George Washington: "Went to Church, Fasted All Day."

As the GOP convention draws to a close, America awakes to the fact that all of our problems are still right where we left them. ISIS, police shootings, unrest in foreign countries, the national debt, Hillary Clinton….

And the list goes on.

During the last several weeks, observing the murder of the police officers in Dallas and subsequently in Baton Rouge, it struck me anew that whatever we are doing is not working. And when something you are doing fails repeatedly, it is time to try something different.

The following succinctly lays out where we’re at, where we came from, and what we must do now to survive as a nation

1. Our Solution is Not Working: America’s Modern Day Response to Crises
1. Domestic Tragedies During Obama’s Presidency
1. Fort Hood, Tucson: the shooting of Gabby Giffords, Aurora movie theater shooting, Binghamton, New York, Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary, Navy Yard shooting, Kansas Jewish Community Center shooting, Charleston church shooting, Chattanooga recruiting center shooting, Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, Roseburg, Oregon community college shooting, San Bernardino, Orlando, Dallas, Baton Rouge
2. Obama’s Response
1. Nearly every time, Obama has made a call for more gun control
2. Nearly every time, Obama has been slow to condemn the ideology behind the shootings
3. Obama has mentioned that “thoughts and prayers” go out to the families affected
4. Obama has never once called on America as a nation to set aside a day to humbly fast and pray in response to a tragedy
3. Evaluation of Obama’s Solutions
1. Many Americans feel the country is more divided both racially and ideologically than ever before
2. The push for gun control has resulted in a push for a dangerous curtailing of American’s rights
3. There is little hope in the country that things are going to get better
4. I think we can all agree - what we are doing currently is not working. Therefore, it is time to try something new
2. Founding Father’s Solution: What America Used to do in the Face of Crises
1. Response to Crises
1. Cycles of fasting and prayer, followed by thanksgiving and prayer
2. Governors, generals and presidents: George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Madison, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush and many others all called for days of fasting and prayer in response to national tragedies or hardships
3. Annual National Days of Thanksgiving have been issued since Abraham Lincoln in 1863
4. Annual National Days of Prayer have been issued by every president since Harry Truman in 1952
5. However, the Founders and other leaders after them went beyond annual days of prayer or thanksgiving, and called the nation to prayer in response to crises
2. Our Founders, presidents and leaders throughout our history have given a pattern of what to do when tragedy hits. However, in response to crisis and tragedy facing America, Obama has failed in his leadership of America
3. The days of our Founding Fathers may have been different times, but truth never changes
3. When Leadership Fails
1. The men who fought and bled to give us our country knew what they were talking about, and we would do well to heed what they had to say
2. It is up to congressional, state and local leaders to step up when the president fails to lead America

So what is the solution?

Several weeks into the Constitutional Convention, tensions were high, no one could agree, delegates were throwing up their hands and going home. Things looked grim. Would the United States remain united? It was at this point that Ben Franklin, arguably one of the least religious founding fathers, delivered this speech:

“In this situation of this Assembly groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?

In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. -- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity.

And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance.

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?

We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age.

And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move -- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business....”

In 1774, when England blockaded Boston Harbor following their “rebellious rumblings”, Thomas Jefferson wrote this resolution adopted by the Virginia House of Burgesses:

“This House, being deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers, to be derived to British America, from the hostile invasion of the City of Boston, in our sister Colony of Massachusetts … deem it highly necessary that the said first day of June be set apart, by the members of this House as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition, for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights...”

It was on that day that George Washington’s journal entry read - June 1, 1774: “Went to church, fasted all day.”

It is time for a call to humble fasting and prayer.

This is not partisan, this is not political. This is patriotic practicality.

Jonathan Paine

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