A century ago the government erected a monument to honor the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Va., and carved into it an admonition to "serve and fear God the giver of all goodness."

This year, with the government calling the Jamestown founding an "invasion," the sole monument to honor the 400th anniversary is the Jamestown Children's Monument, dedicated yesterday during events held by Vision Forum Ministries.

The 2007 Jamestown Children's Monument

"The raising of rocks of remembrance to the glory of God has been a defining aspect of past Jamestown centennials," noted Doug Phillips, Vision Forum founder and organizer of the Jamestown Quadricentennial: A Celebration of America's Providential History, the ministry's answer to the official editing of Christianity from Jamestown history.

"This year, those involved with the official commemoration have chosen not to erect a significant marker to Jamestown's legacy, even as they have banned the word 'celebration' from their event. We believe we have much to celebrate, and we are honored by the $1 donations that the grateful children of America have given to fill this void and support the Jamestown Children's Memorial," Phillips said.

The monument will stand on the grounds of Fort Pocahontas, part of the historic Virginia estate of Harrison Tyler, the grandson of the nation's 10th president, and the grand marshal for Vision Forum's week-long program of celebration.

The 300th anniversary Jamestown monument

The memorial, carved by the same company that produced the well-known Alabama Ten Commandments Monument, was paid for by $1 donations from America's children, and is being installed as part of the special events that have drawn thousands of visitors to Virginia's historic district.

The Jamestown Children's Memorial is a four-sided monument featuring the Fifth Commandment, words of Christian exhortation from the visionaries behind Jamestown, and a list of providential accomplishments through the history of the settlement. The top will be crowned with a sculpting of Holy Scripture opened to Psalm 78 – the text which admonishes fathers to teach the providences of God so that their children might have hope, Vision Forum confirmed.

"The Jamestown Children's Memorial follows in the tradition of the great 103-foot-tall Jamestown Tercentenary Monument erected by the United States in 1907 and the Memorial Cross placed in the Jamestown Festival Park in 1957," noted Phillips. "Each gives glory to God, even as they remind future generations of the sacrifice our forefathers gave to pass onto us the freedoms we enjoy today."

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Below the Jamestown Children's Memorial, a time capsule will be set that contains a scroll with the names of all those who contributed to the monument, along with letters from this generation of children – written to the children of the 21st century.

Plans are being left for the capsule to be opened and the letters read in the year 2107 – at Jamestown's 500-year anniversary.

"One hundred years from now, America will celebrate its 500th birthday," Phillips said. "It is our prayer that, on that great anniversary, the children of the 22nd century will be inspired and encouraged to learn that a remnant of children from this generation came forward to honor their forefathers on the occasion of America's four hundredth birthday celebration."

The new monument will state:

We, the grateful children of the twenty-first century, in gratitude to the Lord our God for the mercy and kindness bestowed upon the American people through His providential direction and care of our Jamestown forefathers, do hereby erect this monument on the four hundredth anniversary of the Jamestown settlement.

It also cites the legacy of Jamestown: "The Bible in America, Christian Worship, Gospel Conversions, Scripture-based Common Law, and Republican Representative Government," and features a quote by a Jamestown founder, Richard Hakluyt, who said "Wee shall by plantinge there inlarge the glory of the gospel, and from England Plante sincere religion, and provide a safe and a sure place to receave people from all partes of the worlds that are forced to flee for the truthe of God's worde."

The fourth side quotes Exodus 20:12: "Honor Your Father and Mother that Thy Days May Be Long Upon the Land which the Lord They God Giveth Thee."

Phillips has noted that the government led celebrations at the 200th, 250th, 300th, and 350th birthdays of the settlement, but they now are being denigrated as inaccurate and incomplete by government-sponsored events because of the perspective that the settlers "invaded" North America.

Official Jamestown site managers have even documented that the primary goal of the trip that sent settlers to the New World in 1607 was to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Phillips describes the site now as "a battleground for America's future," with the government trying to eliminate references to Christian influences and Christian heritages from the story of Jamestown's history.

This year, the official events, instead of celebrating, "are telling us we need to mourn and lament the actions of our Christian forebears," Phillips said. The New York Times called the events something to mark Jamestown, "a town which disappeared into the mud," and the Virginia Gazette noted the nation is spending millions of dollars and "entirely too much energy" to mark events accomplished by "a bunch of British buffoons who knew nothing of what they were doing for the sake of Christianizing Indians."

However, "the truth is these imperfect but nonetheless Christian settlers came to a world dominated by … warring tribes" under the influence of spiritualism, Phillips said.

"They brought with them the Gospel of peace, Jesus Christ, and a dominion vision for establishing a land of freedom," Phillips said.

"Why did the settlers come? The answer is simple: They came because they were commissioned to do so under the premise of the Great Commission," Phillips said.

The Jamestown Settlement is run by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation for the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is adjacent to the Historic Jamestown, run by the APVA Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service.

WND also has reported on similar efforts uncovered by Pastor Todd DuBord to edit Christianity from references at the U.S. Supreme Court and Jefferson's Monticello estate, and also has that research, as well as his Jamestown research, available on his church website.

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