America's Two Foundations: A Solid Rock or Sinking Sand?

By Wayne S. Matulis

            Words and ideas have consequences. Those who will change the meaning of words will change the rules and the laws to suit themselves so they can accomplish their personal agenda. Deadly ideas lay at the bottom of one of America’s two foundations.

            Inscribed on the walls of some of the Capitol’s buildings and monuments are these immortal truths:

—“Where law ends, tyranny begins.”
—“To render every man his due.”
—“Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”
—“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
—“What is past is prologue.”

The following are quotes from the book America’s Two Foundations, A Solid Rock Or Sinking Sand?

“A parasite is an organism that lives off the life force of another organism without contributing to the life force of the other. These people of other faiths and no faith are living off the spiritual capital of the Judeo-Christian civilization, and at the same time, they deny the God who revealed the divine principles upon which the ethics of the country grow.”

Locked inside the Independence Hall, I found myself alone with the spirits of the Founders.

“What can you say about a country that even protects the rights of those who are trying to destroy it?”

Upon laying the chief cornerstone of the US capital on September 18, 1793, George Washington and others laid the first foundations to the new republic. And they assumed the mantles as “high priests” of this new temple in Washington, DC, thus establishing the New Order of the Ages. Who are these “high priests”? You must read America’s Two Foundations, A Solid Rock Or Sinking Sand? to find out. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781512780185

Wayne S. Matulis

            Current events during the time I spent writing this book have reinforced my desire to get it published and in the hands of the American people. “What’s Past is Prologue” is a quote from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. The play tells the story of a wizard who drives a ship to the island he lives on, in order to undo something that happened to him in the past. Since we cannot undo what happened in the past, we need to study history and use it as a guide for the future. History is the rudder of the ship of life we are on. This is why I wrote America’s Two Foundations, A Solid Rock or Sinking Sand?             My interest in American history was kindled by visiting the many historical sites around the country, where history came alive for me. I could breathe it in, and picture the events in my mind. The foundation of my life is Jesus Christ. He is the protagonist in this book and rightly so. After all, history is His-Story. The Bible is a spiritual history book and it launched me into an interest in the history God was writing. The Bible has been carefully preserved, so the message God inspired the authors to write long ago has been faithfully transmitted to us today.             As a small businessman, I know the value of keeping records; since past business records can forecast future business. So, it is with a nation’s history. I want my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to know the foundation that America was first built upon, and which must remain – Jesus Christ. Thank you for buying my book. Pass it on to your children who will one day inherit this nation. Let us pray they will be defenders of the true foundation revealed in this book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Wayne S. Matulis.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978,

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WestBow Press rev. date: 6/23/2020

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE - (The establishment of the Two Foundations).

PART TWO - (Monuments, Statues and Memorials)

PART THREE - (Keeping the Faith and Building on the Solid Rock Foundation)

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Many thanks to my wife Lynda, who encouraged me to pass on the things I learned about America’s history to our children and grandchildren. I am grateful to my daughter-in-law, Dawn, who gave an honest critique of the book, which changed the purpose and direction of the book. Dawn also helped with the editing. Thanks also to Bob Peele for designing the cover.

A friend and a high school classmate from Carl Sandburg High School was a Freemason and an Evangelical Christian. In honor of our friendship, I want to remember Robert Louis Smith, Jr. in this book. I just started writing this book when Bob died. He was a Green Beret who served bravely in Vietnam and Cambodia. He died in 2014 of a very rare disease, most likely contracted from chemical warfare. I don’t know the depth of Bob’s Christian faith other than he attended an excellent evangelical church in suburban Chicago every Sunday. I think Bob was a great man and he deserves to be remembered in a book that challenges his membership in Freemasonry.

Since this book is about memorials, monuments and statues to recall our nation’s history, I am proud to recall to memory Ron Zinn, a hero from Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park. Captain Ron Zinn is the older brother Jerry, my best friend in high school.

Ron was a multi-sport athlete at Sandburg. After graduating he went to West Point where he represented the Academy and the USA in the Rome and Tokyo Olympics. He died trying to recover a wounded friend in Vietnam from enemy fire.

Orland Park forgot about Ron until Tim Klotz, an Eagle Scout, saw a small marker with his name on a walking trail near city hall. He wanted to learn more about Ron. When he learned of Ron’s outstanding achievements and sacrifice he decided to erect a memorial to Ron in Orland Park by the Veteran’s Center. I think it is only fitting and proper to honor Ron Zinn in this book. I don’t know a lot about Ron’s faith, but I did attend his memorial service at the Orland Park Methodist Church where he apparently attended as a youth. He is buried at West Point. (Read John 15:13)

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Preface

As a young boy growing up, I always liked to play Cowboys and Indians but even more than that, I loved to play Army. I played with those little green soldiers, and I dressed up in surplus army clothes from WWII. Though never in the army, I always considered myself a patriot, and I love my country. Some people find patriotism offensive, even racist. But to love country is natural. After all, it’s home. My patriotism is not that kind that believes my country is always right. Patriotism is not a feeling, it’s adhering to the founding ideals and principles our nation’s founders declared in 1776, and for which some gave their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for us and our children.

At the 2016 commencement ceremony of Hillsdale College, Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told the students: Throughout my youth, even as the contradiction of segregation persisted, we revered the ideals of our great nation. We knew of course that our country was flawed, as are all human institutions. But, we also knew that our best hope lay in the ideal of liberty.¹ During a recent trip to Boston I toured the site of the Boston Massacre where the tour guide told us the first person shot by the British was a freed black slave named Crispus Attucks. Do you think Mr. Attucks was thinking the same thought Clarence Thomas was thinking growing up?

