Thousands to Mark Star-Spangled Banner Anniversary
WASHINGTON - Francis Scott Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner 200 years ago this weekend. And just as America's national anthem was born during dark, trying times for the young nation, some marking the anniversary see parallels to our present day.
Scott wrote the anthem to describe the flag triumphantly flying over Fort McHenry after it had survived a long, torturous all-night bombardment by the British forces that had wreaked destruction on Washington D.C. just days before.
"The British had marched on Washington; they had burned the Capitol, burned the White House. People didn't know if we had a future," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told CBN News.
"When you look internationally, you look at our economy, you look at the moral fabric of our country, people are wondering if we have a future," he continued.
"Well, we have a God, a God who cares, a God who will intervene if His people will pray. And we have that opportunity," he said.
Some people will be taking up that opportunity at events this Sunday marking the anthem's 200th anniversary.
For instance, the people behind SingItAmerica.com are organizing a 5 p.m., Sunday sing-along of the anthem on one of the lawns adjacent to the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.
"We are having a 200-member choir. It's going to be astounding," Erin Anderson, of SingItAmerica.com, said.
Those attending will hear proclamations from various states celebrating the anniversary and get a progress report about efforts in Congress to declare a year of remembering the anthem.
And hundreds of churches will be joining in a 7 p.m., Sunday simulcast put on by Rick Scarborough's Vision America and Perkins' Family Research Council.
***Details for that event can be found at the website Star Spangled Banner Sunay.
America is certainly known as the land of liberty. But what the national anthem reminds us about in its fourth verse is that this was a nation shaped, nurtured and guarded over by the God of liberty:
"Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - 'In God is our trust,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Anderson stated, "It discusses how we are a heaven-rescued land, meaning the Hand of God came in and rescued us as we were starting out."
"It's a prayer, it's really a heartfelt cry for the nation," Perkins added. "And if that was ever relevant, it's relevant today."
