The American Heritage Notes
The American Heritage Series
For centuries, Americans were taught a truthful view of history that recognized the Godly heroes and moral foundation our nation was founded upon. But in recent years, a new version of history has assaulted the moral and spiritual fiber of our nation, leaving the truth of our past eliminated and forgotten. His people perish for the lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Another Biblical example for the need to know history is the story of Mordecai and Haman in the book of Esther (ch.3-4). In present-day politics and government, the term “separation of church and state” is regularly used to prohibit expressions of religious faith in the public arena. However, for a century-and-a-half after the Constitution was written, that phrase meant exactly the opposite – it was used to preserve religious expressions in the public square.
“A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we don’t know where we came from, or what we have been about.”—President Woodrow Wilson
Disc 1 Episodes 1-3 Why History Matters – Unearthing America’s Christian Foundation: Parts 1 & 2
Key phrase: “pro faith”
29 out of the 56 signers of the Declaration had theological degrees; of the 27 grievances taxation without representation was 17th; 11 pertained to abuse of representative powers, 7 to abuse of military powers, 4 to judicial powers, 2 to stirring up domestic insurrection; acknowledges God 4 times
Approx. 250 founding fathers including 56 signers of the Declaration, 55 Constitution framers, 90 in the First Congress and signers of the Bill of Rights…95% were orthodox evangelical Christians
Original References:
The Lives of The Signers of The Declaration of Independence (1848 biography of the 56 signers)
Founders and their faith:
Questions of Founders and Religion
Christian Declarations of Founding Fathers
Deism, Separation of Church and State, and Theocracy
The Story of Liberty by Charles Coffin (1878), one of the last history textbooks that included matters of faith which influenced the acts of the founders
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
Charles Thompson Bible 1808 (took 25 years translating from original languages)
Founders’ early proclamations; http://www.constitution.org/
James Madison’s Detached Memoranda
Suggested reading: Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion By David Barton
George Washington The Image and the Man by W.E. Woodard (1926 with no footnotes or bibliography; removed all religious references to founders and often cited in subsequent history textbooks), together with historical writers such as Charles and Mary Beard, Robert Green Ingersoll, and Fairfax Downey began rewriting history according to the economic approach/basis and secular view of the record rather than the previous providential view held for at least 160 years. The American Liberal Union, now the ACLU became intertwined with that writing. Taxation without representation is now the number one reason people are taught that we declared our independence from England rather than the more expressed reason of freedom of religion.http://www.wallbuilders.com
In today’s classrooms and civil arenas you will find little evidence of the Biblical principles upon which America was founded. In fact, many modern-day historians claim that our nation’s Founders were a diverse group of atheists, deists, and political revolutionaries.
Disc 2 Episodes 4-5 The Faith of Our Founding Fathers: Parts 1 & 2
Original References:
The Maxims of George Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious by John Frederick Schroeder (1855 with eye witness commentaries)
Thanksgiving Proclamation by George Washington
Failed by one vote to end slavery in the Continental Congress; The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson (extraction of the red letter sayings of Jesus; note: this website is of the original text with no additional inserts as other copies of this book contains.)
Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son On the Bible and Its Teachings
In today’s society, Americans are increasingly taught false views about the religious and moral beliefs of our Founding Fathers. Were our Founding Fathers rebellious political zealots as many historians now teach? Or were they really men of integrity and strong religious character, as earlier generations and textbooks taught?
Disc 3 Episodes 6-8 The Ideas that Birthed a Nation/ Our Biblical Constitution/ Is America a “Christian Nation?”
Alexis De Tocqueville wrote about American exceptionalism dependent upon God’s hand in our affairs. Ours is the longest ongoing constitutional republic in the history of the world. Democracy in America, book one; Democracy in America, book two
Writings by John Locke: Common Place-Book to the Holy Bible, The Reasonableness of Christianity, A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, *Two Treatises of Government (1690, 1765)–explains the proper operation of civil government and refers to the Bible 1500 times; it was a primary work influencing the Declaration
Seedtime of the Republic by Clinton Rossiter
Polity by John Wise (2 works in one from 1710 and 1717, repub by Artemas Ward 1772- many of the ideas of the Declaration came from these sermons printed in this book)
From the Founding Era with 15,000 writings analyzed, a group of political scientists revealed 3,154 direct quotations from the Bible and specific political sources which yielded what the fathers were thinking during the time of the establishment of the American government and determined the origin of their political ideas.
The Founders were influenced by and quoted most frequently from the Bible (most cited at 34%) Baron Charles de Montesquieu (8.3%), Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries of the Laws 7.9%), and John Locke (2.9%)–The Origins of American Constitutionalism by Donald S. Lutz
John Adams is quoted as saying those behind American independence were the pastors Samuel Cooper, Jonathan Mayhew, George Whitefield, and Charles Chauncy
Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892 US Supreme Court decision, 16 pages in the Court records, based upon 87 cited precedents): “No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people…This is a Christian nation.”
Vidal v. Girard [College in Philadelphia prohibited Bible teachings](1844 US Supreme Court): “Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament…be read and taught as a divine revelation in the [school]- its general precepts expounded…and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?…Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”
The Constitution and the Bible:
Three branches of government: Isa 33:22
Separation of powers: Jer 17:9
Tax exemption for churches: Ezra 7:24
Article I, Section 8 Uniform immigration laws Lev 19:34
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 8—Noah Webster who wrote this cited Exo 18:21
Article II, Section 1 – President must be natural-born citizen Deut. 17:15
Article III, Section 3– Witnesses and capital punishment Deut 17:6
Article III, Section 3—Provision against attainder Eze 18:20
Article IV, Section 4—Republicanism (elections at local, county, state, and federal levels) Exo 18:21
“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…the general principles of Christianity…Now I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”—John Adams
From an 1854 U.S. Congress report: “Had the people, during the Revolution, has a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but not any one [denomination]…In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity…That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”
The 1872 Supreme Court extensively reviewed American history. That review cited more than 60 historical precedents. The Court concluded: “There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation…[T]his is a Christian nation.”
“Truth can stand by itself…Why subject [opinion] to coercion? To produce uniformity…Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites…[I]f there be but one right [religion], and [Christianity] that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”—Thomas Jefferson
“Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohamed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is that of the New Testament.”—Benjamin Rush
Song of Solomon 8:13 Your friends listen to your voice therefore speak.
The Godless Constitution by Kramnick and Moore (no sources for their citations) vs. Original Intent by David Barton (1500 footnotes of which 87% coming from the founding fathers own lifetimes)
“A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.”—Fisher Ames
“A simple democracy is the devil’s own government.” —Benjamin Rush
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”—John Adams
Article 4, Section 4 requires that “each state maintain a republican form of government…”
“[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.” —Noah Webster
No forced coercion or conversion to a particular religion; freedom of conscience rules based upon Truth against other religions much like Elijah on Mt. Carmel who challenged 450 prophets (1 Kings 18).
Modern history teaches us that our Founding Fathers were atheists, agnostics, and deists; yet a closer look into history tells us a different story. America’s founders were united by their deeply held spiritual beliefs, and those beliefs directly impacted the formation of the new nation. Significantly, the Bible was the source of many of the unique ideas and unprecedented principles laid out in our founding documents, but today we are no longer taught these truths about our founding; instead, we are taught a revisionist history in which religious faith is absent and God’s Providential hand is ignored.
Disc 4 Episodes 9-10 Church, State & the Real 1st Amendment: Parts 1 & 2
“Separation of church and state” is not a phrase from secularists trying to keep Christians out of the public arena, but one that came out of the reformation trying to keep the government out of the church, an institutional separation, not an influential one. First appearance of the phrase was in England in 1500’s from theologian Richard Hooker, associated with the reformation, and in America in the 1600’s from Roger Williams, pastors who wanted the government to leave the church alone, advocating institutional separation.
This statement, not found in any founding document, is often wrongly attached to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (so-called ‘establishment clause’) or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (the ‘free exercise clause’).” U.S. Congressional Records from June 7- Sept. 25, 1789 show the intent of that amendment: the federal government was prohibited to establishing a national denomination (one of the problems America faced while a part of Great Britain), or interfering with or limiting the people’s religious expression.
Danbury Baptists wrote to Thomas Jefferson on Nov. 7, 1801 that they were concerned that the “free exercise of religion” appearing in the First Amendment implied that the government had the power to regulate religious expression, or at least left a door open for that interpretation. They believed that the freedom of religion was a God-granted, unalienable right, and that the government should be powerless to restrict religious activities unless those activities caused someone to “work ill to his neighbor.” On Jan 1, 1802 Jefferson (letter is in Library of Congress) replied assuring them of just that position and would not be meddled with by the government and that there is a “wall of separation between church and state” and that this wall would prevent government from interfering with or hindering religious activities. On Jan 3, 1802 Thomas Jefferson went to church in the Capitol to hear his friend Rev. John Leland preach. In the last 50 years this understanding has been reversed by the secularists to mean keeping out the influence of the church upon the government.
In 1853 a group petitioned Congress urging them to remove religion (chaplains, prayers, etc.) out of government rather than protect its expression. The House Judiciary Committee Report of March 27, 1854 answered: “Had the people [the Founding Fathers], during the Revolution, a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle…At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and its amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but not any one sect [denomination].” The report continued: “in this age, there is no substitute for Christianity…That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.” Two months later the committee made this declaration: “The great vital and conservative element in our system [the thing that holds our system together] is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
In Oct, 1878 Reynolds v. United States plaintiffs in an argument taking Jefferson’s phrase “building a wall of separation between church and state” out of context in an effort to remove Christian values and practices out of public policy. The Supreme Court ruling responded by reprinting a lengthy segment of Jefferson’s letter to prove otherwise…that the First Amendment was written to protect rather than remove them.
Biblical example of institutional separation of church and state:
King Uzziah was only sixteen when he became king and he ruled the people for fifty two years. He prayed and looked to God to help him, and God did. He gave him victory over his enemies, and they built up a strong army. He built walls and towers around Jerusalem to protect them. The Bible says, “As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper,” 2 Chronicles 26:5. “And he was marvelously helped till he was strong,” 2 Chronicles 26:15. When he had a strong army and walls and towers, he became proud and sinned against God. One day he went to the temple. It was the work of the priests, those from Aaron’s family, to burn incense on the altar. Anyone else was forbidden to do it, Numbers 16:40. Everyone who came to worship in the temple came to the priest, so that they might offer their sacrifices for them and burn incense on the altar.
King Uzziah felt that because he was king he could offer the incense and go to God himself without the work of the priests. He pushed his way into the holy place where only the priests were allowed to enter, and took up a censer in his hand to burn incense on the altar. Azariah, the high priest, took a group of eighty priests with him and came after the king into the holy place. He said to him, “You have no right to be here, Uzziah. It is only the priests whom God has chosen to burn incense. Go out quickly, for you have sinned in this and God will punish you.”
King Uzziah was very angry that anyone should speak to him. Was he not the king? Immediately God punished him. The priests who were watching saw white spots break out on his forehead. They knew that God had smitten him with the dreadful disease of leprosy because of his sin. They began to push him out of the temple, for no leper was allowed in there. He could not be king any longer. He had to live in a separate house by himself. He was called unclean and was cut off from the house of God all the rest of his life. Everyone in the land knew this, and no doubt the people felt that King Uzziah was a great sinner before God. He lived alone until his death.
From the institution of family in the beginning of Genesis to the establishment of civil government (civil laws concerning shedding of man’s blood, theft, murder, et al), to the end of Genesis where God establishes the temple, we have three separate and distinct institutions, each with their own directives, e.g. In Rom. 13 God gives the sword to the government, not to the church. If the church were to pick up the sword of civil justice it would violate the institutional separations, which is what happened during the Inquisition, the Crusades and atrocities happened. Thus the reformers spoke out against merging these two institutions…kings (the sword) and priests (the church) have their own distinct functions.
In the case Everson v. Board of Education (1947) the Court cited only Jefferson’s separation metaphor ignoring the rest of his letter and his clear context and therefore boldly announced the new policy: “The first Amendment has erected ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’ That wall must be kept high and impregnable.” Instead of using the language of the First Amendment, Congress will now use the phrase “separation of church and state to interpret the First Amendment (the establishment clause).
No longer would Jefferson’s phrase protect public religious expressions as it had previously the last century and half; it would now become a mandate to exclude religious expressions and to secularize the public square. They simultaneously clamored, “This is what the Founders wanted- separation of church and state. This is their great intent.” Thus proving, “There is nothing so absurd but that if you repeat it often enough people will believe it.” —Dr. William James, father of modern psychology
With Engel v. Vitale (June 25, 1962) this case for the first time separated Christian principles from education and redefined the First Amendment without quoting any previous legal cases or historical incidents. It struck down school prayer (rendering it unconstitutional, even voluntary prayer in school). For 170 years before this case, the court defined “church” as being a federally established denomination. This 1962 case redefined “church” to mean rather than an institution to be any religious activity performed in public. The 22-word “unconstitutional” prayer: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our Country.” Note: The Pledge of Allegiance acknowledges God one time, and The Declaration acknowledges God four times.
Abington v. Schempp (1962) The Court investigated and reported that only 3% of the nation did not believe in religion or God. The above “unconstitutional” prayer was consistent with the beliefs of 97% of the country. The first time in America’s history that the 3% had become a majority. And this now has become precedent.
Abington v. Schempp & Murray v. Curlett (June 17, 1963) “If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be and…had been psychologically harmful to the child.” Removed the Bible from schools.
