854 after a one year study brought about by a suit to force the separation of church and state.

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Challenges to the Constitutionality of the government being run by Christian principles continued throughout the late 1800’s until finally these challenges arrived at the Supreme Court. In the case of Reynolds v. United States, 1878, the court pulled out Jefferson’s speech in its entirety and confirmed that Jefferson also said that Christian principles were never to be separated from government. The Supreme Court used Jefferson’s speech for the next 15 years to make sure that Christian principles stayed part of government. It remained this way until 1947, when, in the first time in the Supreme Court’s history, the court used only 8 words out of Jefferson’s speech.Unknown

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[Please notice the change in the 1960s and the quotes found therein.]

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The first separation of religious principles from public education. This is the case that removed school prayer. There were no precedents cited. The court did not quote previous legal cases or historical incidents. A new direction in the legal system – no longer constitutional.

Engel v. Vitale, June 25, 1962.

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“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our Country.”

The 22 word prayer was declared to be unconstitutional and led to the removal of all prayer from public schools in the case Engel v. Vitale. This little prayer acknowledges God only one time. The Declaration of Independence itself acknowledges God 4 times.

Within 12 months of Engel v. Vitale, in two more cases called Abington v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett, the court had completely removed Bible reading, religious classes/instruction. This was a radical reversal of law – and all without precedental justification or Constitutional basis. The Court’s justification for removing Bible reading from public schools. The Court at this time declared that only 3% of the nation professed no belief in religion, no belief in God. Although this prayer was consistent with 97% of the beliefs of the people of the United States, the Court decided for the 3% against the majority.

Unknown.

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If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and had been, psychologically harmful to the child.

Abington v. Schempp, June 17, 1963.

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It is unconstitutional for a student to pray aloud.

Reed v. Van Hoven, 1965.

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The Court declared a 4 line nursery rhyme unconstitutional because, although it did not contain the word “God”, it might cause someone to think it was talking about God.

DeCalv v. Espain, 1967.

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If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all it will be to induce the school children to read, meditate upon and to perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments; this is not a permissible objective. Stone v. Gramm, 1980, challenging the right of students to “see” the 10 Commandments on the wall of a school. The Court defined the posting of the document as a “passive” display, meaning someone would have to stop and look on their own volition.

Stone v. Gramm, 1980.

[Quotes provided by Sermon Illustrations.]

Can God Bless America?” by John MacArthur

I would like to heartily recommend a little book called “Can God Bless America?” by John MacArthur. This will be likely the shortest book review in the history of man.  I recommend this book because it asks a question that few other books ask:  “What must we do for God to bless America?”  For too often, we believe that just because we are the United States of America that God has to bless them by default.  Not so!  This is a short book and a good read.

Can God Bless America?” by John MacArthur

I would like to heartily recommend a little book called “Can God Bless America?” by John MacArthur. This will be likely the shortest book review in the history of man.  I recommend this book because it asks a question that few other books ask:  “What must we do for God to bless America?”  For too often, we believe that just because we are the United States of America that God has to bless them by default.  Not so!  This is a short book and a good read.

Which Way Is Our Nation Going? (Sermon on Psalm 2)

Here is the sermon via RealAudio I preached at Boone’s Creek Baptist Church on Sunday, July 2, 2006.  To download it to your computer, right click and then click “Save Target As” and you’re good to go.

The “Other” Holiday Season (James Clymer, Constitution Party)

From the desk of James N. Clymer
Constitution Party National Chairman

It has become customary to refer to the period from Thanksgiving week through New Year's Day as the "holiday season," and with good reason. Many major holidays, including Christmas and Hanukkah, are clustered in that six-week span. With the passage of time, the holiday season has expanded, with the first Christmas decorations sometimes appearing before Halloween, and the holiday shopping season becoming the lynchpin supporting much of the entire retail sector. I enjoy Christmas and Thanksgiving as much now as I ever did as a boy, and am certain our culture would be immeasurably impoverished without them.

There is, however, a second holiday season, a span of five weeks in late spring and early summer when we observe no less than three holidays, all of them patriotic in nature, but only one of which is still celebrated in a way that our ancestors would remotely recognize.

The first, the "Thanksgiving" if you will, of the patriotic holiday season, is Memorial Day, which originated in May 1868 as "Decoration Day," in honor of those who fell in the War Between the States. After World War I, the holiday was expanded to honor all of America's war dead, and in 1971, it was made into a national holiday. Once upon a time, Americans honored Memorial Day with parades, visits to cemeteries, and other commemorative events. Nowadays, unfortunately, very few Americans under fifty see Memorial Day as anything more than a paid holiday and an excuse for a barbecue or a weekend camping trip.

