As the nation approaches our 250th anniversary, it’s important for us to take a moment to recognize and appreciate the role that Christianity played in the foundation of the American experiment.

Broadly speaking, there is simply no question that the basic worldview behind the foundation of our republic was the biblical worldview of Christianity.

And it didn’t begin here exclusively, but it goes way back in history into the great foundations of Western civilization.

Is America a Christian nation in terms of explicit constitutional arrangement? No. But I think it's safe to say it wasn’t considered necessary at that point for such a claim to be made.

Our Founders did not foresee a secular age coming, but in that secular age there are now important arguments to be made—arguments about the meaning and the dignity of life, about marriage and family and religious liberty.

As we mark 250 years, it’s up to us now to continue to make those arguments and to make them loudly, make them we must.

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As you celebrate this 4th of July weekend, I hope you get time to slow down and relax. Enjoy the day with friends, family, and loved ones in your world. As you do, remember that even these things are the fruits of freedom, the benefits of a stable government, civilizational order.

For 250 years—a quarter of a millennium now—our nation has benefitted from these gifts.

Yes: There is plenty to be concerned about as we look at the health of our nation in recent days. We are—and this is not hyperbole—more polarized today than the upheavals I lived through in the late ’60s and early 1970s.

We have a lot of work to do.

And yet—I really believe this—we have a lot to be thankful for.

America is still as my old friend, Bill Bennett has said the last best hope.

On behalf of Salem Media, have a great 4th of July.

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This week, the USA turns 250. It comes at a time when our nation has become more sharply divided than any other in living memory.

One man’s wisdom calls to us from an even more bitterly divided moment in American history. Six weeks before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln spoke to the bitter divisions of his day and how the American soul could look to the Lord for grace to heal them.

“With malice toward none with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds,” Lincoln wrote in his 1865 second inaugural address. He sought to work for a “just and lasting peace” through faith—first in the Lord, and then in the potential of the American spirit to prevail.

Events vindicated Lincoln in his prayer for America. We must cling to our faith with no less strength in these times.

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As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it’s worth honoring our glorious Constitution—the longest-surviving written charter of national government in world history.

Rarely have so few gotten so much so right. The Constitution protects our inalienable rights, reflecting the truth that our freedoms come from God, not government. It enshrines the principle of “We the People,” affirming that power belongs to citizens, not rulers, and that government exists to serve the people, not the other way around.

Because the Framers understood the temptations of power, they divided authority among three branches of government, each designed to check the others. They also balanced the powers of the federal government and the states.

Our Constitution ensures that Americans live under the rule of law, not the rule of men. May it ever be so.

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The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is approaching quickly.

The document—as I often point out to my listeners—is, to quote Abraham Lincoln, an “apple of gold” protected by the “frame of silver” that is the Constitution he borrowed from Psalms there.

All Americans—indeed all the free world—have a lot to celebrate in this our 250th year of independence.

The Declaration asserted the existence of "rights" of individuals that exist before any government — no matter the form of that government— comes into being:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The great day of the fourth is, from beginning to end, about love of our country because our country defends our individual rights, rights derived—back to the Declaration— from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.”

It is quite a gift that we have been given—a gift that needs to be defended.

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As Americans celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, we’ve received a special and quite unexpected gift: a spontaneous outpouring of affection from the rest of the world.

Visitors from across the globe are attending World Cup matches here, and many are posting videos expressing their delight with what they’re finding, and what we so often take for granted. Our safe streets and parks. Our barbecue. Ranch dressing. The wonders of LongHorn Steakhouse. Unlimited refills. But above all, the kindness and friendliness of the American people.

Too often, tourists fly into New York or Los Angeles and assume they’ve seen America. Now they’re discovering America’s heartland, and the enormous heart of its generous, welcoming people.

At 250 years old, America is still inspiring admiration, gratitude, and affection around the world.

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Just recently, Ken Paxton secured the nomination for the GOP looking to represent Texas in the US Senate. Paxton will be facing a state senator and Presbyterian seminarian James Talarico. The question is, as the New York Times put it, are Texans ready for Talarico's kind of Christianity?

Ruth Graham and David Goodman begin by talking about Talerico's pastor, Jim Rigby at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin. The article begins, "Jim Rigby, a pastor who rarely uses the word God, is a key to understanding the Senate candidate trying to pull off something unusual in Texas."

Later, the reporters refer to a sermon where Pastor Rigby refers to "the creative impulse of the universe, which can be called God, but doesn't have to be called God." I do not think that the majority of people in Texas understand the Bible in those terms.

What we're talking about here is light years outside of biblical orthodoxy. So let's ask the question. Is Texas ready for that?

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A recent report issued by British Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe documents the grooming and horrific sexual abuse of as many as 250,000 young girls across England,

These girls endured gang rape, brutal abuse, forced abortions and pregnancies, and even coerced Islamic conversion. And it happened while social workers, teachers, police and prosecutors looked the other way.

Now, the victims are being failed again—this time by America’s legacy media. Since the Lowe report was released, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSN NOW have devoted virtually no coverage to its findings.

Legacy media journalists often lament Americans’ declining trust in the press. But this is why. Media bias isn't only about how stories are covered. It's also about the stories legacy news organizations choose to ignore.

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