Dekalb v. DeSpain (1967) The Court declared a 4-line nursery rhyme used by a kindergarten class unconstitutional. The reason: although the word “God” was not mentioned, if someone were to hear the rhyme he might think it was talking about God.
Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) was a case in which the Supreme Court established the “Lemon test” for deciding if a law is in violation of the Establishment Clause. This test to determine if a public religious expression is constitutional the primary purpose must be secular. Public prayer, public display of a nativity scene, saying “under God” in the pledge all become questionable.
Stone v. Graham (1980) “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read., meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the Commandments…[which] is not a permissible…objective.” Denied the display of the 10 Commandments in school.
Wallace v. Jaffree (1985 on silent meditation and voluntary prayer in public schools), a case called the “endorsement test,” states that if government even looks friendly toward religion it is unconstitutional. Cited the 1962 case stating even silent prayer was not permissible.
Harper v. Godfrey Company (1992, US 7th Circuit Court), the outsider test, if you are a part of a religious minority, such as an atheist (6% of the population), and see someone doing a religious activity or see an expression of religion that makes you feel uncomfortable or like an outsider, it must be stopped…even has been applied to the 10 Commandments on and in buildings; prayer at a graduation, at a football game, or at a city council meeting which all unconstitutionally establishes a religion.
John Adams (an expert of the First Amendment!) unequivocally declared “If ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ And ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” The Commandments are clearly the basis of our laws.
James Wilson, one of only 6 Founders who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution and served as one of the original justices on the Supreme Court where he served for its first 9 years and wrote the first law textbooks, explained: “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of the law which is Divine…Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.”
The 90 framers of the Bill of Rights (including the First Amendment of which people now make Jefferson the chief spokesman) which did not include Jefferson (he was in Europe at the time) wrote it between June 19th to about Sept. 25, 1789. In the records of Congress is contained all the debates during this time which does not contain one mention of the phrase “separation of church and state.” Not until Jefferson’s letter in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists as a clarification of the First Amendment and assurance that government would not interfere in the exercise of their religious practices was ever mentioned the phrase “separation of church and state.” It was Fisher Ames who wrote the First Amendment language and obviously knows its intentions. In a collection of the Works of Fisher Ames, he states that the Bible cannot be pushed out of the classroom in public schools. Benjamin Rush, too, wrote a letter in defense of the use of the Bible in schools.
Article 1, Section 5, Paragraph 3, mandates that written records be kept of the proceedings in Congress which ensures an open, accessible, and accountable government and describes the words and actions of elected officials.
In the first week of December 1800 in the Annals of Congress is written that Congress decided the Capitol building would also serve as a church building. This was confirmed by the diaries of those serving Congress at the time. ref. in John Quincy Adams’ diary from October 30, 1803 is recorded. “Attended public service at the Capitol where Mr. Ratoon, an Episcopalian clergyman from Baltimore, preached a sermon.” The week before he had written, “Religious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury.”
Military chaplains now have to write out their prayers and be approved and edited by the JAG in advance before they are prayed. Some chaplains have been disciplined and demoted for using the wrong words thereby trumping the free speech phrase with separation of church and state. Yet there still are chaplains who open both houses of Congress with prayer handled by historical exclusion, ceremonial deism, which states that although “In God We Trust” appears on our coins since the Civil War, and the 4th stanza to the national anthem, nobody really believes that anymore and it doesn’t mean anything to most people…it’s just historical traditions.
Question: Secular humanism and atheism have been declared religions, ones without God, so how can religious freedoms and protections be granted to those who do not practice religious faith? More than 80% of Americans want prayer in schools. Today we have the 20% who are outsiders not wanting the public display of the 10 Commandments, or public prayer, or a host of other things ruling the majority.
Disc 5 Episodes 11-13 Influence of the Bible in America How Pastors Shaped Our Independence: Parts 1 & 2
During the Revolutionary War, churches and clergy played a pivotal role, providing leadership in the political and military arenas and helping shape the intellectual ideas that took root in our founding documents. The Bible helped shape our nation’s government, educational system, and culture in general; and while today’s critics have relegated religious leaders to serving only within the four walls of the church, America’s early religious leaders believed that they were to be involved in every aspect of life – including government. Is there still a role for churches and pastors to play in today’s political arena?
To the reality of the relevance of the Bible on daily living, to every aspect of life and culture:
“The Bible is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed.”—Patrick Henry
“The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society- the best book for regulating the temporal (that is secular) concerns of men.”—Noah Webster
“The Bible…should be read in our schools in preference to all other books from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush
“To the free and universal reading of the Bible…men (are) much indebted for right views of civil liberty. The Bible is…a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow man.”—Daniel Webster
Dewitt Clinton (NY Senator who introduced the 12the Amendment to the Constitution) stated that Christianity may be contemplated in two important aspects: in reference to its influence upon this world, and to our destiny in the world to come.
“All societies of man must be governed in some way or other. Unless they may have a stringent state government, the more they must have an individual self government. Unless they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Man, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them, either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man, either by the Bible or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the state supporting religion; here, under our own free institutions it is religion which must support the state.“—Robert Winthrop (speaker of the House)
From The Letters of John Quincy Adams to his 10-year old son George Washington Adams while serving as a diplomat in St. Petersburg, Russia: “The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. I have myself for many years made it a practice to read the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit and with the same temper of mind which I now recommend to you: that is, with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my advance in wisdom and virtue.”
“Christian benevolence makes it our indispensable duty to lay ourselves out to serve our fellow creatures to the utmost of our power.”—John Adams
“The doctrines proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles include lessons of peace, benevolence, meekness, brotherly love, and charity.” —John Quincy Adams
“Let the religious element in man’s nature be neglected and it becomes the creature of selfish passion. The cultivation of religious sentiment incites a general benevolence.”—Daniel Webster
“For nearly half a century, I have anxiously and critically studied the Bible and I still scarcely ever take it up that I do not find something new…Were you to ask me to recommend the most valuable book in the world, I should fix on the Bible as the most instructive – both to the wise and the ignorant. Were you to ask me for one book affording the most rational and pleasing entertainment to the enquiring mind, I would still say the Bible. And should you ask again about the best philosophy, or the most interesting history, I would still urge you to look into your Bible. I would make it, in short, the alpha and the omega of knowledge.”—Elias Boudinot
“Oh, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God! How UNSEARCHABLE His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”—Rom. 11: 33-36
“The Holy Scriptures…can alone secure society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw (protections) around our institutions.”—James McHenry
Recidivism rates for inmates’ return to prison—68% vs. 8% with faith-based release programs; drug rehab cure rate—10% vs. >70% with faith-based drug rehab programs—religion is proven to be effectual in all areas of life, which is why with the separation of church and state it must be as institutions, but not as influence.
“The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”—John Jay
“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited…what a utopia – what a paradise would this region be.”—John Adams
“The brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government; and…our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible…The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws…All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from them despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”–The History of the United States (early textbook) by Noah Webster
Rev. Jonas Clark, writer of resolution for Massachusetts to separate from Great Britain and the State Constitution, often housed John Hancock and Samuel Adams, and it is to his home Paul Revere road to warn of the British invasion, after which 150 of his parishioners gathered to fight a defensive war in Lexington. His famous sermon of April 19, MDCCLXXVI (1776) recounts the events of what the British did to start the American Revolution at this one year anniversary.
Of the Reverends Dr. Jonathan Mayhew and Dr. Samuel Cooper, John Adams stated they were the “most conspicuous, the most ardent, and influential [in the] awakening and revival of American principles and feelings” that led to our independence. Other ministers whose influence and leadership were also Important included the Rev. George Whitefield, Rev. James Caldwell, Rev. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg whose exploits are recorded in The Pulpit of the American Revolution (1860), The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution (1860), and The Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution (1861).
Rev. George Whitefield was very influential with his messages exclaiming that Great Britain was trying to force and establish a national church, trying to take both civil and religious liberties away, and unless we separate we will not preserve our liberties. He went to Parliament to argue against the Stamp Act in 1765 and he was instrumental militarily in preparing the Americans for the war. He died in 1770 was buried in the basement of the Newburyport, MA church. As the troops were preparing to leave Newburyport some 5 years later, they went to the basement, opened the sarcophagus, and cut strips of cloth from his robe to take with them into battle because he was such an inspirational leader for American independence.
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg pastured 2 churches (Episcopal and Lutheran) in Woodstock, VA, and also a member of the Virginia legislature. On Jan. 21, 1776, he returned to his 2 churches from the state legislature in Williamsburg and delivered what was to be his farewell sermon taken from Ecc. 3 (a time to be born, a time to die…a time for war and a time for peace) in which he exhorted his parishioners to stand against the oppressors to protect themselves and their liberties lest they be lost to the tyrant and take up a cause, most urgent and noble, a sacrifice to bear arms in the fight. 300-some men joined him that day, the 8th Virginia Regiment in which Muhlenberg became one of America’s highest ranking military officers, a major general in the Revolution, one of seventeen officers who achieved that rank. A statue of him, depicting the moment in which he removed his clerical robes to reveal his military uniform to his congregation and called them to action, is in the Capitol rotunda and he is also in a painting of the surrender of the British in Yorktown. His brother Frederick pastured a church in NYC. He was driven from his church in 1777 by the British and the building was then desecrated and he, too, became involved. He was the first Speaker of the House of Representatives and his name is one of two on the Bill of Rights.
Rev. James Caldwell used hymnals from his church as wadding for the muskets. A famous painting “Give Them Watts” [from Isaac Watts] depict this event. The British in an attempt to assassinate him one night killed his wife, which gave him more impetus to fight during the week and preach on Sundays. On the pulpit he laid a large Bible and two pistols and he would challenge anyone to take his guns or his Bible.
George Washington’s “Farewell Address”: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
Christians often quote, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”—Matt 22:21 referencing whether we should pay taxes. We should render what is due both to Caesar and to God—responsibilities to both because of our dual citizenship. In our Constitution, our Caesar is we the people. We are to be involved in both arenas…those who are involved in civil government are ministers of God (Rom. 13:4-6), perhaps why so many ministers were involved in the civil arena during our founding era, believing and obeying the Bible. From Heb. 11:22-34, the faith hall of fame chapter lists those Biblical heroes who were all involved in civil government, and is followed by Chapter 12 which says these heroes of faith cheer us on [to be involved in the civil arena].
Ministers were referred to as the Black Regimen by the British because of their black robes. It was these who were recruiting men to fight, leading the battles, and were blamed for stirring up sedition, and were blamed for the American Revolution, and often when captured were treated more harshly. Through their courage, conviction, and knowledge of the Word, they became worthy of leadership militarily and civilly. On May 8, 1778 Congress wanted the nation to know the update on the war and wrote a resolution to be shared by ministers to their parishioners how in spite of the atrocities God was continually present. It was preachers not newspapers upon which Congress relied.
1 Tim. 2:1-2 Pray “first of all…for those in authority” for civil leaders, before ourselves, our families, or our churches. There is nothing else we are told to pray for “first of all.” In Lk 19, the parable of the talents, the rewards of those faithful servants who were good, were given rulership over cities, placing them into civil government. Perhaps it is time to rethink our beliefs about civil government based on what the Bible says.
Published sermons because of cost during our founding era were only done so if they had life-changing impact on the listeners. Published topics included The Destitute Sick, Effects of the Hebrew Slavery as Connected with Slavery in this Country, The Influence of Christianity on Civil Society, Divine Judgments upon Tyrants and Compassion to the Oppressed, A Discourse Occasioned by the Earthquakes in November 1755, The Great Fire In Boston, New England (March 20, 1760 by Jonathan Mayhew), Reflections on the Solar Eclipse which Appeared on June 6, 1806, The Infirmities and Comforts of Old Age, The Execution of Henry Blackburn for the Murder of George Wilkinson (Salem 14 Jan. 1796, an “occasional sermon” preached because of a significant event based on Rom. 13 God has given the sword to the civil government), an Artillery Sermon (an “annual sermon”, preached on a specific topic on a yearly basis, which was preached to the troops to lay out from Scriptures the proper role of the military), Mr. McKeen’s Election Sermon (also an example of an annual sermon preached May 18, 1800, a practice began in 1634 in Virginia which continued right up until the 20th century across America with the recognition that we as Christians have a dual citizenship and that we have a stewardship government that belonged to we the people), Voice of Warning to Christians on the Ensuing Election of a President of the United States (as a traditional practice from the pulpit preachers would often name politicians by name and set forth their positions and compare them with the Bible and advise whether to vote for a candidate based upon those comparisons)—sermons were preached in many states to open their legislative sessions addressing the Biblical principles of law making…all on practical Christianity indicating that they believed the Bible covered every area of life and therefore should be conferred first for it has the answers. Consider the same traditional practice of confrontation of civil leaders set forth in the Scriptures: Elijah with Ahab and Jezebel (who violated private property rights, killed Naboth to get his vineyard [immanent domain gone awry] 1 Kings 21), Samuel with Saul, Nathan and Gad with David, Isaiah with Manasseh, and many others. There is no model in the Bible where God has His ministers remain silent with civil leaders or about civil issues. “I observe in…[the Virginia] Constitution an abridgment of [a] right…I do not approve. It is the incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected.”
