“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The passage I just read, of course, is from the most well-known freedom document in the world – our Declaration of Independence.

Now, many of you, as I was reading it, were reciting it with me. That’s because somewhere, most probably as a child, you were taught its importance and were instructed to memorize it.

However, in the last few years, the idea of learning about our freedom documents has fallen out of favor in our government schools and perhaps has been neglected in our families, our churches, and our communities as well.

Regrettably, more and more, as Americans, we know less and less about where we come from.

And if the idea of learning about our father’s fathers’ sacrifices is either neglected or disparaged – if it’s not reinforced in our schools and if our American heroes are ignored – or worse – degraded on the television, the movies and in the media, we are in danger of losing our heritage.

As an American, you might think of history as a mall map that gives contextual meaning to the little red arrow that says “you are here”.

If you could, for a moment, imagine walking into a big shopping mall and seeing the big mall directory map in front of you and it’s totally blank — nothing on it but the red arrow and the red dot – it would really be less than useless to you, wouldn’t it?

It’s the same with the study of our American history. Knowing about the deeds of those who have gone before us tells us where we are on the map of history.

But what’s more, knowing the beliefs they shared, their faith, their motives, gives us a clue as to WHO we are.

So please, don’t let anybody (in the name of multiculturalism or globalism or anything else) steal your American history from you – or talk you out of caring about it.