GN Commentary: September 10, 2009 - Ted Kennedy and America

The recent death of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy in August of 2009 brought to mind a remarkable drama of America's history.

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Video Transcript

The recent death of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy in August of 2009 brought to mind a remarkable drama of America's history.

He was preceded in death by his famous brothers who were tragically assassinated: US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America's first Catholic president in 1963 and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in 1968.

These three involved their lives in the governance of their nation. Senator Ted Kennedy's political career had been checkered most certainly. He had many supporters and many detractors over the years.  But that is of course the nature of this world's politics.

But let's look at another interesting aspect about the Kennedy family other than politics. 

The Kennedys were Irish—from Dunganstown, County Wexford. Senator Kennedy's and his brothers' ancestors sought freedom and opportunity in a very Anglo-Saxon America in the 1840's.

But it wasn't just the Irish who sought opportunity in America. The nation has been called a melting pot of peoples from all over the world—Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East, plus South and Central America. Many from these far-flung fountains of humanity found not only safe haven in the United States, but the freedom to learn, earn, build, grow and do.  And yet, all this human opportunity occurred within the over-arching, Anglo-Saxon culture.

Not always was freedom fairly or easily offered to all who came or were brought to America's shores—many Irish, African and Chinese immigrants experienced this first hand.  But the fact that they were ultimately offered that freedom and opportunity is a strange and dramatic story in itself.

There was built into the Anglo-Saxon core of the country's culture a peculiar quality of character—a sense of fair play—even more, a determined insistence on fair play for all citizens. America's concept of the "rule of law" typifies that fair play.  It was as if a spiritual echo of a long-lost ancestors of biblical proportions influenced the nation's processes.

Who were those Anglo-Saxons anyway?  Where did they come from?  How did they get here in America?  And why did they finally embrace the Irish and other peoples as equal under the law.

The historical identity of the Saxons, Angles and other tribes now grown into nations can be tracked through Bible prophecy.  That remarkable knowledge can be found in the pages of your Bible.

For GN magazine, I'm Randy Stiver.