However, this has not been the case today in the area of free speech since 1954 when then freshman U.S. Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson became responsible for enacting a policy that treated non-profit organizations, including churches, differently. He added a one-line rider to the 1954 Senate appropriations bill which was uncontested that 501 (c)(3) organizations should stay out of the political arena since he did not like being criticized during his campaign by a foundation in his home state of Texas for his own political affiliations, business dealings, and moral life. Through regulatory administrative decisions and without a law passed after a number of years the IRS decided these foundations included churches and pastors should have no free speech on political issues. It is likely we would not have our founding documents had not pastors addressed the issues prior to 1763 which they embodied. Now we’re taking out the very voice that had such a positive impact on shaping our culture. Free speech has been arrested from pulpits particularly if it is religious and critical of the government it will be silenced from this 501(c)(3) policy application. Jesus could not today step into an American pulpit and repeat what He said in Lk 13 when He called Herod an old fox and the Pharisees hypocrites. Jesus Christ himself would be called up by the IRS. Freedom of speech was never intended to muzzle the role of pastors to the conscience of our nation.
Luke 19:13 tells us to occupy until He comes no matter one’s eschatology and so we should therefore heed the warning of Rev. Matthias Burnet in 1803 charged: “Finally, ye…whose high prerogative it is to…invest with office and authority or to withhold them and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust…which God…[has] put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them…Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.”
Prov. 29:2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Psa. 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord…
Rom. 12:1, 2 Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed…; Phillips translation reads, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould” which has happened to today’s church. Secularism has been allowed to tell the church what its role should be. This is not constitutional, nor historical, nor Biblical.
24 of the 56 signers of the Declaration held seminary degrees as were 44 of those delegates involved in the ratification process of the Constitution. The first Speaker of the House, Rev. Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, chosen by his peers was a minister of the Gospel as was his brother John Peter Gabriel, also a member of the House, both worked on forming the Bill of Rights and Frederick was one of only two signers.
Disc 6 Episodes 14-16 When Religion Was Culture Faith in Our Early Courts Myths of the Judiciary
Founding Father Alexander Hamilton announced to the nation during the ratification of the Constitution that, “[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. . . . [and] the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.” Yet today, our religious freedoms and so many others of our once inalienable rights are now regularly threatened by this “least dangerous” branch. This was not our Founding Fathers’ intent – a fact clearly revealed by an examination of early Supreme Court Justices and the values that guided their decisions.
Proclamation from Oct. 15, 1791 by John Hancock: “…And pray especially that universal happiness can be established in the world, and that all may bow to the scepter of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the whole earth may be filled with His glory.”
Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution, and as governor of Massachusetts, issued the following 1795 proclamation for prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving: “…that the peaceful and glorious reign of our Devine Redeemer may be known and enjoyed throughout the whole family of mankind.” And again in his 1797 proclamation: “…speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.” Sam Adams was a strong and outspoken Christian, a fact revealed in his private writings and confirmed by the official public records. He is honored by a statue located in the Capitol in the East Central Hall.
During the American Revolution our founders in the First Continental Congress there was issued no less than 15 national prayer proclamations, each written by different committees composed of various founders, and all characterized by strong Biblical language. In our Declaration they proclaimed to the world that they were proceeding “with a firm reliance on Divine Providence.”
For the past 50 years we have been taught to compartmentalize our faith and have thus segregated faith from all other aspects of life done so effectively through our legislative and judicial systems.
We’ve had public schools and prayer was a part of them in America since 1647. A federal court ruling of late stated, “This court will allow prayer if it is a typical ‘nondenominational’ prayer. The prayer can refer to God or the Almighty, but the prayer must not refer to Jesus. And make no mistake, this court will have a U.S. martial in attendance at graduation. If any student offends this court, that student will be summarily arrested and will face six months incarceration in the Galveston County Jail.”
There was a philosophy introduced into the Court by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes in the 1930’s that though we are under a Constitution, the Constitution is what the courts says that it is.
After he was moved by the reading of the Bible and prayer in the Congress which was so timely and had such a profound effect on the delegates, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, “I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that the Psalm be read on the morning…I must beg you to read that Psalm…[R]ead this letter and the 35th Psalm to [your friends]. Read it to your father.” Her father was the Rev. William Smith, the pastor of their local church.
In Washington’s “Farewell Address” of 1796 reminded us why the founding government and its policies were so successful: “Of all dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” In today’s civil arena the practice of our religious freedoms are often relegated to private acts of worship, but was that our Founding Father’s intent? Were these freedoms established to limit religious expression and Biblical values in government, or to endorse them?
First federal prayer proclamation issued by President George Washington on Oct 17, 1789: “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, it is the duty to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor;…” [the duty of nations!]
John Adams further stated “At the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God, and as the national acknowledgment of this truth not only is an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety without which social happiness cannot exist.”
Thomas Jefferson declared in his first book entitled Notes on the State of Virginia, in Query eighteen: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we remove their only firm basis which is a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, and they are not to be violated but for His wrath. Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Between 1622 and 1815 there were 1500 official proclamations for prayer issued in America. Of those 1500, three hundred were issued by churches, and 1200 issued by government. Inalienable rights are made possible because the acknowledgment of God is the source of those rights and our liberties, remiss of this is a loss of those rights.
Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787 reminded the delegates that we needed God to be our friend, not our enemy, and our ally, not our adversary; and we needed to keep God’s “concurring aid.” He warned, “If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We’ve been assured in the sacred writing, ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.’” And so he called for regular daily prayer to keep God in the midst of what they were doing in the nation.
Thomas Jefferson declared, “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 the gift of 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: that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
After the Declaration was signed there needed then to be State governments set up anew and from these newly written State Constitutions came the early workings of our U.S. Constitution and served as precedent to demonstrate the Founders intent. From the Delaware Constitution we read: Everyone [elected or appointed to office] shall make and subscribe the following declaration to wit: “I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forever more, and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”
When Oklahoma came into the Union in 1907 its original Constitution was 115 pages in length. The average state constitutions written by the Founding Fathers were an average 5 pages in length because the emphasis was on the character of the officials rather than on the type of laws. The Pennsylvania Constitution declared, “Each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: ‘I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.’”
The Constitution of Massachusetts stated, “[All persons elected must] make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: ‘I do declare that I believe the Christian religion and have firm persuasion of its truth.’”
North Carolina’s Constitution required that “No person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the [Christian] religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the state, shall be capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit in the civil department, within this state.”
So important was the belief of Christian principles that in 1892 the Supreme Court noted that each of the forty-four states then in the union had some type of God-centered declaration in its constitution.
Article I of the Constitution concerns the legislature, Article II the executive, and Article III the judicial branch. Article I is the longest because Congress has the most power, the most responsibility, and is closest to the people. The next longest is II since the President has many tasks; the shortest is III since the judiciary is given very restricted jurisdiction, and since it is not connected directly to the people it was not given policy making power. The Federalist Papers say that the legislative authority predominates and the judicial authority should be the weakest of the branches. The judiciary was referred to as a coordinate branch.
The 1792 Commentary on the Constitution of the United States was written by Thomas McKean, a signer of the Declaration and helped write the Pennsylvania and Delaware constitutions, served as governor in each of those states, and he was the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In the case Respublica v. John Roberts in which Roberts was sentenced to death for treason, Thomas McKean’s words to Roberts was the following: “You will probably have but a short time to live. Before you launch into eternity it behooves you to improve the time that may be allowed you in this world. It behooves you most seriously to reflect on your conduct to repent of your evil deeds, to be incessant in prayers to the great and merciful God to forgive your manifold transgressions and sins, to teach you to rely upon the manner and compassion of the dear Redeemer and thereby to avoid those regions of sorrow, those dull full shades where peace and rest can never dwell where even hope cannot enter. It behooves you to seek the fellowship, advice, and prayers of pious and good men, to be persistent at the throne of grace and to learn the way that leads to happiness. May your reflecting upon these things and the pursuing of the will of the great Father of light and life be received into the company and society of angels and archangels and the spirits of just men made perfect , and may you be qualified to enter into the joys of heaven, joys unspeakable and full of glory.” In his courtroom he was not hostile to Christianity or religion, but rather gave here an altar call.
Jacob Rush, an early Supreme Court judge of Pennsylvania, in Charges and Extracts of Charges on Moral and Religious Subjects, he wrote an address given on the sentence of death from November of 1797, “You had a fair and impartial trial. The witnesses have been examined in your presence. You selected your own jury, you’ve been ably and zealously defended by your own counsel…As you have but a short time to live in this world; and there is no hope of pardon, from any earthy hand, let me urge you to seek pardon from above.” He went on to instruct the defendant how to find pardon from above, how to pray and what to pray and what God can do for him if he’ll ask forgiveness. Again there was no hostility shown.
Charles Finney (1792-1875) seeking to become an attorney became a Christian because of what he read in his study of the law books of the time which gave the Bible verses upon which each law was based. In the original supreme courts of the day a minister was brought in to pray before the jury went in to deliberate. Church services were held in our Supreme Court building each Sunday.
The Supreme Court began to become more judicially active during the 1950’s and 60’s during the Earl Warren (1891-1974) years. This activism intruded into areas never before considered. There was talk of impeachment for malfescence but nothing came of it. The Constitution does not give lifetime appointments, but appointed during the duration of good behavior. In the early founding of our country judges were impeached for getting drunk in private life, cussing in the courtroom, ignoring an act of Congress. Today consideration may be given with a criminal felony, but not a civil felony or certainly not a misdemeanor and today they are considered to have lifetime appointments. Over the course of the last 2 centuries we have had over 90 impeachment investigations, over 60 against judges, and over a dozen actual impeachments of judges, the causes of which are not even considered today. Today the Court says that they have the right of judicial review, which is the right for the Court to be the final authority on whatever happens, taken from a Supreme Court case in 1803, Marbury v. Madison when the Court reviewed the action of another branch. There were two political parties in the election of 1800, the Federalists (John Adams) and the Anti-Federalists (Thomas Jefferson). The people overwhelmingly chose Thomas Jefferson together with an Anti-Federalist House and Senate. A bill was passed that authorized 16 federal judgeships to be filled with Federalist judges and John Adams signed it. His Secretary of State was given the task to deliver the commissions to those named to be judges. Another bill was passed to appoint a number of judges in Washington D.C. The Secretary (John Marshall) forgot to deliver these commissions to the D.C. judges. When the new administration came in, Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State is James Madison who found the commissions on his desk, but decided not to deliver them. William Marbury who had been confirmed by the Senate but did not receive his commission sued and took it to the Supreme Court. The now Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall issued the ruling favorable to Marbury telling Madison he must deliver the commissions that Marshall forgot to do. So this became the precedent for the modern Court to say that they have the right and responsibility oversee the other branches of government. Both Jefferson and Madison ignored the ruling because it was felt that one branch had no business telling another branch what they should do. In the Dred Scott case of 1857 the Court told Lincoln that he could not end slavery in federal territories, that blacks were property and not people. Abraham Lincoln proceeded to do everything the Supreme Court told him that he could not do because of his firm belief that one branch could not rule over another. In 1820 Congress had passed a law that eliminated slavery in certain territories, part of the Missouri Compromise. In 1857 the Supreme Court used judicial review against Congress (a historical first) in the Dred Scott case, declaring the 1920 law unconstitutional, in which they ruled that no black has any right which a white man is bound to respect.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that banned segregation everywhere, long before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case which ended segregation in education. In 1882 the Supreme Court struck down that law. In the Brown case 74 years later the Supreme Court merely reversed itself. The people had ended segregation 75 years earlier!
James Wilson was a signer of both the Declaration and the Constitution (only 6 Founding Fathers have that distinction) and was the second most active speaker at the Constitutional Convention, speaking on the floor 168 times. He was a coauthor of the 1792 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America, and he wrote three volume set of his legal lectures delivered to students while he was sitting as a justice on the Supreme Court. On law and religion he wrote, “It should always be remembered that law made for men or for nation flows from the same divine source; it is the law of God. What we do indeed must be founded on what He has done; and the deficiencies of our laws must be supplied by the perfections of His. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. We now see the deep and the solid foundations of human law. From this short but plain, and I hope, just statement of things we perceive a principle of connection between all the learned professions, but especially between the profession of divinity and the profession of law. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants; indeed these two sciences run into each other.” I.e. Wilson believed and taught that all good civil law must embrace and flow from God’s law.
There were originally six Supreme Court judges appointed by President George Washington. According to the records of the Supreme Court as well as the newspapers of the day jurists and judges alike did not begin their work until after a minister came into the courtroom and prayed for them and their deliberations. Ref. Columbian Centinel, May 16, 1792: [O]n Monday, Chief Justice [John] Jay gave a charge to the Grand Jury, replete with his usual perspicuity and elegance. The prayer was made by the Rev. Dr. Parker. His Excellency, the Vice President of the United States, was in court.” No hostility toward religion nor any exclusion of religious faith or practice in public life was envisioned by our founders. This was especially true when it came to religion and the law.
John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the founding Vice President of the American Bible Society, and five years later the second President of the American Bible Society. He declared, “ By conveying the Bible to people…we certainly do them a most interesting act of kindness. We thereby enable them to learn that man was originally created and placed in a state of happiness, but, becoming disobedient, was subjected to the degradation and evils which he and his posterity have since experienced. The Bible will also inform them that our gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed – that this Redeemer has made atonement ‘for the sins of the whole world,’ and thereby reconciling the Divine justice with the Divine mercy, has opened a way for our redemption and salvation; and that these inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve. The Bible will also [encourage] them with many explicit and consoling assurances of the Divine mercy to our fallen race, and with repeated invitations to accept the offers of pardon and reconciliation…They, therefore, who enlist in His service, have the highest encouragement to fulfill the duties assigned to their respective stations; for most certain it is, that those of His followers who [participate in] His conquests will also participate in the transcendent glories and blessings of His Triumph.”
