Misinformed… or irreverent? July 8, 2008 Just when I think I've heard the epoch of Biblical dismissiveness or catechetical/historical laxity and indifference, I yet run across something so devoid of sedateness via a moral compass that I become infuriated anew. This time by a so-called minister of the Word and Sacrament named Bill Smutz, whose position is, in my humble view, tantamount to heresy!
The usurpation of circumstance by the Father's Right Hand of Providence in the affairs of men and nations and the recognition of the same by the elect are irrefutable. Our nation's government itself is based on the Presbyterian construct.
Has Bill Smutz never heard of John Calvin referred to as "the virtual founder of America?" There are several reasons for this:

On May 31,1638,the Reverend Thomas Hooker delivered a sermon based on Deuteronomy 1:13-17,upon which the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was singularly based. The latter was required reading for each constitutional delegate, as per the orders of none other than the Hero of the Monongahela, His Excellency George Washington.
On Oct.3,1789,Washington,then president, issued a Thanksgiving proclamation which contained these words:
"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us ..."
To Bill
Smutz, Washington was engaging in dangerous mischief when he said this.
To use Bill's verbiage-"dangerous attitudes and practices" was the evident end and aim of my distant cousin, General William Henry Harrison;

whose presidential inauguration speech in 1841 offered these reflections:
"However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country." ....as well as....
"I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time" While serving as the Territorial governor of Indiana, Harrison and wife,

Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, were foreordained mortal catalysts in the establishment of the first Presbyterian congregation in Indiana in March of 1806.
That's Indiana,Bill! The same state that the church you "pastor" is located
There would be no such place as the United States without God and His Kingdom on Earth. Phrases like "God Bless America" underscore the elect's appreciation of the magnanimity of God's unmerited, yet nonetheless inerrant Will! Either Smutz is lamentably misinformed or he suffers from a spiritually lethal mix of irreverence and Anglophobia, for which the Father's discernment through the Savior's blood provide the only remedy.
Eric Wells Boardman, Ohio