Two weeks after Memorial Day, on June 14th, falls the almost-forgotten Flag Day. On this day in 1777, the standard that evolved into our modern-day stars and stripes was officially countenanced by the Continental Congress. It was first observed in 1877 on the hundredth anniversary of our flag's creation. Since then various U.S. Presidents, including Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman, have given Flag Day national recognition. As reverence for the flag has diminished, so too interest in Flag Day has waned, although many patriotic organizations and individuals still observe the holiday. My home state of Pennsylvania, in fact, has made Flag Day a legal holiday!

Finally, on July 4th we celebrate our independence, although the date marks only the signing of the Declaration of Independence and not victory over Great Britain when our independence became an established fact. Independence Day is still marked by parades, fireworks, and other patriotic activities, all of which prove that love of country is alive and well in the United States of America.

It is unfortunate that we have so willingly allowed our independence to be compromised by membership in organizations like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and the International Monetary Fund, to mention but a few. The modern web of international governing bodies, all of which are designed to be way-stations on the road to world government, are often touted as enhancing our "interdependence." This they certainly do. However, it's worth pointing out that interdependence, unlike independence, is merely a form of dependence, the very antithesis of what our Founders wished for our nation. America is dependent on outside powers – for oil, manufacturing, borrowed money, and many other things – only to the extent that she chooses to be so. The assets of this great land are such that, if we wished, we could be self-sufficient for all of our essential needs.

Certainly the dead we honor on Memorial Day did not make the supreme sacrifice in the hope that America would someday become dependent on foreign powers. The flag we honor on Flag Day is not the standard of the United Nations or any other international body. And the independence we celebrate in early July presupposes dependence only on God, the grantor of our Rights.

May we of the Constitution Party all recommit our lives to honoring our country and the sacrifices of our forefathers, and to upholding the principles that have made America great during this, the "other" holiday season.

The “Other” Holiday Season (James Clymer, Constitution Party)

From the desk of James N. Clymer
Constitution Party National Chairman

It has become customary to refer to the period from Thanksgiving week through New Year's Day as the "holiday season," and with good reason. Many major holidays, including Christmas and Hanukkah, are clustered in that six-week span. With the passage of time, the holiday season has expanded, with the first Christmas decorations sometimes appearing before Halloween, and the holiday shopping season becoming the lynchpin supporting much of the entire retail sector. I enjoy Christmas and Thanksgiving as much now as I ever did as a boy, and am certain our culture would be immeasurably impoverished without them.

There is, however, a second holiday season, a span of five weeks in late spring and early summer when we observe no less than three holidays, all of them patriotic in nature, but only one of which is still celebrated in a way that our ancestors would remotely recognize.

The first, the "Thanksgiving" if you will, of the patriotic holiday season, is Memorial Day, which originated in May 1868 as "Decoration Day," in honor of those who fell in the War Between the States. After World War I, the holiday was expanded to honor all of America's war dead, and in 1971, it was made into a national holiday. Once upon a time, Americans honored Memorial Day with parades, visits to cemeteries, and other commemorative events. Nowadays, unfortunately, very few Americans under fifty see Memorial Day as anything more than a paid holiday and an excuse for a barbecue or a weekend camping trip.

Two weeks after Memorial Day, on June 14th, falls the almost-forgotten Flag Day. On this day in 1777, the standard that evolved into our modern-day stars and stripes was officially countenanced by the Continental Congress. It was first observed in 1877 on the hundredth anniversary of our flag's creation. Since then various U.S. Presidents, including Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman, have given Flag Day national recognition. As reverence for the flag has diminished, so too interest in Flag Day has waned, although many patriotic organizations and individuals still observe the holiday. My home state of Pennsylvania, in fact, has made Flag Day a legal holiday!

Finally, on July 4th we celebrate our independence, although the date marks only the signing of the Declaration of Independence and not victory over Great Britain when our independence became an established fact. Independence Day is still marked by parades, fireworks, and other patriotic activities, all of which prove that love of country is alive and well in the United States of America.

It is unfortunate that we have so willingly allowed our independence to be compromised by membership in organizations like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and the International Monetary Fund, to mention but a few. The modern web of international governing bodies, all of which are designed to be way-stations on the road to world government, are often touted as enhancing our "interdependence." This they certainly do. However, it's worth pointing out that interdependence, unlike independence, is merely a form of dependence, the very antithesis of what our Founders wished for our nation. America is dependent on outside powers – for oil, manufacturing, borrowed money, and many other things – only to the extent that she chooses to be so. The assets of this great land are such that, if we wished, we could be self-sufficient for all of our essential needs.

Certainly the dead we honor on Memorial Day did not make the supreme sacrifice in the hope that America would someday become dependent on foreign powers. The flag we honor on Flag Day is not the standard of the United Nations or any other international body. And the independence we celebrate in early July presupposes dependence only on God, the grantor of our Rights.

May we of the Constitution Party all recommit our lives to honoring our country and the sacrifices of our forefathers, and to upholding the principles that have made America great during this, the "other" holiday season.

Peggy Noonan’s Take on the Immigration Issue — well worth reading

I know that seems a lurch, but there's a part of the debate that isn't sufficiently noted. There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them–economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in. But there's another thing. And it's not fear about "them." It's anxiety about us.

