I recently had the privilege of being featured in the new film “The American Miracle.” The film is a docudrama, a mix of interviews with experts on the American founding and reenactments. The experts include the likes of Joseph Ellis and Robert George. The actors range from Richard Dreyfuss, Pat Boone and Kevin Sorbo to newcomers Libby Smallbone, Nicole Mullen and Daniel Shippey.
The film is based on the book by the same name, written by the wonderful Michael Medved. The book and film resonate with me because they cover key moments from the founding that I’ve long lectured about at Grove City College, such as the inexplicable and seemingly miraculous instances of George Washington’s repeated survival.
The number of times Washington — the father of this blessed nation — should have died from arrows, bullets, falling in the freezing Monongahela River, crossing the Delaware and more really do suggest a providential protection. Even if you’re not a religious person, there seem too many astonishing coincidences. To quote Pope John Paul II, “coincidence is what the believer calls providence.” There were so many “coincidences” heaped upon one another at the time of this nation’s extraordinary establishment.
I can especially relate to Washington’s experiences because they happened in my native Western Pennsylvania. Then there are the scenes dealing with the Declaration of Independence, which of course occurred in Philadelphia, likewise in my home state.
The film recreates these scenes beautifully. But there’s one scene that’s especially fitting for this July 4.
On July 4, 1826, America was set to celebrate its jubilee. The thriving young country was abuzz. The citizens of the recently established United States of America were proud of the nation they had sacrificed to establish. All were appreciative of the great work of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the two men behind the Declaration.
What especially excited the citizens as July 4 approached is that Jefferson and Adams both were still alive. Washington had long ago passed, but the 83-year-old Jefferson and 90-year-old Adams were hanging on. Both wanted to live to see the 50th anniversary.
In “The American Miracle,’ these final moments in the lives of Jefferson and Adams are reproduced splendidly. Medved expounds upon the unbelievable mathematical-statistical probability of these two fathers of the Declaration and ex-presidents living that long and dying the same day (no other president lived to 90 until Herbert Hoover in 1964). They remain the only two presidents to expire on the same day.
Their countrymen considered their deaths no coincidence. Numerous voices, from Daniel Webster to John Quincy Adams, stepped forth to proclaim God had purposely called the two men home that day. Sen. Samuel Smith attributed their mutual deaths to an “all-seeing providence, as a mark of approbation of their well-spent lives.”
Make of that what you will. Personally, place me on the side of providence. Or to borrow from Jefferson, the side of “Nature’s God.”
And if you’re looking for something really inspirational this July 4, check out “The American Miracle.”