Why faith is the key to America’s next 250 years

By Samuel Rodriguez, CP Contributor Saturday, May 16, 2026

America is almost 250 years old.

Two hundred and fifty years of trial and triumph. Two hundred and fifty years of failure and redemption. Two hundred and fifty years of a nation that, at its best, looked beyond itself and toward something greater.

And faith was in the room at every one of those turning points.

Not faith as a slogan nor a political prop, but as the lived conviction of men and women who believed faith was at the very foundation upon which a free people can stand. That type of faith is what got us here, and that is the faith we need for the next 250 years.

We need that faith because we are living in a moment of crisis. Though politics are certainly broken and many families are struggling, what we are seeing is not political nor an economic crisis. We are living through a crisis of identity. A deconstructive ideology has swept through all parts of our society, pulling at the foundations, insisting that truth is a matter of opinion and that the institutions that have sustained our country are not worth preserving.

When a culture loses its moral foundation, it does not gradually decline. It collapses.

The solution to chaos has never been a change in policy but rather a return to the foundation. For this nation, our foundation is the Word of God.

The Bible has shaped our country from the very beginning. The men and women who built this great nation sought to incorporate a framework rooted in God's Word, one that has outlasted every empire that has tried to replace it. Proverbs 14:34 states: “Righteousness exalts a nation.” That is the framework America was built upon, righteousness not rage, and we must return to it now.

This is why I am honored to participate in Rededicate 250, a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Faith leaders and believers from every background coming together not to make a political statement but to make a spiritual one. We will say together, as one nation, that we are grateful for 250 years of God's providence and that we are asking for His guidance for the next 250.

Some will call this symbolic. I call it prophetic.

The Church is not merely a participant in the renewal of America. The Church is the catalyst behind it. Every great awakening this nation has ever experienced began not in a Capitol building but in a congregation. The First Great Awakening did not just change hearts; it changed a culture and helped birth a revolution. The Second Great Awakening fueled the abolition movement. Faith has never stood on the sidelines of American history. Faith was on the field.

It needs to be on the field again.

I have led a growing Latino Evangelical community for more than two decades. In this time, I've sat with presidents but also walked alongside pastors who lead communities that will never make the news. I have seen firsthand what happens when the Church retreats from the public square, and what happens when it shows up. The difference truly is seismic.

Long before Jamestown or Plymouth Rock, faith was central to our ancestors’ identity. We did not arrive in America and discover faith. We brought it with us. For generations, it has been a true constant in our nation. It was an anchor that held families together when everything else was falling apart.

Our story is intertwined with America's story.

Two hundred and fifty years in, this nation does not need more anger or more division. It does not need more voices telling us what we can or cannot be. Our nation needs the Church to stand up and remind a forgetful generation of who we are and whose we are.

The Church must stop waiting for permission and start leading with conviction. It requires believers to step up and engage not just on Sunday morning but in every sector of society, from the schoolroom to the boardroom. It requires us to hold mercy and justice together, not as competing agendas, but as the twin pillars of a nation that honors God.

Faith got us started and it carried us through. Faith, the real kind, the costly kind, the kind that moves people to act and not just to speak, is what will carry us forward.

Your faith was never meant to stay inside a church building. It was meant to walk into your classroom, your workplace, your neighborhood. It was meant to show up on Monday with the same conviction it had on Sunday. The next 250 years will not be written in legislative chambers but rather written by ordinary citizens who decided their faith was too important to keep private and too powerful to leave unused.

Two hundred and fifty years from now, let history show that this generation did not flinch. Let them say we returned to our Creator and His Word. Let them say we believed.