The American Covenant

 

What is America's Covenant with God?

The Pilgrims who came to America to find religious freedom made specific promises to God in exchange for His blessings.  The Mayflower Compact and the dedicatory prayer for this land are examples of the Covenant.

You may have heard people talk about the American Covenant, but what is it exactly?

Those who have read Book of Mormon will know that Latter-day Saints believe it began after the fall of the Tower of Babel when God promised to lead a small group of the faithful to a "land which is choice above all other lands."  Those people were led to the Americas where they lived for many generations.  They were promised that they would be protected and blessed by God if they would but worship Him.  But their sad tale tells of how they abandoned God and broke the Covenant.  As a result, they were swept from the land, not by outside force, but from civil war.

Another Book of Mormon cautionary tale is that of a group of Israelites called the Nephites.  They were led from Jerusalem just prior to its final fall to Babylon and led to this choice land.  They made the same Covenant with God and, after a thousand years of a cycle of pride, sin, suffering, repentance and blessings, pride and sin, they also self-imploded because they failed to keep their part of the covenant.

OK, you say, but I'm not a Mormon.  What does this Covenant with God mean to me?

There are many examples of the Covenant within our history.  Christopher Columbus saw himself as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy in carrying Christ to a new world.

The Declaration of Independence is often cited as the most clearly and succinctly worded examples of the American Covenant.

In the 19th Century, Abraham Lincoln declared that the Civil War was a just punishment from a just God because America had broken her Covenant by allowing slavery to exist when all men had been declared to be equal.  He referred to this Covenant in his famous address on the Battlefield at Gettysburg, PA.

Where are we now, America, in relationship to our covenant?  Are the unborn equal as we abort them by the millions?  Are our veterans and homeless equal as they suffer while we buy our next new car?  Are any of us equal when we hate and attack each other, sometimes even unto death?  Which of God's commandments have we not broken?

I'd like to discuss my views on these and other subjects as they relate to our sacred American Covenant with God.  I have read the Book of Mormon and I don't want to see the United States become another failed experiment, swept from the land and wiped clean by the wroth of God.