Media Doesn't Want God on 4th of July

We have none other than John Adams, our second president, to thank for a definitive, and prophetic, quote on the proper way to celebrate Independence Day:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.

The observant will note, of course, that he uses July 2nd, and not July 4th as the celebratory date, and this discrepancy, we are told, is due to the fact that the resolution was introduced on the 2nd, but approved on the 4th. Reviewing the previous link (a product of the U.S. State department) reminded me of a problem many of us have with history: we leave out what isn't convenient, or what might seem offensive, or what we can't bother to explore. Here's the way the State Department chose to quote Adams:

"I believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival... it ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other..."

It's such a great quote for party planners: you have parades, sports, games, and even bonfires. The problem is you can't introduce the subject (Independence Day) without that troubling sentence about "devotion," "deliverance," and "God Almighty." It's right there between the "great anniversary festival" and the "shows, games, sports" section. Apparently, this is where the ellipsis comes in, the omnipresent dot dot dot...

I got to thinking: how often is this quote mentioned on the internet?     How many times is it used in its entirety and what percentage of web writers saw fit to edit God out of Adam's version of the celebration?   You can confirm this on your own, but I used one search engine to see how many times the exact phrase "it will be celebrated" along with "Adams" appeared.     It's a very popular quote.   It came up about 852 times.    Of those sites, I then refined the search to see how many times it came up without God, ("-God").      I counted 212 sites that chose to mention the quote without Adam's reference to God, or about 24.8%.       When I broke those sites down by type, I found that 21% of ".org" sites, chose to strike out the Almighty, 25% of ".com" sites chose to remove God, 27% of ".mil" sites struck out God, and 33% of academic sites (".edu") removed Him.    God, however, did the worst on government (".gov") sites, where Adams' quote was gutted nearly 36% of the time.

I did a small sample of media (mostly newspaper) sites, and that's where God almost completely failed to receive an invitation to the Adams' 4th of July celebration.   Sixty percent of those sites made short work of the Adams quote, including The "Patriot" Ledger of South Boston.     God didn't fair very well in Adams' home town at all.   The internet version of the Boston Globe left Him out as well, and no less a personage than Jerry Falwell chose to quote Adams on the subject of Independence Day without God.       (Civil liberty web sites, of various sorts, couldn't bring themselves to include the quote, in its entirety, either, and a few of those couldn't stand the "guns" part of the text either.)

America, certainly, is a nation of diverse sub-cultures and wide-ranging belief systems.   Some take offense at the mention of God. Some take offense if He's not mentioned.   Some don't care one way or another.    But that isn't the issue.    If we're looking to the founders for guidance, for precedent, for tradition, we don't have the right to give them a make-over that will make them fit for the entertainment section of the newspaper. We need to see them, to report them, as they were, and then draw our own conclusions.

Personally, I'm grateful to be celebrating Independence Day in America and not Fidel's Birthday in Cuba or May Day in North Korea.    I'm grateful for men like Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Starke, John Jay and the Reverend Witherspoon.

Personally....(gasp, can I write this?)

I thank God for you!

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