I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to travel throughout America; from the Montana-Canadian border to the Texas-Mexico border, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. The natural wonders, amazing towns, cities, farms, and industry that I saw across this land make me proud of the achievements of the American people, our form of government, and the economic system that has made such progress possible. Of course, not all was a virtuous undertaking. There was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears of the many people who were taken advantage of to achieve much of our economic landscape. That blood has been paid for by the nation, time and time again. But, compared to many other nations, we have more pluses than minuses on the historical scorecard.

I also visited many landmark places, like the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. Time seems frozen at the motel, as the building and cars parked in front of the motel are clearly from the 1960’s.

Then there are the many Revolutionary War and Civil War battlefields I have visited; like Antietam, Charlottesville, Richmond, Shiloh, and Gettysburg where so many divided Americans were killed fighting each other. I stood on the ground where George Washington crossed the Delaware River on his march toward Trenton to battle the Hessian forces. I stood on the green grass where General Washington trained his soldiers at the College of William and Mary. I visited Lexington, Concord and Plymouth, Massachusetts and I stood on the spot where General Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own sentries. I walked around the former plantation where General Robert E. Lee lived in Arlington, Virginia. In my brief history on this earth, I, like many others, have seen many scenes like the ones I just described through the lens of television and other media. The worst scene, of course, was the attack on the Twin Towers of New York, where my former employer was one of the first tenants of Tower Two. I once stood on the roof of Tower Two, looking over the greatest city of the world, a symbol of American pride. Little did I know what a shaky foundation the Twin Towers were on. I visited many of America’s historical landmarks, memorials, monuments, and statues as I traveled around the country and have included some of them in this book. It is important for a nation to have markers from the past for guideposts for future generations. Starting in 2017, many children in southern cities will not see some of the old statues and memorials, because radicals with no sense of their historical purpose removed them; and with that, the opportunity for parents and teachers to point to those memorials to tell children their history - whether good or bad.

Why is the study of history important? Consider this quote when you reflect on this question: We’re really trying to do what an educational institution should do, which is to discuss, analyze and interpret, and really grapple with the complexities of history. And that’s what universities should be doing. We’re not commemorating or celebrating that history.² This quote is a reference specifically to the statues and memorials of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Washington and Lee University where they have come under fire for those in Lee Chapel at the University.

We can and must learn from the mistakes of others. Memorials are our markers in learning of past mistakes and achievements. They can warn future generations not to go that way. Non-historians like Freemason Henry Ford make statements like this - History is more or less bunk (nonsense) … the only history worth a damn is the history we make today.³

According to research done by the Sons of History, America’s students don’t know America’s history. Only 37 percent of high school students can recite one of the rights in the First Amendment and only 26 percent of students can name the three branches of government. Sadly, a mere 12 percent of students are proficient in American history.⁴ The study of history is not boring, especially when you go to the places where history was made.

Erecting a statue of a historical figure does not mean the person is to be worshipped or necessarily held up as a great leader. The person represented by the statue or memorial may just signify an important event in the nation’s history. His or her story needs to be told, whether their actions were right or wrong.

In Proverbs 4:27 it says, "Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil." (NIV) Our country has always been about coming together for the greater good. The division of left and right is inevitable in a democratic society, but there is a place in the middle that can keep America’s foot from evil. We have failed to do this in the past. Will we fail again?

Wars are most often fought over ideology, religion, economics, resources and real estate. This is certainly true for America. Sometimes war is necessary for survival - because evil must be held in-check. Every war has two sides, and most are caused by an ideology (the so-called science of ideas) that instigates war. Each faction, in conflict or war has a beginning where the foundation of its beliefs, principles, or ideology begins. This book will uncover for every reader, America’s two foundations. Is this an oxymoron? Can a nation really have two foundations? Keep this in mind as you read this book.

"The word (ideology) first had its appearance in French as ideologie at the time of the French Revolution, when it was introduced by the philosopher, A-L-C Destutt deTracy, as a short name for what he called his ‘science of ideas’. The science of ideas was a science with a mission. It aimed at serving people, even saving them, by ridding their minds of prejudice and preparing them for the sovereignty of reason …. Then one can recognize as ideologies systems as diverse as Destutt deTracy’s own science of ideas, the positivism of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, communism and several other types of socialism, fascism, Nazism and certain kinds of nationalism. That all these ‘isms’ belong to the 19th and 20th century may suggest that ideologies are no older than the word itself - that they belong essentially to a period in which secular belief increasingly replaced traditional religious faith. Ideology is centered upon this world alone, where, as religion has greater emphasis on the inner or spiritual world. Throughout history, ideology has been linked to terrorism. This eventually included both secular and religious groups."⁵

As you visit Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Williamsburg, and other American cities in the East, you can see America’s history in the monuments, memorials, statues and engravings on state and federal buildings to honor our Founding Fathers, war heroes, political leaders, and to mark important historical events. These memorials are there for every generation to see. Throughout this book, as you see photographs of the engravings on the buildings, memorials, and statues, try to visualize how they were meant to impress, generation after generation. However, to impress, one must know the background for the memorial or person honored. While billions of dollars have been spent to remind Americans of their history, relatively few know it; and sadly, few Americans care. Because of this ignorance of history, some groups and politicians have torn down statues and historical markers. Rather than rip them down, shouldn’t we advance an understanding of them and their historical significance?

Introduction

"Masonry, around whose altars the