The results are in, and Americans have failed the test. When it comes to our history, we are the most ignorant generation of Americans ever to be born. Despite unprecedented access to media and information, our families have little idea where they came from, let alone who they are.

Consider the results of a Virginia Tourism Corp. poll recently published in the Virginia Gazette. Of the one thousand people polled, only 7% knew that the first permanent English settlement in America occurred in 1607; only 31% knew that the settlement was located in Virginia; and only 26% knew its name was Jamestown. A mere eight out of one thousand respondents knew the name of the ships that brought the settlers.

This problem is not exclusively theirs — i.e., the unbelieving world. It is our problem. The sad truth is that most Christian parents and their children know more about Hollywood celebrities than they do about Christian heroes like John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe, William Bradford, Cotton Mather, Samuel Davies, Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Tyler, and the pantheon of remarkable men and women who were used of God to give us a legacy of law and liberty under Christ.

And the reason for the historical amnesia of most Americans is clear. We have set aside the biblical commands, like those found in the 78th Psalm, for fathers to teach their children the mighty deeds of God in history.