{"id":34372,"date":"2020-03-06T03:50:17","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T11:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34372"},"modified":"2020-03-04T14:09:21","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T22:09:21","slug":"god-and-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/03\/06\/god-and-america\/","title":{"rendered":"God and America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Medved\u2019s latest book is God\u2019s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era<\/em>. (photo from Michael Medved)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Most of us would call them close calls or dumb luck \u2013 the many things in American history that could have gone terribly wrong, but didn\u2019t. But Michael Medved firmly believes they weren\u2019t merely happy accidents; rather, they were a direct result of God\u2019s guidance.<\/p>\n

Medved\u2019s God\u2019s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era<\/em> (Crown Forum) is a chronological sequel to 2016\u2019s American Miracle<\/em> (Crown Forum), a book that began with the pilgrims in 1620 and ends with Lincoln\u2019s assassination, on April 14, 1865. They share a common theme, he said: \u201cDivine intervention is extraordinarily obvious and important in tracing the course of American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story after story, Medved builds the case that there are solid \u201carguments for divine providence in the rise to power, and continued power and prosperity, of the United States.\u201d President Theodore Roosevelt, for example, was shot in the chest but a folded speech in his jacket pocket took the bullet.<\/p>\n

In another of many examples, a seemingly lucky moment came during the Battle of Midway, in June 1942. U.S. planes had gotten lost over the Pacific Ocean but, just in time, they suddenly found their way back, to dive bomb Japan\u2019s fleet. History, said Medved, regarded this as a huge blow to the Japanese \u2013 at a time when the Americans and British had, up until that point, faced setback after setback, loss after loss, and were struggling to make advances in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

\u201cFate, destiny, providence and the United States is a complicated process. It doesn\u2019t mean America only wins, but it does mean that it\u2019s safe to say that Lincoln, Washington, the Roosevelts, were right; Kennedy and Eisenhower were right; that America has been used as an instrument, or vehicle, for grand purposes by a Higher Power,\u201d noted the Jewish syndicated radio host, whose daily program reaches more than five million listeners, across 300 stations. Medved is also author of 12 other books, including bestsellers The 10 Big Lies About America <\/em>and Hollywood vs. America<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>His thesis isn\u2019t out of the blue, either \u2013 since the first landings, ordinary Americans and their leaders have believed that God helped in their nation\u2019s successes, said Medved. For people of faith, it was the most reasonable explanation for the seemingly inexplicable. Their Bible-centred view carried over to an appreciation of Jews, he added, at a time when there were few Jews in the United State, i.e. until the 19th century.<\/p>\n

They recognized, he said, \u201cthe special place the Jewish people had in America,\u201d especially conscious of the verse in Genesis, which says that anyone who blessed the Jews would be blessed, and anyone who cursed the Jews would be cursed. These beliefs were exhibited in many ways, such as the Hebrew words on the seal at Yale, Urim<\/em> and Thummim<\/em>, elements of the ancient high priest\u2019s breastplate, used for obtaining oracles; and the seal of Dartmouth College, which has El Shaddai<\/em> (God) in Hebrew.<\/p>\n

Early colonizers even identified themselves as being \u201clike the Israelites who have crossed a perilous ocean to come to the land that was promised,\u201d said Medved. \u201cThat identification of Puritans [goes] all the way back to the founding of New England in the 1630s.\u2026 They described themselves as \u2018New Testament Hebrews.\u2019 The identification with the Jewish people was very profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at Princeton, then-future president James Madison\u2019s concentration of study was Hebrew, said Medved. Later in history, Harry Truman formally recognized Israel, minutes after it was declared a country. And then there was Richard Nixon\u2019s military aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War \u2013 quite unexpected, said Medved, given the recordings that surfaced of Nixon using insulting epithets against Jews. According to Medved, Nixon\u2019s gesture of goodwill, though not mentioned in the book, saved the Jewish state from annihilation.<\/p>\n

Dave Gordon<\/strong> is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Medved\u2019s latest book is God\u2019s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era. (photo from Michael Medved) Most of us would call them close calls or dumb luck \u2013 the many things in American history that could have gone terribly wrong, but didn\u2019t. But Michael Medved firmly believes they weren\u2019t merely happy accidents; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[9740,4242,218,9739],"class_list":["post-34372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-god","tag-history","tag-judaism","tag-michael-medved"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}