Ezra 7:25 in accordance with the wisdom of your God, which you possess, appoint magistrates and judges [who know the laws of God] to administer justice to all the people.
Psa 2:10-12 Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.
2 Chron 19:6-7 Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment. Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes.
Isa 1:26 And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. (Judges determine the righteousness of a nation.)
It is a judicial myth that the judicial branch is a policy making body. Used often today is “form shopping”—finding a judge who would be favorable to a ruling sought, using the judiciary as an alternative legislature.
What concerns were raised in the Declaration were solved 11 years later in the Constitution. In the Declaration there are four clauses that dealt with activist judicial abuses, of primary importance were the lifetime appointments British judges enjoyed, and judges unaccountable to the people when they made decrees and rulings against our legislature without rights of appeal because they were appointed by the King. In the Constitution are six clauses which enabled Congress to keep judges from having lifetime appointments and being unaccountable to ‘we, the people’. (example: Article III, Section I “duration of good behavior”)
Oliver Ellsworth, third Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, member of the Continental Congress, and member of the Constitutional Convention wrote in the Connecticut Courant, June 7, 1802: “[T]he primary objects of government are the peace, order and prosperity of society…To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are, therefore, objects of legislative provision and support; and among these…religious institutions are eminently useful and important…[T]he legislature, charged with the great interests of the community may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions – institutions wisely calculated to direct men to the performance of all the duties arising from their connection with each other, and to prevent or repress those evils which flow from unrestrained passion…[T]he legislature may aid the maintenance of [Christianity], whose benign influence on morals is universally acknowledged. It may be added that this principle has been long recognized, and is too intimately connected with the peace, order and happiness of the state to be abandoned.” It is appropriate and proper for the state to aid and encourage religion.
It is a judicial myth that the courts are the ones to protect the minority from the majority. It was the majority that abolished slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment passed by a super majority in both Houses in 1865. Women sufferage and the right to vote by 18-year olds were brought about by “we the people” and not the courts. It is Congress who better represents “we, the people”, and can protect what we feel is important. Five Supreme Court justices cannot possibly represent what the majority believe to be right, nor protect our rights. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, from opposing parties, declared that the fundamental principle of the Constitution requires that the will of the majority shall prevail.
Joseph Story whose father participated in the Boston Tea Party became a U.S. Congressman during Jefferson’s Presidency and later appointed at age 32 by James Madison as the youngest ever Supreme Court Justice. He declared, “One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the common law; and there never has been a period in which the common law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations. The law pronounces illegal every contract offensive to Christianity’s morals. The law recognizes with profound humility Christianity’s holidays and festivals and obeys them even to the point of suspending all government functions on those days. And the law still attaches to persons believing in Christianity’s divine authority the highest degree of competency as witnesses.” One of his most famous writings was his 1833 Commentaries of the Constitution of the United States in which he proclaimed, “The First Amendment says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’; now we are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference of religion in general, especially to Christianity, which none could hold it more reverent than the framers of the Constitution. Indeed the right of a society or government to participate in that as a religion will hardly be contested by any persons who believe that piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of the state and indispensable to the administrations of civil justice. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and of the First Amendment to it, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, an attempt to level all religions and make it a matter of state policy to hold all and utter indifference with a created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.” He believed it was improper to eliminate Christianity from the government’s sphere or from the public arena. He went further to say that he would not support anyone who even attempted to undermine or remove Christianity’s influence from society. He declared, “I verily believe Christianity necessary to support a civil society and shall ever attend to institutions and acknowledge its precepts as pure and natural sources of private and social happiness. The man who could subvert its influence will never receive support from me.” He is called the “Father of American Jurisprudence”.
It is a myth that the Supreme Court is the final authority. On every ruling in the first line are the words, “the opinion of the Court”. The significance of that is that the Founding Fathers told us in the Federalists Papers that all three branches are capable of determining constitutionality. E.g. Abraham Lincoln stood up against the Court’s opinion when he announced his Emancipation Proclamation. Another notable case occurred in 1841 which dealt with a Spanish slave-trading ship, La Amistad. An elderly John Quincy Adams was called in to argue this case before the Supreme Court, and what became his last words before that Court, he said, “May it please your Honor, on the 7th of February, 1804, now more than 37 years past, my name was entered, and yet stands recorded, as one of the attorneys and counselors of this court. Five years later I appeared for the last time before this court; for shortly afterwards I was called for the discharge of other duties, first in distant lands, and in later years within our country, but in different departments with our government. Little did I imagine that I should ever again be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this court. Yet, such has been the dictates of my destiny. I stand before the same court, but not before the same judges. As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and public trust now occupied by you, they seek in vain one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listens in to my voice…Marshall, Cushing, Chase, Washington, Johnson, Livingston, Todd…where are they? Where they are. Gone. All gone. I only hope and fondly trust that they have gone to receive a reward of blessedness on high. And taking then my final leave of this honorable court, I can only offer a fervent prayer to heaven that every member of this court may go to his final account with the approval sentence, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter now into the joy of the Lord’”.
Another myth is that the Supreme Court has power to send a federal marshal to enforce a ruling. All the Court can do is render an opinion; the Executive branch executes the power. Congress must appropriate the funding for such decisions. Federal marshals do not work for federal judges (to, for example, remove the Ten Commandments from a building), but for the President. E.g. John Marshall, while a Supreme Court Justice, rendered an opinion that Andrew Jackson refused to enforce and told the Court so.
Disc 7 Episodes 17-19 Evidence of America’s Spiritual Heritage: Parts 1, 2, & 3
If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, what then do the pictures, monuments, and great art of our nation’s Capitol tell us about American history and our nation’s Founders? Many visitors to the Capitol would be shocked to discover that the faith of our Founding Fathers has been chiseled in stone throughout that great building. What is the meaning behind some of our nation’s most baffling symbols, from the dollar bill’s “all-seeing eye,” to the towering national monuments of Washington, DC? What happens to a society that forgets the truths and symbols of its own past? And why has this irrefutable evidence of our great spiritual heritage been covered up and forgotten? The Capitol is probably one of the greatest religious museums in America. The Pilgrims brought with them the radical notion of electing our own leaders from among us based on Exo. 18:21 written in the Mayflower Compact and immortalized in the paintings in the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda.
National Archives Building where is housed the original Declaration and Constitution and stepping in to gaze at those documents, embedded into the floor are again the Ten Commandments.
The surrender of Yorktown occurred in 1781; the 1783 Peace Treaty with Great Britain was negotiated and signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay and began with this declaration: “In the name of the most holy and undivided trinity. Amen!”, a copy can be found in the U.S. State Department in Washington. After that treaty George Washington officially resigned as commander in chief, also depicted in a painting in the Rotunda in which Washington is informing his military staff and leaders of Congress of his resignation. In the Rotunda can be found several statues of America’s heroes and statesmen lining the walls. James A. Garfield, our twentieth President, depicted in one of those statues brings to mind a letter he wrote which describes his involvement in a revival where he preached the Gospel 19 times and led 34 individuals to Christ with 31 of them being baptized—something we do not associate with our presidents today. Each state is allowed to display two statues of individuals from their own state, such as Robert Livingston and George Clinton representing New York. In addition to these 100 statues there are 5-10 others depending on various displays in any given time, a great honor and a rare distinction for these individuals across America’s long history, appearing primarily in four rooms: the Rotunda, East Central Hall, the Hall of Columns, and National Statuary Hall. In Statuary Hall are statues commemorating the lives and contributions of prominent Christians including Father Junipero Serra a California missionary holding a cross held high; Marcus Whitman depicted in buckskin clothes and carrying a Bible of the state of Washington and who was a preacher and frontier trail blazer; Daniel Webster, part of the second generation of American statesmen, who grew up listening to the speeches of Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison and served nearly a decade in the U.S. House, and nearly two decades in the U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State for three different presidents and was an exceptional orator, so skilled that sometimes opposing counsel would withdraw from a case when it was learned they would go up against him, he was given the title “The Defender of the Constitution”. Daniel Webster argued that one could not become a great orator without studying the Word of God. Charles Lanman, Webster’s personal Senate secretary, recalled: “We well remember his quotation of some of the verses in the thirty-eighth chapter [of Job]: ‘Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.’ And so forth. Mr. Webster was a fine reader, and his recitation of particular passages which he admired was never surpassed and was capable of giving the most exquisite delight to those who could appreciate them.” Another statue in the Hall is Lewis Wallace of Indiana, whose father was the governor, and Lewis himself held many offices in that state; he also served as a distinguished military officer during the Civil War and was the youngest man ever to attain the rank of major general; he later became Governor of Mexico and then served as a U.S. diplomat, and he became one of the most influential Christian writers of the 19th Century best known for his literary work, the immortalized book Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ, a classic novel about the life of Judah Ben-Hur, first printed in 1880 when it swept the world. The impetus for this work began in 1876 linked with Robert Ingersoll, a co-officer during the war and labeled by the press as “the Great Agnostic” and was the national evangelist for atheism. He challenged Wallace to prove that Jesus was the Son of God. Wallace researched the life of Christ as well as the Jewish and Roman cultures of that day, studied numerous works by Josephus’ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Edward Gibbon and made a trip to the Holy Land to trace the steps of Christ. As a result he became a Christian and wrote the book which has become an international classic and greatly undermined Ingersoll’s atheistic message. President Ulysses S. Grant, whose statue is in the Rotunda, who had not read a novel in 10 years made an exception with Ben Hur and read it in a day and half. President James A. Garfield, also having a statue in the Rotunda, thought it such an important book that he penned a nationally published letter recommending Ben Hur.
Across from the National Archives is the 555’ Washington Monument on which the capstone is written, “Glory to God.” Inside the Monument are memorial blocks which are inscribed with Bible references, prayers, carved open Bibles throughout the staircase.
The Library of Congress has a plethora of written documents religion in the founding era: George Washington’s original family Bible, Benjamin Franklin’s handwritten call for prayer at the Constitutional Convention, while President of the Continental Congress John Jay’s handwritten proclamation for prayer for the nation…a treasure trove of our Christian heritage and now scanned and available online at the Library of Congress in the section “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.” History, our founding documents, and the structures of Washington D.C. itself show that the Capitol indeed was not secular.
For nearly 100 years the U.S. Capitol was the largest church building in Washington D.C., and indeed the United States, holding upwards to 2000 people attending. Not only did the President, Congressmen, the cabinet, the Supreme Court justices and other officials attend, but also the community. In late Nov. 1800 our founders moved into the Capitol in Washington D.C. organizing the rooms, establishing committees and choosing locations (prior to that time for the first 11 years they had met in New York City and Philadelphia). One of the first official acts of the House which occurred on Dec. 4, 1800 recorded in the Annals of Congress was the decision that the Capitol building would also serve as a church building (in the House chambers since it was the largest room). The Constitution mandates in Article 1, Section 5, Paragraph 3 that written records must be kept of the proceedings in Congress, ensuring that government be open, accessible and accountable to the people. These records describe the words and actions of our elected officials—every debate and every vote from 1774 to the present. Today these records are available online. Not only was there the Capitol church, there were three other churches which also used the Capitol building (First Presbyterian, Capitol Hill Presbyterian, First Congregational, and various others) while they were building their own buildings. Services were held in the Hall of the House, in the Senate chamber, and in the Supreme Court chamber (where the court met until 1935 before they got their own building and moved out from the watchful eye of Congress). This was not a secular building filled with secular-minded people.
From the diary of John Quincy Adams on Oct. 30, 1803: “Attended public service at the Capitol where Mr. Ratoon, an Episcopalian clergyman from Baltimore, preached a sermon.” The week before he had written:”Religious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury.” The first Catholic priest who preached at the Capitol was Bishop John England delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives in 1826 during John Q. Adams’ presidency. Adams served in public service for 68 years, starting at the age of 11, when he served as Secretary to his father, who was an ambassador to the British Court of St. James. At age 14 he was appointed as the diplomatic Secretary to the U.S. Ambassador Francis Dana to Russia. After the Revolution he was appointed as a U.S. Ambassador under President Washington, who called him “…the most valuable public character we have abroad.” He served as ambassador to five different nations until the presidency of Thomas Jefferson when he became a U.S. Senator; under President Madison he returned to foreign diplomacy; under President Monroe he became U.S. Secretary of State; and following Monroe he became our sixth President of the United States. He was appointed and affirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court but he declined the appointment. He served a total of 17 years beginning in 1831 at age 62 in the House of Representatives, becoming the only President to serve in Congress after his presidency.
