Roscoe Bartlett: “today America is the undisputed superpower of the world. How did we do that? We do not have the most oil or the most…”

“today America is the undisputed superpower of the world. How did we do that? We do not have the most oil or the most gold or silver or diamonds. We do not have the best agricultural land. But yet we are the envy of every Nation in the world. How did we get here? What I want to spend the next few minutes doing is looking at what made America great, and to do that I am going to plagiarize a sermon given by Dr. Richard Fredericks of the Damascus Road Community Church. In the quotes that I will give, there will be lots of mention of Christianity. I would like to note that in the time in which these quotes were made, Christianity and religion were essentially equivalent terms; so when you hear Christianity, please think God-fearing person, rather than a specific religion or specific sect. After the terrorist attacks, it is important that we celebrate our Nation's independence and freedom; that we pause to reflect on our national heritage as a defender of freedom and justice, to remember that our Founding Fathers and hundreds of thousands since bought our freedom at a price. Freedom is never free. Our national freedom was very costly. Five of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured and executed by the British, nine of them died on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War, and another dozen lost their homes, possessions and fortunes to British occupation. Our birth as a Nation was not cheap for these men.…”