I always get a kick out of folks who deny America's Christian heritage. These perhaps otherwise very well-informed folks seem to think that the founding of the United States and the resulting republic were somehow religiously-based but certainly not explicitly Christian.
Just for fun, let's check out the words of the so-called Deists among America's founder--Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. Today many folks claim that Franklin and Jefferson knew nothing of a personal God. But Franklin and Jefferson's words tell a different story...
"God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel," Ben Franklin, Constitutional Convention of 1787.
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever," from Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.
Now let's move onto the unabashedly Christian Founding Fathers and the unmistakably Christian roots of the United States of America...
"It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here," Patrick Henry, May 1765 speech to the House of Burgesses--the first freely-elected legislative assembly in the New World, founded in the Virginia colony in 1619.
"The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity...[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty," John Adams in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on the day the Declaration of Independence was approved by Congress.
"We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but
Jesus
!" John Adams and John Hancock, April 18, 1775.
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests," Alexander Hamilton, after the Constitutional Convention, 1787.
These quotes may be eye-openers to many of you who, like me, grew up in public schools. Although I must admit a
little attendance problem in high school. So maybe I missed the U.S. history class that mentioned our Christian founding.
Our Founding Fathers clearly declared that Jesus Christ and his teaching provide the basis for freedom and justice for all--Christians and non-Christians alike. This does not mean that our founders perfectly meted out Christian justice in all cases, as the Civil War taught us the painful price of our Founding Fathers' failure to properly address slavery from Christian principles. Just the same, the Christian foundation of our nation is certain, at least from the words and most of the deeds of Adams, Jefferson, and friends.
But what about Jesus Christ himself? Was he just a great moral teacher whose lessons happen to provide a great foundation for a free country? Or was he truly, as he claimed, the only way to God? Read the next post to find out...