John Quincy Adams entered the House as an anti-slavery proponent, his nick name becoming “the hell hound of abolition”. He felt like 80% of the House at the time should have been anti-slavery, but they weren’t. Because he felt so strongly that slavery was wrong, he decided he would end it. The First Amendment states that “citizens have a right to petition their government to redress their grievances” and since Mondays are petition days in the House, one Monday he walked in with a stack of anti-slavery petitions, but they went to the rules committee who changed the rule omitting the right specifically to petition for anti-slavery laws, the so-called John Quincy Adams Gag Order. For years Adams every Monday continued to bring in stacks of such petitions. This led the Congress to try censure, reprimand, expulsion…all to rid them of Adams and his one-man crusade. Adams said, “I do this because duty is ours, results are God’s.” In the 14th year of his petitions he had finally converted enough members of the House to his position, the gag order was rescinded, and the House became anti-slavery with a three step plan to end it with a constitutional amendment that would have ended slavery in 1843 (some twenty years before the Civil War it would have avoided 600,000 lives being lost), but it wasn’t won in the Senate. Not bitter, Adams allowed his Christian principles to guide his life. He made it his habit to read through the entire Bible once every year, and desired that his children likewise to learn the Bible thoroughly. Because he was serving overseas as a diplomat as his first son George Washington Adams was growing up, John Adams wrote nine lengthy letters instructing his son how to get the most from the study of God’s Word, and were published In a small book entitled Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings. He wrote very prolifically 7-8 pages a day in his diary. On Sundays he recorded who preached, the verses used, his thoughts on the sermon, and suggested other verses he thought should have been used. He could read the Bible in seven different languages which he would compare and determine the better translation of verses as measured against the Greek. During what was to be Adams’ last term in Congress after the 1846 election, Abraham Lincoln was a newly elected young Congressman whom he took under his wing. Lincoln lost the next election, but was elected to the presidency in 1861 and then put in the same plan to end slavery as was the plan Adams set forth in the 1843 amendment. Adams had the same mentality as did the Pilgrims who lived out a “stepping stone” mentality, as indicated in the Mayflower Compact with the stated purpose of their arrival to propagate the Christian faith, to convert all in America to Christ; but with the harshness of their first two years and the great loss of life, what was accomplished became stepping stones for their children. With the little time he shared with Abraham Lincoln, through him Adams’ dreams were posthumously realized concerning slavery nearly 15 years later.
Based on the teaching of Hebrews 2:15 that a proof of a relationship with Jesus Christ is freedom from the fear of death, observers were interested during this period of time in how a person reacted when he faced death. One political historian in 1854 explained that it is customary even among Christian people to hold final judgment of a man’s Christian character until it is seen how he meets his death. The matter of a man’s death often works a change, sometimes a revolution in public opinion respecting the nature of his life. On the event of John Adams’ death on the floor of the House on Feb. 21, 1848, a newspaper reporter recorded what transpired on that day: A sudden cry was heard on the left of the chair, “Mr. Adams is dying!” Turning our eyes to the spot we beheld a venerable man in the act of falling over the left arm of his chair while his right arm was extended grasping the desk. The Speaker instantly suggested that some gentleman move an adjournment. A sofa was brought in and Mr. Adams, in a state of perfect helplessness though not an entire insensibility, was gently laid upon it. On Wednesday evening, Feb. 23rd at a quarter past 7:00 he expired without a struggle.” John Quincy Adams’ last words were, “This is the end of earth- I am composed”, uttered in the Lindy Boggs Room (adjacent to the National Statuary Hall), where today there is a bust commemorating that event and where today female members of Congress may come to rest and relax during Congressional proceedings.
Thomas Jefferson went to church at the U.S. Capitol for 8 years regardless of the weather and always on horseback and it came about where there was a seat up front reserved for him.
A Capitol first: Dorothy Ripley, who was involved in revivals on the frontier—Kentucky, Tennessee, was the first woman to preach there in 1806.
Daniel Webster’s original Senate Desk is still used as per agreement in the Senate today by the senior Senator from New Hampshire, the state of Daniel Webster’s birth. In the bottom of his desk, Webster inscribed his name with a pen knife and those who used it after him followed this precedent. Described by schoolmaster James Tappan of the young Webster, he said: “Daniel was always the brightest boy in the school…He would learn more in five minutes than another boy in five hours. One Saturday…I held up a handsome new jack-knife to the scholars and said the boy who would commit to memory the greatest number of verses in the Bible by Monday morning should have it. Many of the boys did well; but when it came to Daniel’s turn to recite, I found that he had committed so much [to memory] that after hearing him repeat some sixty or seventy verses, I was obliged to give up, he telling me [still] that there were several chapters yet that he had learned. Daniel got that jack-knife.” On July 4, 1851, the year before his death, he stood on the top steps of the Capitol and delivered a speech on the occasion of laying the cornerstone for the Capitol for the additions which have now become the House and the Senate chambers in which he said:”Man is not only an intellectual but he is also a religious being, and his religious feelings and habits require cultivation. Let the religious element in man’s nature be neglected – let him be influenced by no higher motives than low self-interest, and subjected to no stronger restraint than the limits of civil authority – and he becomes the creature of selfish passion or blind fanaticism. The spectacle of a nation [France], powerful and enlightened but without Christian faith, has been presented…as a warning beacon for the nations. On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness, incites to general benevolence and the practical acknowledgment of the brotherhood of man, inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric.” Daniel Webster did not believe that the public good would ever be served apart from Christianity. He reminded one gathering, “Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.”
Located just off the main Rotunda and within the rather small Congressional Prayer Chapel, opened in 1954 the same year Congress added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, is an kneeling altar on which there is an open Bible sitting in front of a stained glass window of George Washington kneeling in prayer with the names of all the 50 States around the edge and with Psa. 16:1 inscribed around the figure of Washington which says “Preserve me, oh God, for in thee.do I put my trust.” Above are the words, “This Nation Under God”. It is actively used today and therefore not open to the public so that it is made available by any Congressman who wants to pray and seek the will of God. The room is so small that there are only 6 chairs in it. There still are Congressmen today who seek God prior to casting their votes, so much so that there is a now a second room to hold their numbers.
In the old chambers of the House there are bronze plaques of many famous Statesmen imbedded in the tile floor where their desks were located. These Congressmen went on to become presidents including Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln (whose statue is also in the Rotunda), Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James K. Polk, John Tyler, and John Quincy Adams.
In 1792 work began on the White House, and in the next year construction began on the Capitol. Seven years later in late 1800, the White House, the Capitol, and the Treasury, and other buildings were complete enough that business could be conducted in them. On November 22, 1800, John Adams was the first to give the Presidential Address ever given in the Senate room of the new Capitol building. According to the records of Congress, John Adams prayed, “May this territory [Washington, D.C.] be the residence of virtue and happiness! In this city, may that piety and virtue, that wisdom and magnanimity, that constancy and self-government which adorned the great character whose name it bears, be forever held in veneration! Here and throughout our country, may simple manners, pure morals, and true religion flourish forever! “
The Supreme Court met for its first ten years inside the Senate part of the Capitol, from various committee rooms, library rooms, to whatever was available until 1810 when the Senate left its original chambers and moved upstairs to its newer and larger second location, upon which the Supreme Court inherited the chambers the Senate vacated in the basement and in which it met for the next 50 years, when it moved into its current home when the Senate vacated the upstairs of this same building. It was by design that the Supreme Court had no major role in shaping policy in the nation. In the first 10 years of its existence, the Supreme Court’s terms were less than 2 weeks per year; and for the next 50 years, terms were only 6 to 8 weeks per year. It was not until 1935, nearly a century and a half after the founders had written the Constitution, that a separate building was built behind the Capitol to house the Supreme Court, the home it now occupies. We today have ceded to the judiciary powers they were never given. We have allowed them to be the final word over every policy in America. When the Constitution was written we gave the final word to the people who express it through elected representatives; and if the representatives didn’t do it right we could vote them out to insure the will of the people be accomplished as documented by words such as “we the people” and “consent of the governed.” It has now become the Court, the ivory tower elite, versus the people. Congress regularly sides with the people on most issues, but Congress regularly gets struck down by the judiciary. Nine judges, actually 5 as a majority rule, determine, based only on one hour of arguments for each case heard, the outcomes for 300 million people across our land with what we have ceded to them as the final word on all controversial issues.
Disc 8 Episodes 20-21 Four Centuries of American Education: Parts 1 & 2
For centuries, America’s educational philosophy centered on teaching “religion, morality, and knowledge” – the three aspects set forward in 1789 in America’s first federal law addressing education. In fact, America’s great Founding Fathers and educational leaders spoke openly about the need for public education to inculcate these three elements. However, over the past half-century, a dramatic change has occurred, and a completely secular philosophy now dominates the American classroom. In fact, most Americans today are not only uninformed but often misinformed about the spiritual heritage of our nation and its Founders. What can history tell us about a nation who forgets its past? Is revisionism in textbooks really a problem?
1789 Education Law signed by George Washington stated that religion (Prov. 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge), morality, and knowledge must be the three proponents of any system. About 90% of the life-changing inventions over the past 2000 years came from those who were professors of Christianity. Christianity is the world’s largest religion at about 33% of the world’s population, the next being Islam at 25% of the world. The scores on SAT standardized testing (began in 1926) has dropped so much that it has been re-normed twice in the past decade or so in order to boost their results.
Edward Augustus Kendall in his 3 volume Travels through the northern parts of the United States, in the year 1807 and 1808, he noted the diverse aspects of American life from courts of justice to Indian nations, from prison systems to theaters and public entertainments, as well as American education. He found in the Connecticut’s Illiteracy Law, “this [legislature] observing that notwithstanding our former orders made for the education of children…there are many persons unable to read the English tongue, and thereby incapable of reading the Holy Word of God or the good laws of this [State]…”, which meant that, “If the legislature enacted a law that contradicted the Word of God, then citizens might not prevent its passage.” Another famous education law was the Northwest Ordinance, the first federal law to address education, and was passed at the identical time and by the identical Founding Fathers who drafted the First Amendment, the very same Amendment that the Courts now interpret as prohibiting religious activities in public schools. Yet Article III of the Northwest Ordinance directly linked religion and public education together declaring: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The Northwest Ordinance (An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the River Ohio) is listed in law books today as one of our four organic laws, i.e. on page one of the U.S. code annotated, four laws upon which all other laws are based (no other laws can violate these laws): the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance. Today’s courts, however, are ruling against religious practices ignoring the guarantees in these documents as well as the early constitutions of each State, many of which are still in force today.
The Founders believed and the first education law established that “schools and education systems were a proper means to encourage the ‘religion, morality, and knowledge’ that was so ‘necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.’” They did not believe religion in schools was unconstitutional, but just the opposite. An indication how long religious instruction remained in public education is seen in textbooks such as Bible Study Course Old and New Testaments used in the Dallas High Schools until 1974, both credit courses for graduation. At the end of each lesson was memory work. The Northwest Ordinance proclamation of religion, morality, and knowledge was evident in most State Constitutions. Ohio’s Constitution from 1882 declared, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being essentially necessary to the good government, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision.” This same provision was adopted in state after state, including Mississippi, Nebraska, Kansas, and many others. This provision is still found in current constitutions in the states of North Carolina, Nebraska, and Ohio today. In the 1960’s many states and educational institutions followed the opinions of the Supreme Court and eliminated such clauses. Fisher Ames, a writer of the Constitution who came up with the final wording of the First Amendment, wrote in The Dangers of American Liberty that we can never allow the Bible to be pushed to the back of the classroom, but rather it should be at the very center of the curriculum.
George Washington in his Final Address as President of the United States in 1796 after being in public service for 45 years gave a review of what made America what she is and speaks about how important religion is to political life. The reason America’s politics was already more prosperous than other nations (France had been through three revolutions just during his presidency) he attributed to the fact that “Of all dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…Let us with caution be indulged the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion (a caution from the supposition of France that they could be moral without being religious). Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Prepared by the Kansas Teachers Union in 1892 in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus, to review the education of America during the 18th and 19th centuries, Education In Kansas confirms that education was “nurtured in the lap of the church”, but as nation grew and the number of inhabitants in America increased, the church voluntarily relinquished control of elementary education to the state. Yet the philosophy of education did not change, the Kansas Superintendent of Public Education declaring in this same book, “[I]f the study of the Bible is to be excluded from all State schools, if the inculcation of the principles of Christianity is to have no place in the daily program, if the worship of God is to form no part of the general exercises of these public elementary schools, then the good of the State would be better served by restoring all schools to church control.” In 1860, 262 of the 288 college presidents and over 1/3 of the faculty were ministers of the Gospel. In 1890 in a survey of state universities conducted by James Angell (President, University of Vermont and University of Michigan) reported that over 90% had chapel services , 50% had compulsory attendance in their chapels, and 25% required regular church attendance…the practice of state universities whose philosophy made America the most successful and profitable nation in the history of the world.