It's the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all.

We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence. We had pride and appreciation. We were a free country. We communicated our pride and delight in this in a million ways–in our schools, our movies, our popular songs, our newspapers. It was just there, in the air. Immigrants breathed it in. That's how the last great wave of immigrants, the European wave of 1880-1920, was turned into a great wave of Americans.

We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.

So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.

But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.

What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they're joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold–they're paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill.

The genius cluster–Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, all the rest–that came along at the exact same moment to lead us. And then Washington, a great man in the greatest way, not in unearned gifts well used (i.e., a high IQ followed by high attainment) but in character, in moral nature effortfully developed. How did that happen? How did we get so lucky? (I once asked a great historian if he had thoughts on this, and he nodded. He said he had come to believe it was "providential.")

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?

Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they're joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?

Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.Who is at fault? Those of us who let the myth die, or let it change, or refused to let it be told. The politically correct nitwit teaching the seventh-grade history class who decides the impressionable young minds before him need to be informed, as their first serious history lesson, that the Founders were hypocrites, the Bill of Rights nothing new and imperfect in any case, that the Indians were victims of genocide, that Lincoln was a clinically depressed homosexual who compensated for the storms within by creating storms without . . .

You can turn any history into mud. You can turn great men and women into mud too, if you want to.

And it's not just the nitwits, wherever they are, in the schools, the academy, the media, though they're all harmful enough. It's also the people who mean to be honestly and legitimately critical, to provide a new look at the old text. They're not noticing that the old text–the legend, the myth–isn't being taught anymore. Only the commentary is. But if all the commentary is doubting and critical, how will our kids know what to love and revere? How will they know how to balance criticism if they've never heard the positive side of the argument?

Those who teach, and who think for a living about American history, need to be told: Keep the text, teach the text, and only then, if you must, deconstruct the text.

When you don't love something you lose it. If we do not teach new Americans to love their country, and not for braying or nationalistic reasons but for reasons of honest and thoughtful appreciation, and gratitude, for a history that is something new in the long story of man, then we will begin to lose it. That Medal of Honor winner, Leo Thorsness, who couldn't quite find the words–he only found it hard to put everything into words because he knew the story, the legend, and knew it so well. Only then do you become "emotional about it." Only then are you truly American.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and a part of the Reagan Administration. 

Peggy Noonan’s Take on the Immigration Issue — well worth reading

I know that seems a lurch, but there's a part of the debate that isn't sufficiently noted. There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them–economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in. But there's another thing. And it's not fear about "them." It's anxiety about us.

It's the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all.

We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence. We had pride and appreciation. We were a free country. We communicated our pride and delight in this in a million ways–in our schools, our movies, our popular songs, our newspapers. It was just there, in the air. Immigrants breathed it in. That's how the last great wave of immigrants, the European wave of 1880-1920, was turned into a great wave of Americans.

We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.

So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.

But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.

What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they're joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold–they're paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill.

The genius cluster–Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, all the rest–that came along at the exact same moment to lead us. And then Washington, a great man in the greatest way, not in unearned gifts well used (i.e., a high IQ followed by high attainment) but in character, in moral nature effortfully developed. How did that happen? How did we get so lucky? (I once asked a great historian if he had thoughts on this, and he nodded. He said he had come to believe it was "providential.")

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?

Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they're joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?

Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.Who is at fault? Those of us who let the myth die, or let it change, or refused to let it be told. The politically correct nitwit teaching the seventh-grade history class who decides the impressionable young minds before him need to be informed, as their first serious history lesson, that the Founders were hypocrites, the Bill of Rights nothing new and imperfect in any case, that the Indians were victims of genocide, that Lincoln was a clinically depressed homosexual who compensated for the storms within by creating storms without . . .

You can turn any history into mud. You can turn great men and women into mud too, if you want to.

And it's not just the nitwits, wherever they are, in the schools, the academy, the media, though they're all harmful enough. It's also the people who mean to be honestly and legitimately critical, to provide a new look at the old text. They're not noticing that the old text–the legend, the myth–isn't being taught anymore. Only the commentary is. But if all the commentary is doubting and critical, how will our kids know what to love and revere? How will they know how to balance criticism if they've never heard the positive side of the argument?

Those who teach, and who think for a living about American history, need to be told: Keep the text, teach the text, and only then, if you must, deconstruct the text.

When you don't love something you lose it. If we do not teach new Americans to love their country, and not for braying or nationalistic reasons but for reasons of honest and thoughtful appreciation, and gratitude, for a history that is something new in the long story of man, then we will begin to lose it. That Medal of Honor winner, Leo Thorsness, who couldn't quite find the words–he only found it hard to put everything into words because he knew the story, the legend, and knew it so well. Only then do you become "emotional about it." Only then are you truly American.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and a part of the Reagan Administration.