A gracEmail subscriber asks whether the United States is God's nation in any special sense, and whether Americans as such can claim God's Old Testament promises to Israel as his covenant people. * * * Americans are not God's people in any special sense, although the United States inherited a semi-Christian culture from its European founders and it includes many Christians today. The much-quoted promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14 was not given to any modern nation but to God's ancient covenant people of Israel. It applies indirectly today to God's people in Jesus Christ, whether they be Nigerians, … [Read more...]

This unusually lengthy gracEmail is political rather than spiritual (although it contains some spiritual allusions). This Saturday is Independence Day here in the USA, marking the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Because of the Declaration's significance, and because of its elevated formal language, I thought it might be interesting to restate it in simple modern English. Although the signers themselves did not live up to their fundamental premise of human equality, or even of universal liberty, they set in motion an ideal which has borne much fruit during the 233 … [Read more...]