The first textbook printed in America and used from 1690 to 1930, The New England Primer, was used for first graders and concludes with 170 questions most over the Bible and would be a challenge for most adults today to answer. There is no question about the academic success of the philosophy espoused by such as Fisher Ames and George Washington. Efforts to completely secularize public education (Abington v. Schempp: no prayer or public reading of the Bible in schools; Stone v. Graham, banned the posting of the Ten Commandments; banning of school board use of the word “God”; Lee v. Weisman: banned praying over lunch, no benedictions and invocations; Engel v. Vitale: religious speech unconstitutional) have resulted in very poor results with plummeting educational outcomes since 1962, evidenced by the dramatic and sharp decline in college bound students’ SAT scores; in today’s international testing in math and science, American high school students regularly finish last, near last, or in the bottom half (though elementary students often score above average and junior high students average). This prompted one education critic to comment, “The longer U.S. students stay in school, the less they seem to know.” –The American School Board Journal. Illiteracy has sky-rocketed in America which now ranks 65th in the world in literacy out of 200 nations. Several third-world nations rank higher, whereas a few decades ago America was at the top of performance. Among recent high school graduates 700,000 could not read their diplomas. This has produced a rapid rise in the popularity and support for “school choice” prompting nearly two dozen states passing laws granting some form of choice as an alternative to failing public education. The public educational achievements of earlier generations stand in stark contrast to those of today in the absence of religion, morality, and knowledge…integral in those earlier times. Examples of greatness at a young age: forefathers Charles Carroll entered college at the age of 10, Fisher Ames entered Harvard at the age of 12, Benjamin Rush graduated from Princeton at age 14. John Trumbell, a law student under John Adams, a justice on the Connecticut Supreme Court, read the Bible through by age 4, by age 6 he won a Greek contest against his local minister, and when he was 7 ½ years old he passed the Yale entrance exam, but his parents held him out of college until he was age 13 so that he could attend with his peers. Andrew Jackson who became the 7th U.S. President became a soldier when he was only 12 years old in the American Revolution, he was captured and made a POW by the British. John Quincy Adams, our sixth U.S. President, at age 8 performed musket drills during the Revolution with the Massachusetts Minutemen, and at 14 he received a congressional diplomatic appointment to be secretary to the Ambassador to the Court of Catherine the Great in Russia. William Livingston, a signer of the Constitution, lived as a missionary to the Mohawk Indians at 14. James Iredell, appointed as a Supreme Court Justice by George Washington, was first appointed to public office in North Carolina to oversee finances at 17. Unimaginable today these accounts were of the norm under the American educational system of that time.
The first spelling book introduced in America in 1782 by Noah Webster became known as Webster’s “Blueback Speller”, The Elementary Spellingbook, included words challenging to even adults today. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The lack thereof can be attributed to the drop of the SAT scores now for 4 decades since the Bible has been removed from our classrooms.
“The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. –Abraham Lincoln
Educational philosophy of our founding universities: Harvard was started by ten Congregationalists (Puritan John Harvard) for the training of ministers of the Gospel. It produce signers of the Declaration such as John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, William Ellery, William Hooper, Robert Treat Paine, William Williams, and Eldridge Gerry; and signers of the Constitution including William Samuel Johnson, and Rufus King; and other prominent leaders like Fisher Ames, a framer of the Bill of Rights, William Cushing, original Supreme Court Justice, and Timothy Pickering, a Revolutionary War General and later Secretary of War for Presidents Washington and Adams. Harvard’s philosophy is set forth in its two mottoes: “For Christ and the Church,” and “For the Glory of Christ.” Consistent with its mottoes Harvard directed, “Let every student be plainly instructed and…consider well [that] the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus, which is eternal life (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” To help students place Christ as the foundation of learning Harvard instituted specific educational practices: “Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein.”
Like Harvard, Yale was also started by Congregationalists for training ministers of the Gospel, producing signers of the Declaration such as Lyman Hall, Philip Livingston, Lewis Morris, and Oliver Wolcott. Signers of the Constitution included Abraham Baldwin, Jared Ingersoll, and William Livingston. Other prominent leaders from Yale included Noah Webster, famous educator and author of Webster’s Dictionary, Zephaniah Swift, author of the first American law book, James Kent, a leading judge and “Father of American Jurisprudence.” Yale admonished its students, “Above all, have an eye to the great end of all your studies, which is to obtain the clearest conceptions of Divine things and to lead you to a saving knowledge of God in His Son, Jesus Christ.” In pursuit of this goal Yale had as its policy: “All the scholars are required to live a religious and blameless life according to the rules of God’s Word, diligently reading the holy Scriptures…and constantly attending all the duties of religion.”
The whole concept of public education came out of the Reformation in Europe and the need to read and to know God’s Word personally, which would prevent civil atrocities. Martin Luther was a primary force in the belief that the common man must be able to read and understand the Word of God to be free. The whole concept of public education was birthed out of the Reformation by Christian ministers in Europe. As that concept of public education was suppressed by monarchs and kings, persecuted subjects desired to come to America and be free to worship and learn for themselves. They came then with the mentality that schools were a necessity, since they could not read and their parents and grandparents before them could not read. They wanted their children to know for themselves how to read the Scriptures, what the laws say that governed them and thereby keep civil government under control. The first law written for public education was written in 1647, found in a book entitled The Code of 1650. The title of this education law was “the old deluder Satan” [who kept man from the knowledge of the Scriptures] law, which says something about the philosophy of education! This law provided that when a community had 50 families a school had to be started to teach the children, with 100 families they must fund a teacher at that school.
Perhaps the school that produced more early leaders than any other was Princeton. Princeton was started by Presbyterians (Presbyterian minister William Tennant) to train ministers of the Gospel. It produced signers of the Declaration such as Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush; signers of the Constitution Gunning Bedford, Jonathan Dayton, James Madison, and William Paterson. Other prominent leaders from Princeton include Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a General in the American Revolution, and William Bradford, George Washington’s Attorney General. Many of these leaders were personally trained by John Witherspoon, President of Princeton University and signer of the Declaration. Witherspoon required, “Every student shall attend worship in the college hall morning and evening…[and] shall attend public worship on the Sabbath…[T]here shall be assigned to each class certain exercises for their religious instruction…and no student belonging to any class shall neglect them.” He personally taught students “[h]e is the best friend to American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I [hesitate not] to call him an enemy to his country.” It was understood that American government was merely a reflection of American citizens…if citizens became profane and immoral, the government would become profane and immoral. History has proven that such governments do not survive.
William and Mary was started by Episcopal minister William Blair, Dartmouth by Congregational minister Eleazar Wheelock, and many others were first established by ministers…the very concept of higher education came out of the church. Even by the 1860’s most colleges were still run by and taught by ministers of the Gospel. In 1838 Congress passed a law dealing with chaplains, since they went out only when the forces were sent out, and since there were no bases, or an army between wars. In the 1830’s forts and posts were beginning to be built across the country as permanent stations, which presented the need to have permanent chaplains. The 1838 law mandated that chaplains would also serve as school masters on every post. Even as late as 1884 we had 370 universities in America of which 83% were still tied to some denomination in some way. It was during this time that America rose above all other nations in the world with this successful concept of education including the principles of Christianity.
Because early prominent educators were committed to sound education for all students, they directly confronted two centuries of tradition and law imposed on them by the British and founded some of the first schools for women and African Americans. John Witherspoon personally trained African American students at Princeton, including John Chavis, who became a famous preacher and educator in North Carolina. Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration, was also instrumental in the development of early African American education. Benjamin Franklin, a signer of both the Declaration and the Constitution, helped found a series of schools for African Americans, training students both in academics and in the principles of Christianity. Benjamin Rush, another signer of the Declaration and served under Adams, Jefferson, and Madison administrations, helped open education for women and was involved in the first school to educate women. Dr. Rush helped found 5 colleges, three of which still exist today; he was a university professor, authored numerous textbooks, and was possibly the first founding father following the ratification of the Constitution to propose nationwide public schools for which he may be titled the “Father of Public Schools under the Constitution.” In one of his famous educational policy papers, “A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book,” Dr. Rush set forth nearly a dozen reasons why the Bible should always remain a principle textbook in American education. He closed that piece with a succinct warning on what would happen in America if the Bible were removed from schools: “In contemplating these political institutions of the United States I lament that if we remove the Bible from schools, we waste so much time and money punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…For this Divine Book above all others favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of [our government].” Since the Bible dealt with the heart, the source of all crime, Dr. Rush saw the Bible as the only sure means to prevent crime. He predicted that if we ceased to teach the Bible in schools, that America would expend great quantities of time and money in punishing crime. The atmosphere created in early schools was of respect and a real need to know and learn the laws of science, math, and nature as a basis of understanding and appreciating God’s creation and its laws. With today’s atmosphere which is completely secular, even rejecting the teaching of morality (character education), it removes the very tenants of “the Father of Public Education.” In the 1798 book by Dr. Rush Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, he states “without religion learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.” Religion taken out of education becomes a negative force.
These early leaders set a new direction for education by pioneering education for all children, regardless of race or gender. Many early educators, who had as patriots fought for our independence, also fought for our religious rights and duties of education, wrote educational plans, authored textbooks, and started universities.
In 1690 Connecticut had an interesting illiteracy law that stated that it had come to the attention of the legislative court that there are still youth among them who cannot read, and not withstanding their former orders to this, if they cannot read, then they cannot read the holy Word of God or the (civil) laws of this colony to judge against the Word of God. This could lead to what was left behind in Europe with bad laws passed, and they wouldn’t have the wherewithal to stop it. Inspectors were sent to the homes to test the children to make sure they could read, and if they found a child who could not read there was a fine of $25. Illiteracy was not to be allowed because that could lead to autocratic leaders, leaders of church and state, or any abhorrent leadership without the ability to read and to think for oneself.
Noah Webster, a soldier in the American Revolution, a legislator and judge, responsible for part of the language in the Constitution, and as an educator helped to found Amherst College. He authored scores of textbooks on a number of different subjects, but is most known for Webster’s Dictionary still used today. His impact on American education is so profound that he has been titled “Schoolmaster to America.” The first textbook penned by Webster was his famous Elementary Spellingbook, introduced in 1783, it became the spelling book for American schools for the next 150 years. On every page of the books that he wrote, including the cover page was filled with useful information. In his 1839 speller on the inside cover, he wrote Bible verses, in this case the lengthy passage from Ecc. 12: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say , I have no pleasure in them… This is not surprising for his stated philosophy of education is clear, “The Christian religion is the most important, and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident in my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” Not only did his textbooks contain rigorous academic exercises, but they also contained moral and religious lessons. In his textbook, History of the United States, a history and government text long used in our public schools, Webster taught students, “The brief exposition the Constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government, and our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament for the Christian religion…The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of our civil constitutions and laws, all of the miseries and evils which men suffer from: vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
If the religious atmosphere is taken out of the schools, even though there may not be specific teachings and Biblical doctrines taught, young people taught to use their mind without any regard to the rightness or wrongness of the information, void of any absolute rights and wrongs, self becomes central to learning and we become an egocentric society. Moral values become arbitrary and the end justifies the means of decisions. John Adams said that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. The presupposition of our Constitution is that we can be a self-governing individuals. With the inability to govern self, there will never be enough laws passed to make that happen. Self-government is learned only from religion and morality. It takes a Bible for the survival of a nation. That’s what it takes to have a successful society which is the reason religion was included as the atmosphere educational philosophy for so long held. Learning within the boundaries that God has set in place is the point of education to be a happy society and prosperous nation.
Disc 9 Episodes 22-24 Great Black Patriots From Bondage to the Halls of Congress The Civil Rights Movement
Unknown to most today, black and white soldiers often fought side-by-side in the fierce battles of the Revolutionary War that birthed our nation, and many black leaders played pivotal roles in our government in the 1700s and throughout the 1800s. Why do our classrooms neglect so many of our nation’s great black leaders – military heroes such as Peter Salem, influential pastors like Lemuel Haynes and Richard Allen, Revolutionary spy James Armistead, or U. S. Congressman Joseph Hayne Rainey? Learn about these remarkable leaders and their great spiritual faith, and discover little known facts about the early civil rights movement.
Richard Allen, raised as a slave in Delaware on a plantation, became a zealous Christian at a young age and converted the slave master and thus gave him his freedom. He went to Philadelphia, the third largest city at the time with 40,000 people, to preach at a church which increased to 2,000, a white church. He then became an American Revolution soldier where he met signer of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush. Together they founded the first black denomination, the A.M.E. During the yellow fever epidemic of Philadelphia in 1793 with the loss of 120 people per day and eventually claimed 10% of the population, three were instrumental in saving the town as most doctors left the city because of no known cure. These three were Benjamin Rush, the Father of American Medicine, Richard Allen, and another black evangelist, Absalom Jones, the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church.
Although the history of black Americans began in 1619, the first political history of black Americans began in 1787, the year the in which the Constitution was written, and considered by many as a pro-slavery document because of the 3/5 clause in Article I, Section 2 which describes a black as being only 3/5 of a person. One of the earliest Americans to investigate this claim was the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery and remained until he escaped to New York in 1838. Three years after his escape he delivered an anti-slavery speech in Massachusetts, and he was promptly asked to serve on the state’s anti-slavery society and he was a preacher at Zion Methodist Church. During Douglass’ first years of freedom in the North, he studied under the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who taught him that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document. Douglass later researched that claim himself and concluded just the opposite since slavery isn’t mentioned at all in the Constitution. He determined that the 3/5 clause referred only to representation, and not to a person’s worth. The Constitution had established that for every 30,000 inhabitants in a state, that state would receive one representative to Congress. The southern states saw this as an opportunity to strengthen slavery since half the inhabitants of South Carolina, for example were slaves, so slave owners wanted to count their slaves toward representation and thereby almost double the number of pro-slavery congressmen. The Northern anti-slavery Founders vigorously objected to this, since slave owners considered slaves not as persons but only property, and that slave owners would be using their “property” to increase the power of the slave states and of slavery. The anti-slavery Founders wanted only to count free slaves In that count. They understood that the fewer number of pro-slavery representatives were in Congress the sooner slavery could be eradicated from the nation. Those early anti-slavery Founders included James Wilson, Elbridge Gerry, and Luther Martin, who proposed that if slaves are considered as property, then what renders this property different from any other type of property, such as livestock. The anti-slavery counter argument was that if the South was going to count its “property” to gain pro-slavery seats in Congress, then Northerners would also count their property, that is its houses, cows, horses, etc. to get more anti-slavery representation in Congress. The South, of course, objected as strongly to accept this proposal. The final compromise was that 3/5 of the slave population, or 60% would count toward representation. This then meant that it would take 50,000 slaves instead of 30,000 for one representative, thus reducing the number of representatives from the slave states with extraordinarily large slave populations. This then was the 3/5 clause having nothing to do with the worth of an individual. This is why Frederick Douglass could emphatically declare that the Constitution is anti-slavery.
