We no longer have the same ancestors. They are of every color and from every country. We do not speak one language, but rather English, Spanish and a host of others. We long ago ceased to profess the same religion. We are Evangelical Christians, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists.

Federalist No. 2 celebrated our unity. Today’s elites proclaim that our diversity is our strength. But is this true or a tenet of trendy ideology?

After the attempted massacre of Republican Congressmen at that ball field in Alexandria, Fareed Zakaria wrote: “The political polarization that is ripping this country apart” is about “identity … gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation (and) social class.” He might have added — religion, morality, culture and history.

Zakaria seems to be tracing the disintegration of our society to that very diversity that its elites proclaim to be its greatest attribute: “If the core issues are about identity, culture and religion … then compromise seems immoral. American politics is becoming more like Middle Eastern politics, where there is no middle ground between being Sunni or Shiite.”

Among the issues on which we Americans are at war with one another — abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, white cops, black crime, Confederate monuments, LGBT rights, affirmative action. (Read more from “Is America Still a Nation?” HERE)

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I love traveling abroad, and since 1986, I have traveled outside the United States (primarily overseas) close to 200 times, including almost 50 trips to Asia and more than 70 trips to Europe.

During these trips (all for ministry purposes), I’ve spoken thousands of times through translators, sometimes in exotic jungle areas where man-eating tigers have been on the loose, sometimes in massive stadiums, sometimes in majestic, old church buildings, sometimes in huts.

Who can describe the experience? The different sounds; the different cultures; the different tastes; the different clothes; the different languages; the different expressions — yet always the same love for the same God.

Last week, during the 17th annual missions conference for an organization I helped birth (called FIRE, an acronym for Fellowship for International Revival and Evangelism), I had a very intense experience during one of the night services.

We currently provide oversight for more than 150 individuals serving in about 25 different nations (mainly grads from our ministry school and their families), some of them involved in rescuing children sold into sex-slavery, some involved in caring for orphans, some involved in feeding programs for the needy, some providing education for the poorest of the poor, some starting their own ministry schools, some planting new churches in unreached regions — often in dangerous parts of the world, including right in the heart of the Islamic civil wars in the Middle East as well as very close to Boko Haram in Africa.

During our annual mission’s conference, many of our workers come back from these foreign nations and share their stories and we help them raise funds for their overseas projects.

On this particular night, Friday, October 21, as we sang and worshiped together, I was overwhelmed with God’s love for the nations, and I began to weep, my heart bursting with the desire to take the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the ends of the earth. (As a Jewish believer in Jesus, I’m always thinking about my own people as well.)

But then the thought hit me: Then why have I and others spent so much time and energy fighting the culture wars in America? Why not give all my time and energy to reaching the nations?

Immediately, I knew the answer: As America goes, so goes the world.

You see, our nation has had an incredible, unprecedented impact on the world, both for good and for evil, and if America has a complete moral and cultural collapse, the ripple effect will be felt around the world. In the same way, if we lose our religious liberties — we who are known for the themes of freedom and independence — it will have a chilling effect all over the planet.

As we think of America’s positive contributions over the decades, just ask yourself where Europe would be today without American intervention in World War II, or consider what international healthcare would look like or what international disaster relief would look like if America wasn’t here. The loss would be felt deeply across the globe.

But there’s a negative side to our influence too, and over the years, as I have traveled overseas, I have watched with grief as the worst aspects of our culture — our narcissism; our carnality; our obsession with violent and sexual entertainment; our divorce culture; our LGBT activism — have spread through the nations.

On my first trip to Singapore in 2000, I was speaking with a Christian leader there who was bemoaning the rising divorce rate in his conservative Asian country.

I asked him, “Did American media have any influence on your culture?”

He replied, “Once MTV came in, it was all over.”

He was dead serious.

And over the last few years, as I have sat privately with government leaders in different countries, they have shared with me the pressure they are under from America — sometimes straight from the White House — to embrace the goals of LGBT activism, or else.

Professors have talked to me about American pressure put on their universities; businessmen have told me about the pressure put on their companies; elected officials have told me about heavy-handed calls from our government — and in each case, the message has been the same: You need to change your antiquated standards and embrace our enlightened standards if you want to be partners with us. Otherwise, you will pay a steep penalty.

In other cases, pressure is not the issue, seduction is — by which I mean the effect of our TV shows and movies on other nations, as the message of Hollywood and the morals of Hollywood infiltrate homes and hearts across the globe, especially among the younger generation: “This is how we want to be too!”

