This week's column is a little different. We have just celebrated the 231st anniversary of the signing of the document that began a new era in human history - the Declaration of Independence.

 Before 1963, the history books used in the public schools in this nation, were accurate. In 1964 there was a sudden change in the climate of this nation supported by a fairy-tale version of the events surrounding the founding of this great nation. Revisionist historians have made up a history devoid of the key thoughts, philosophies and religion that played a vital role in making our nation great. Since that change, we have been on a slippery slope that can only end in disaster.

We have been told, time and time again, that the founding fathers were not Christians in any sense of the word, and that the founding documents of this country did not have their basis in Judeo-Christian tradition. We have been told that, but apparently our founding fathers were not given the message.

I find it interesting that Benjamin Franklin, who most agree today was certainly the least religious of the bunch, wrote, "He who shall introduce into the public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world" (Letter to French ministry, March 1778). Now why in the world would such an irreligious man utter such a religious statement? Unless, of course, Mr. Franklin was not as irreligious as modern historians contend.

Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association has become the basis of the modern dogma of separation of church and state. I might add that this phrase which we banter around so glibly today not only isn't a part of the Constitution, but is actually a perversion by isolation and exclusion of Jefferson's actual words.

He wrote, "The first amendment had erected a wall of separation, but that wall is a one directional wall; it makes sure that the government will not run the church but it also makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government" (Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association Jan. 1, 1802).

 We are told by modern historians that Jefferson was not a Christian but a Deist. While certainly Deism was a prevalent philosophy of the day, I find such a contention hard to support when the man himself writes such things as, "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion in the world that deals with the heart" ("America's Godly Heritage").

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was that it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil Government with the principles of Christianity" (Thorton, John Windgate, "The Pulpit and the Revolution," 1860).

If we for a moment would set aside our politically correct revisions of the history of the United States and read with any degree of honesty what the founders of this nation believed, we would be forced to say with Patrick Henry, "It cannot be emphasized too often or too strongly that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here" (Federer, William J., "America's God and Country).

Two-hundred and thirty years later, humanistic doctrine under the guise of freedom of expression, has systematically stripped Christians the right of public expression and is working hard to remove the very foundations that support this republic.

Aleksandar Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, dramatist and historian stated during his acceptance of the Templeton prize for Progress in Religion, "If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous (communist) revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people (that is those put to death by Josef Stalin), I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened'" (Henry, Carl F.H., "The Christian Mindset in a Secular Society").

Are we in America not following the same destructive pathway today? Freedom of religion has been replaced by a cry for freedom from religion.

My prayer is we will wake up and smell the coffee before it is too late.