Elected in 1775 as a judge in New Hampshire, Wentworth Cheswell, another African-American patriot, teamed with Paul Revere to warn America that the British were coming.
In 1789 the year the Constitution was ratified, Congress expanded its fight to end slavery by passing the Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited slavery in federal territories held at that time (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin entered the nation as free states). Then in 1808 Congress continued its fight against slavery by abolishing the slave trade. A famous sermon commemorating the abolition of the slave trade was given by the Rev. Absalom Jones, the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church in America, delivered in the famous St. Thomas Church of Philadelphia. By 1820 the Democratic Party, the Party of Thomas Jefferson, had become the majority party in Congress and a change in Congressional policy emerged allowing the Missouri Compromise to be passed, reversing the earlier Northwest Territory policy which had prevented slavery in almost half of the federal territories. With the Missouri Compromise of 1820 several states consequently were admitted as slave states. For the first time since the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, slavery was now being officially promoted by Congressional policy. Subsequent pro-slavery laws were passed by Democratic Congresses including the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law which required Northerners to return escaped slaves back into slavery or else pay huge fines. This law became abused by Southern slave hunters who kidnapped free blacks in the North and carried them into slavery in the South. Because of this flagrant abuse of this Democratic law some 20, 000 free Northern blacks completely left the United States and fled to Canada. The Underground Railroad reached the height of its activity during this period helping thousands of blacks from the South to escape the reach of the Fugitive Slave Law all the way to Canada. In 1855 the Democrats passed another law strengthening slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowing slavery into previous territory where if had previously been forbidden. In May of 1854 members of Congress including anti-slavery Democrats, the Whigs, “Free Soil” advocates, and emancipationists formed a new party to fight slavery and secure equal rights for black Americans. This party was named the Republican Party because they wanted to restore the freedom and equality first set down by the governing documents of the Republic before the pro-slavery members of Congress had perverted those original principles.
In our history books the final Battle of Yorktown in 1781, the French General Marquis De Lafayette is shown in a painting as the key leader for defeating the British, but standing next to him is James Armistead from Virginia, who was a double spy in the American Revolution. He convinced the British General Cornwallis that he was an escaped slave and pleaded for Cornwallis to take him in to serve him. While serving him he is able to hear battle plans and all that Cornwallis and other generals were doing which then is passed onto to Lafayette and then to Washington. Because Armistead had been such a good servant for Lafayette, he was asked to spy for the British against the Americans. He continued feeding all the right information to the Americans and wrong information to the British and thereby the Americans are able to get Cornwallis trapped out on the peninsula at Yorktown, where the French navy were on one side and the American army on the other. Patriot James Armistead who played a pivotal role during that war perhaps cut years off our Revolution.
A painting by John Trumbull, who painted all the large paintings in the Capitol Rotunda about the American Revolution, of the Battle of Bunker Hill depicts the British killing Gen. Warren on the battle field with their bayonets. To the right side of the painting of this event are two prominent figures in the battle, Lt. Grosvenor and a black man Peter Salem, his servant. Peter Salem saved hundreds of lives that day and received fourteen accommodations from various commanders of that battle and he received recognition from the Continental Congress and from his state legislature. As the troops ran out of ammunition Peter Salem was able to find the British commander and shoot and kill him which scattered their forces and allowed the Americans to regroup.
Another great man who fought in the Revolution was Lemuel Haynes, a black evangelist who pioneered churches across New England, and after the War he preached a sermon about Gen. Washington, his Commander in Chief, on his birthday and for whom he served side-by-side. These and many other stories were shared in a history book entitled Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1778 and 1812 by William C. Nell, also an African American, the first to be appointed to any post in the American government in the 1830’s through the 50’s. He also wrote a much larger book entitled The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution.
In 1856 America entered into its first presidential election with a Republican ticket including John Fremont and Wm. Dayton and its first party platform with 9 planks, six of which put forth black equality and civil rights based upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The Democratic platform of that year took the opposite stand strongly defending slavery and had as their candidate James Buchanan. Their platform warned, “All efforts of the abolitionists…are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences and…all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people.” Despite clear differences the Republicans lost that election. The next year in 1857 the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court delivered the Dred Scott Decision declaring that blacks were not persons but instead property and therefore had no rights. Chief Justice Roger Taney announced that “[Blacks] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and…the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”
In the 1860 presidential election Republican Abraham Lincoln ran against Democrat U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas, both of Illinois. The Republican platform of that year opposed both the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott Decision and it announced its intention to end slavery and secure equal civil rights for blacks Americans. The Democratic platform on the other hand praised both the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott Decision and even handed out copies of that Decision along with their platform to affirm their belief it was proper to have slavery and to hold African Americans in bondage. Although both Northern and Southern Democrats believed in slavery, the South favored a break from the U.S., but the North did not. Northern Democrats voted for Stephen Douglas for President, and the Southern Democrats voted for John Breckenridge. With that split Republican Abraham Lincoln was able to win with just 40% of the popular vote and 59% of the Electoral College vote. Republicans also won the majority of both houses of Congress. Together their anti-slavery and civil rights positions were to become reality. The Southern Democrats’ response was to leave Congress and and their 11 States with them forming a nation that described itself as the “slave-holding” Confederate States of America. The Northern Democrats only objected to the idea of secession. CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens stated that slavery was the cornerstone of the Southern Confederacy.
For a century and a half Democrats have often taken the position that some human life is disposable…with Dred Scott an individual was deemed property which could be used however wished, with Roe v. Wade this same basic decision has been taken with an unborn human life wherein it is simply disposable “property.” Although currently African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, almost 35% of all abortions are from their number. Over the last decade for every 100 live African American births, there were 53 abortions of African American babies. Democrats still strongly encourage this and consistently vote against legislative protections for unborn human life.
Another great black American was Harry Hoosier was considered the greatest preacher by Benjamin Rush during the first Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield renown. He drew larger crowds than Bishop Asbury or Bishop Koch and all the other famous preachers of this period. The Indiana Hoosiers were named after Harry Hoosier. Without the first Great Awakening there would have been no independent America as proclaimed by such notables as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers.
The history of black Americans began in 1619 when the first load of slaves sailed up the James River to Jamestown, VA and slavery was introduced into America. For the next 150 years black American history is centered around the States because there was no national government. Not until there was a national government there was no effort to abolish the practice when in 1787 there was a Constitutional Convention. Within that group there were some states who were pro-slavery, but the majority were anti-slavery. With the Declaration a number of states wiped out slavery immediately which prior to that time was impossible since the king before that time would not allow otherwise.
With the Republican sweep in the 1860 election, several civil rights laws and laws preparing to facilitate civil rights were passed by Republicans. In 1862 Republicans abolished slavery in Washington D.C. and on January 1, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was issued freeing all slaves in the Southern States in rebellion. In celebration, Frederick Douglass exclaimed, “It was one of the most affecting and thrilling occasions I ever witnessed, and a worthy celebration of a first step on the part of the nation in its departure from the thralldom bondage of the ages.” One of the early civil rights laws S. 99 in 1864, secured equality before the courts, signifying that race had no bearing. Prior to this black Americans could not testify in court, couldn’t come before the court to bring a suit, and basically were excluded from the legal process. Another bill S. 145 gave equal pay to black soldiers. H.R. 51 established the Freedmen’s Bureau.
There was with the view of slavery a clear split in the political parties. In an 1871 Congressional hearing, a leading South Carolina Democrat, Joseph Hayne Rainey testified, “Almost 999 out of a thousand of the decent people in South Carolina belong to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is composed entirely of the ‘colored people’…When we call to mind the fact that this Klan persecution is waged against men for the simple reason that they dare vote with the Republican Party. The question is sometimes asked, ‘Why do not the courts of law afford redress?’ We answer, ‘Because the courts are in many instances under the control of Democrats who are wholly opposed to the impartial administration of law and equity. What benefit would result from appearance in court whose officers are secretly in sympathy with the very evil against which we are striving?’ If the Negroes numbering 1/8 of the population of these United States would only cast their votes in the interests of the Democrats all measures of open violence against them would immediately be suspended and their rights as American citizens recognized. But I can only say that we love freedom more, vastly more, than slavery. Consequently we want to keep clear of the Democrats. I will also say that in the state of South Carolina which I represent there is no disturbance of an alarming character in any one of the counties in which the Republicans are the majority. The troubles are usually in those sections in which the Democrats have control. I say to the entire membership of the Democratic Party that upon your hands rests the blood of loyal men of the South. Disclaim it as you will; the stain is there to prove your criminality before man and God, and the world in the day of retribution which will surely come. I pity the man, or the party of men, who would seek to rise to power over the dead body of a legitimate opponent. I can say for my people that we are fully determined to stand by the Republican Party and the government. We have resolved to be loyal and firm, and as Queen Esther said long ago, ‘If we perish, we perish.’ I earnestly hope the bill will pass.”
In the 1864 presidential election the Democrats were still fighting for their ideology of slavery, so they offered up for their candidate a Northern Democrat, Gen. George McClellan, who ran against his own Commander in Chief. Lincoln had twice replaced McClellan for failing to obey his orders to launch aggressive attacks against the Confederacy. McClellan’s urged people to vote for him: “Our bloody Civil War has now lasted nearly four years under the mismanagement of Abraham Lincoln. Nearly one million white men…have been sacrificed… [Lincoln] has declared his intention to convert it [the Civil War] into a war for forcible abolition and Negro equality, social and political.” He argued that he as a Democrat should be elected so that he could halt those policies. The Republican platform called for an amendment to “…forever prohibit the existence of slavery…” and work was started almost immediately on that amendment. That same year President Lincoln won reelection to a second term. In 1865 the Civil War came to a close and President Lincoln and the black troops of the 29th Connecticut Regiment visited Richmond, the former Capitol of the Confederacy. An officer in that black Regiment recorded that scene, “As the President passed along the street the colored people waved their handkerchiefs, hats, and bonnets and expressed their gratitude by shouting repeatedly, ‘Thank God for his goodness. We have seen His salvation.’ The white soldiers caught the sound and swelled in numbers cheering as they marched along. All could see the President, he was so tall. One woman shouted, ‘Thank you, dear Jesus, for this sight of the great conqueror.” No wonder tears came to the President’s eyes when he looked on the poor colored people who were once slaves, and heard the blessing uttered from thankful hearts and thanksgiving to God and Jesus. Thousands of colored men in Richmond would have laid down their lives for President Lincoln.”
Under 35 years of Democrat majorities in Congress from 1820 to 1854, many of the early laws were reversed, such as George Washington’s declaration that there shall be no slavery in federal territories, in 1808 under Thomas Jefferson a law prohibiting slave trade. With the creation of the Republican Party the movement was to bring the nation back to its original intent, the founding principles of the Republic. The 1864 Republican platform included for the first time an amendment to formally end slavery, the Thirteenth Amendment, passed by 137 of the 200 (all 118 Republican in favor, 82 Northern Democrat with only 19 of their number voting favorably) members of Congress at the time while the Civil War was still raging in early 1865. It is the only Amendment signed by an American President, which Lincoln did symbolically as his gesture of support. Rev. Henry Highland Garnet was the first African American to speak in the halls of Congress to commemorate the event preached the sermon “A Memorial Discourse” on February 12, 1865. He began that sermon with a recollection of his own personal experiences, “What is slavery? Too well do I know what it is…I was born among the cherished institutions of slavery. My earliest recollections of parents, friends, and the home of my childhood are clouded with its wrongs. The first sight that met my eyes was my Christian mother enslaved…The other day, when the light of liberty streamed through this marble building, and the hearts of the noble band of patriotic statesmen leaped for joy, and this our national capital shook from foundation to dome with the shouts of a ransomed people, then methinks the spirits of Washington, Jefferson, the Jays, the Adamses, and Franklin, and Lafayette, and Giddings, and Lovejoy, and those of all the mighty, and glorious dead, remembered by history, because they were faithful to truth, justice, and liberty, were hovering over the august assembly. Though unseen by mortal eyes, doubtless they joined the angelic choir, and said, ‘Amen’.”
For the 11 southern states to rejoin the United States, an oath of loyalty had to be taken which included swearing before almighty God that the laws pertaining to civil rights and slavery will be obeyed and uphold the Constitution which now included the Thirteenth Amendment. Within a year blacks were registering to vote throughout the South and forming political parties, e.g. in Houston, TX on July 4, 1867 a Republican Party of Texas was founded by 150 blacks and 20 whites; other State Republican Parties were formed by American Blacks as well. For a few years Republican parties became the political majority in most of the southern states and those Republican legislatures moved quickly to protect voting rights for African Americans, prohibit segregation, establish public education, open public transportation, and form other institutions for Black Americans. These legislatures for a few years at least not only were Republican but also included many black legislators. The first 42 blacks elected into the Texas legislature were Republicans; in Louisiana the first 95 black representatives and the first 32 black senators were all Republicans. In Alabama the first 103 blacks elected to the state legislature were all Republicans. In Mississippi, the first 112; in South Carolina, the first 190; in Virginia, the first 46; in Florida, the first 30; in North Carolina, the first 30, in Georgia the first 41.