And so, on the one hand, we continue to stand for what is right in America because we love our country and we love the people of our country and we love what is best for our country and we love the great heritage of our country.

But we also stand for what is right in America — which means engaging in the so-called culture wars — because we love the nations of the world, and what happens in America most certainly does not stay in America.

That is a sobering thought.

What will America export in the next 10-20 years?

The answer to that question falls largely on us. (For more from the author of “As America Goes, so Goes the World” please click HERE)

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My appreciation for the greatness of America’s founding was first instilled in me by my grandfather, Antonio Gimenez. Born in Puerto Rico in the early 1920s, he and seven of his brothers are combat veterans from WWII, along with two more brothers who (to their dismay) were ineligible for combat but served the Army in in non-combat roles, and two sisters who served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). Twelve in all! My grandfather landed at Normandy on D-Day, fought in many of the major battles in Europe, and even met my grandmother in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He never likes to talk about the war, but his patriotism is irrepressible.

He never forgot what he was fighting for, and revered the founders for their vision of a society dedicated to liberty. His favorite anecdote about America’s greatness was how anyone, any single individual, who had been wronged by the government had the right – guaranteed by law – to stand up for himself and challenge the government. This is the complete polar opposite of the fascism he fought against, a system where the individual is nothing and completely expendable to the interests of the state.

This is the true spirit of the American Revolution. What made the colonists revolt against the British crown was not so much the taxes but the fact that laws were being imposed without the consent of the governed, and that peaceful attempts to redress grievances were met with military occupation.

In 1780, with the war still ongoing, the people of Massachusetts were asked to ratify a state constitution. They refused every draft until one was constructed that recognized the sovereignty of the individual and derived authority from the consent of the governed. It was there that the term “We the people” originated. And the best method of securing and ensuring individual liberty was the central issue in the ratification debates of the constitution. (For more, see Ratification: The people debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 by Pauline Maier)

This individuality and the way it pervades everyday life was the central, shocking discovery of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

The other key to our founding is the principals of Judeo-Christian values, and – unless you are a leftist intent on distorting the words of Thomas Jefferson’s Danbury Letter – it is impossible to miss this:

Benjamin Rush: “I proceed…to enquire what mode of education we shall adopt so as to secure to the state all the advantages that are to be derived from the proper instruction of youth; and here I beg leave to remark, that the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

George Washington: “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

James Madison: “The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.”

The best recent summation of the ideals of America comes from Norman Podhoretz in the October 2012 issue of Hillsdale College’s Imprimis, in a speech titled “Is America Exceptional?”:

First of all, unlike all other nations past or present, this one accepted as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. What this meant was that its Founders aimed to create a society in which, for the first time in the history of the world, the individual’s fate would be determined not by who his father was, but by his own freely chosen pursuit of his own ambitions. In other words, America was to be something new under the sun: a society in which hereditary status and class distinctions would be erased, leaving individuals free to act and to be judged on their merits alone. There remained, of course, the two atavistic contradictions of slavery and the position of women; but so intolerable did these contradictions ultimately prove that they had to be resolved—even if, as in the case of the former, it took the bloodiest war the nation has ever fought.

Secondly, in all other countries membership or citizenship was a matter of birth, of blood, of lineage, of rootedness in the soil. Thus, foreigners who were admitted for one reason or another could never become full-fledged members of the society. But America was the incarnation of an idea, and therefore no such factors came into play. To become a full-fledged American, it was only necessary to pledge allegiance to the new Republic and to the principles for which it stood.

Thirdly, in all other nations, the rights, if any, enjoyed by their citizens were conferred by human agencies: kings and princes and occasionally parliaments. As such, these rights amounted to privileges that could be revoked at will by the same human agencies. In America, by contrast, the citizen’s rights were declared from the beginning to have come from God and to be “inalienable”—that is, immune to legitimate revocation.

This July 4th, many of us will have the sad shadow of this election hanging over it – where the leading candidates are so far removed from our founding ideals that both agree on government control of healthcare. If our damn politicians cannot restore our republic – then we should give the Article 5 convention of states strong consideration. If our former rivals – now dear friends – in England can have a democratic uprising to bypass their political elites and restore their rights, then so can we. (For more from the author of “What My Grandfather Taught Me About America” please click HERE)

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