
The Pilgrims Landing on Plymouth Rock, 1620, by Charles Lucy. The Pilgrims and Puritans who founded Christian civilization in America aimed for nothing less than building a “city set on a hill,” spiritually speaking and based on the Holy Scriptures, that would bless its own inhabitants and all the nations of the world. Despite all their enemies, their legacy endures.
Were the individual bearers of that message faultless in their embodiment of their religion and their treatment of the Indians or Africans-or the Mexicans, Chinese, Irish, or Italians-and their descendants? No, and much wrong, bloodshed, and woeful consequence ensued and continues today. Yet does the Christian Bible claim that God has ever used sinless vessels to accomplish His work? Not as evidenced either by His chosen people of old, Israel, or the greatest individual heroes of the Christian faith, whether they were Moses, David, Peter or Paul. But the history of the world evidences that those who oppose the cross of Christ—including those who defy the laws of God while claiming to defend them are themselves opposed by God, with potentially catastrophic consequences for themselves and those in their charge.
Among the many attributes of God identified by the Bible is impartiality, a refusal to show favoritism to one person or group over another. Thus, persons of any race and ethnicity are imperiled when they ignore and defy God. Those, meanwhile, who claim and abide in Him with humble hearts, whatever their people group, are promised matchless blessing - though often in manners other than mankind would expect - in both this world and the next. Though the Natives, including those who came to present-day Oklahoma, sadly suffered at the hands of many of the “Christ-bearers” whom they encountered, many of them received the wondrous gift of spiritual forgiveness; God’s earthly protection, provision, and blessing; and eternal life and joy in His presence by following in the same Christian way as those flawed messengers of life.
Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special. |
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