The South continued to not recognize the civil rights laws though they had taken an oath, which ushered in the Fourteenth Amendment which states that every free slave has a right to citizenship as any other citizen in the state in which he lives (not a single Democrat in Congress in 1868 voted in favor of the 14th Amendment!). The first seven blacks elected to Congress: Hiram Rhodes Revels (first black U.S. Senator; he was a preacher, a missionary, and a chaplain during the Civil War and raised 3 black regiments for the Union, and later became the president of Alcorn College), Benjamin Turner of Alabama (a slave during the civil war, but within five years after the Civil War he became a wealthy and prosperous businessman), Robert De Large of South Carolina (born as a slave, within 3 years of the end of the War he served in the State House, chaired the Republican Party Platform Committee, and became a statewide elected official), Josiah Walls of Florida (a slave during the Civil War and was forced to fight for the Confederate Army, but after he was captured by the Union troops he promptly enlisted and even became a Union officer; after elected into Congress, his credentials were challenged by Democrats and twice was sent home, but was elected again after the first challenge, but as the Dems regained control over Florida he was prevented from returning), Jefferson Long of Georgia (an ex-slave and self-educated, he became a thriving businessman; when elected to Congress as a Republican, the Dems boycotted his business causing him great financial losses; he was the first black American to deliver a congressional speech in the U.S. House), Joseph Hayne Rainey of South Carolina (born a slave, he was the first black in the House and served briefly as the Speaker, he was in Congress longer than any other black American from that era), Robert Brown Elliott of South Carolina (he was well educated read in Spanish, French, and Latin; in Congress he led passage of several civil rights bills, in spite of strident opposition from congressional Democrats, and later became speaker of the House in the State legislature). The first 23 blacks elected to the U.S. Congress were all Republicans. (See Neglected Voices) Four of these first seven self-educated greats became university presidents, half became teachers, several were preachers. These seven Congressman together passed 23 civil rights laws beginning in 1861, such as no distinctions based on marriage, on ownership of property, military…the last of which was in 1875 (the next civil rights legislation was 89 years later in 1964). In 1876 Democrats regained partial control of Congress (in the House). In 1866 a group formed to keep Republicans out of office called the Ku Klux Klan, started by Democrats to whack Republicans to allow the Dems to regain control. It was not started to whack the blacks originally, but has been mistakenly considered, but back then blacks were all Republicans. The Klan terrorized black Americans with murders and public floggings, relief granted only with the promise that they would not vote for Republican tickets and violation of this oath was punishable by death.
Joseph Hayne Rainey of South Carolina in 1871 reported an instance [Congressional Globe: Debates and Proceedings, 42nd Congress, 1st session] concerning an elderly man, Dr. John Winsmith, a white Republican State Senator, “The doctor, a man nearly seventy years of age, had been to town during the day and was seen and talked with by many of our citizens. Returning home late, he soon afterward retired, worn out and exhausted by the labors of the day. A little after midnight he was aroused by someone knocking violently at his front door. The doctor arose, opened the door, and saw two men in disguise standing before him. The doctor immediately stepped back into the room, picked up two single-barreled pistols lying upon the bureau, and returned to the open door. At his reappearance the men retreated behind some cedar trees standing in the yard. The doctor, in his night clothes, boldly stepped out into the yard and followed them. He continued to advance, when twenty or thirty shots were fired at him by men crouched behind an orange hedge. He fired his remaining pistol and then attempted to return to the house. Before reaching it, however, he sank upon the ground exhausted by the loss of blood and pain, occasioned by seven wounds which he had received in various parts of his body. As soon as he fell, the assassins mounted their horses and rode away. He had joined the Republican Party in the fall of 1870; and for this alliance and this alone he has been vehemently assailed and murderously assaulted. Because he has dared become a Republican he has become the doomed victim of the murderous Ku Klux Klan.” In spite of his wounds he survived and was able to testify before Congress about the attack by the Klan. The Klan produced baseball sized push cards depicting “radical members” of various state legislatures, all Republicans including both blacks and whites, because they were by-racial and allowed blacks to vote and participate in the political process. On the backs of these cards were listed the names of those “radicals” depicted on the front. With the aid of these cards the Klan would know exactly who to pay night visits to terrorize as they did John Winsmith. 4800 Americans were lynched, 1300 white, by the Klan. The Klan became a wing to the Democratic Party in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. George Wallace who ran for governor in Alabama lost his first run because he refused to accept the Klan’s endorsement in the Democrat primary. The second time he ran, he accepted their endorsement and won the primary. In Texas Mirriam (Ma) Ferguson wouldn’t accept the Klan’s endorsement and it prevented her from having cohesive win as governor, which she eventually did. At the turn of the century (about 1910) 40,000 Klan members marched in a parade in D.C. including U.S. Senators, U.S. Reps, Supreme Court Justices…all members of the Democrat Party. An early film (motion picture) used to recruit members was The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith, depicting the Klan as heroes saving the South from all the blacks, and it was the first film ever shown in the White House to Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who removed all blacks who held federal office. Teddy Roosevelt when he took office got all kinds of ire when he invited Booker T. Washington, the first black American to visit the White House and used as an advisor. Roosevelt appointed a number of blacks in his administration.
In defiance of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments many of the Southern States passed laws which disallowed voting rights for blacks. Thus the need for yet another amendment to insure blacks just rights. The Fifteenth Amendment passed in 1870 which says a person cannot be deprived the right to vote on the basis of color.
In 1892 the Democrats regained the Presidency with Grover Cleveland and control over both houses of Congress. The Democratic majority repealed essentially every civil rights law. The Black Codes are then introduced since all the federal civil rights laws are off the books. Poll taxes. property taxes, grandfather clauses were all enacted. Eleven different legal ways to prevent blacks from voting in the South such as literacy tests, which were so tedious none could pass, were enacted; they had “hide-and-seek” polling places, separating where Republican and Democrats voted…moving the Republican polling places throughout the day so they were hard to locate. In 1928 there was a flier that showed a picture of the Alabama legislature filled with whites and blacks from the late 19th century and printed at the bottom was a statement that if you believe in White Supremacy, vote the straight Democrat ticket on Nov. 6! It wasn’t until 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Democrat policy that said that blacks cannot be elected to office as a Democrat. The first southern black Democrats, Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young, elected to Congress was is in 1972 because the Supreme Court had just issued a ruling that told the Democrat legislature of Georgia and of Texas to redraw lines so that a black could be elected. Up to this time they gerrymandered the lines to prevent blacks from being elected.
Rep. Robert Brown Elliott, even though he was a strong Republican leader in his day, wisely advised (Eulogy of Charles Sumner, 1874), “I am a slave to principles. I call no political party master. I have ever most sincerely embraced the democratic and representative ideal– not, indeed, as represented or professed by any political party, but by its true significance as transfigured in the Declaration of Independence and in the injunctions of Christianity.”
Republican Frederick Douglass, who served as a minister of the Gospel, had agreed with Elliott, declaring (from The Frederick Douglass Papers, Vol. 2), “I have one great political idea…the idea is an old one, it is widely and generally a sentitude, nevertheless, it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded…The best expression of it, I found in the Bible. It is in substance ‘righteousness exalts a nation; sin is a reproach to any people’ — Proverbs 14:34. Now this constitutes my politics, the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. I feel it’s my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea as a public mind that it may be practiced.”
Charles Finney, a famous American revivalist involved in the Second Great Awakening, wisely admonished (from Lectures on Revivals of Religion): “The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics. Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has when they must act differently. Christians seem to act as if they think God does not see what they do in politics, but I tell you, He does see it…and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics.” So in voting, no vote should not cast solely on the basis of any party, but rather the values of each individual candidate must be examined using the standard of Biblical righteousness, cited by Frederick Douglass, the principles of Christianity as cited by Robert Elliott, and an awareness that voters answer to God for their vote as pointed out by the Rev. Charles Finney.
Most people today attribute civil rights with the Democrat Party, as exemplified by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act done by a Democrat President Lyndon Johnson. Both of these were introduced by Democrat President John Kennedy, introduced as a result of the racial riots in Birmingham—the first for 89 years passed by Congress. Both of these acts were first introduced by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, both killed at the time by a Democrat Senate. At the time of Johnson Congress was 2/3 Democrat controlled. To pass a bill through Congress 269 votes are needed for a simple majority. There were 315 Democrat Congressmen at the time, but only garnered 198 votes, 83% of the Republicans voted for those two acts, only 62% of the Democrats voted in favor. Had it not been for the Republican vote, these civil rights measures would have not passed.
Disc 10 Episodes 25-26 The Assault on Judeo-Christian Values The Duty of a Free Citizen
From the birth of our nation to the present day, the rich spiritual heritage and religious beliefs of our founding fathers are met with increasing hostility in the political arena. Are we truly in the midst of what many term “a culture war”? Does the mixing of politics and faith create a dangerous environment within a nation? Or does it protect and uphold the very things that have made the United States the most successful nation in history?
The United States government was founded upon the principle of shared power and responsibility between its separate branches, but whom did the founding fathers intend to hold our government accountable for its actions?
There are only four major institutions which tend to shape culture: the judiciary in government, education (eg. Christian schools have now sprung onto the scene as an alternative rather than engaging the culture), media and entertainment (eg. In most national papers they would reprint several of the sermons that were preached on Sunday), and the pulpit/church. The church today is having less impact on American culture than ever before having acquiesced to attacks in all these areas. From the pulpit in the early founding of our country was preached the platforms of specific and named candidates and compared to the teachings of the Bible—a practice unheard of today since we have come to dislike conflict. Listed in the Bible are many examples of confrontations of national leaders by spiritual leaders such as Elijah with Ahab and Jezebel, Samuel with Saul, Nathan and Gad with David, Isaiah with Manasseh. There is no model in the Bible where God has His ministers remain silent with civil leaders or about civil issues. Thomas Jefferson himself encouraged the lifting of restrictions against ministers and clergy that had been imposed in his home state of Virginia. He declared, “I observe in…[the Virginia] Constitution an abridgment of [a] right…I do not approve. It is the incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected.” Today, however, this has not been the case in the area of free speech nor has it been since 1954 when a U.S. Senator [LBJ] became responsible for enacting a policy that treated non-profit organizations, including churches, differently. He had been criticized for his politics and business dealings, and not liking that criticism he added a rider to a bill that 501(c)(3) organizations should stay out of politics. The record is clear that the church helped shape the way early America approached the issues of the day and having taught the relevancy of God’s Word to every aspect of life, it’s not surprising that Scriptures and ministers of the Gospel had such a profound impact on the founding of our government and its documents.
Hundreds of years of religious freedoms have been erased in only a few short decades. Scores of horrible rulings by courts may be eclipsed by a most egregious recent case that went the U.S. Supreme Court called Jane Doe v. Santa Fe Independent School District. Santa Fe is a small, rural town outside of Houston, TX, with a long tradition of prayer at graduations and at athletic events, yet a handful of students there didn’t want anyone praying. Offended they went to a federal judge and asked him to make everyone else to stop praying. He ruled that he would allow such prayers, but only if students prayed the right words when they prayed. He ruled, “The court will allow that prayer to be a typical nondenominational prayer, which can refer to God or the Almighty or that sort of thing. The prayer must not refer to…Jesus…or anyone else. And make no mistake, the Court is going to have a United States marshal in attendance at the graduation. If any student offends this Court, that student will be summarily arrested and will face up to six months incarceration in the Galveston County Jail for contempt of Court…Anybody who violates these orders, no kidding, is going to wish that he or she had died as a child when this Court gets through with it.”
Today there is a barrage of media articles which challenge the Christian beginnings of our nation and attack such notions that our Founding Fathers were Christian men, claiming rather that they were a collection of atheists, agnostics, and deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus. A modern university textbook, The Godless Constitution the case against religious correctness by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, bears this out. Because today Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are the two most prominently mentioned signers of the Declaration and perhaps the two least religious Founding Fathers and we are told mistakenly that all were of the same mind. Though they may be the least religious of their day, still they are more so than many who proclaim some type of religious beliefs today. Franklin, for example, recommended for Pennsylvania that Christianity be taught in the public schools and he worked to raise church attendance across the state. He also made a forceful defense of Christianity when he was attacked by Thomas Paine, the author of the infamous The Age of Reason. It was Franklin, citing numerous Bible verses to prove his point to call for the establishment of chaplains and daily prayer at the Constitutional Convention. Thomas Jefferson not only recommended that the great seal of the United States depict a Bible story and include the word God in our national motto, but as President he negotiated treaties with the Indians in which he included direct federal funding to pay for Christian missionaries to evangelize them. These treaties were ratified by the U.S. Senate. Furthermore Jefferson closed presidential documents with the acclamation “in the year of our Lord Christ 1804…”.
We have been fighting a culture war in America for 30 years which has been judiciary created. The judiciary has gone after issues such as the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, religious expressions on such a regular basis. When we win a small victory, we rarely hear it, but if we get a court decision which takes away another religious freedom it seems to be touted by the media. An example of this is in the area of abortion with an increasing number of Americans who are opposed to the practice. Today less than ¼ support Roe v. Wade, abortion on demand, and yet those who are pro-life are minimalized in the media. The most pro-life groups today are women 65 years and older followed by those 24 and under. UCLA does a yearly survey of over 250,000 college freshmen which shows that there is now greater opposition to abortion than in 1966 when the survey was first started. Our youth today it seems are more socially conservative than over the past 40 years. Perhaps this is explained by the same phenomena we find in the Bible in times of persecution and when the faithful begin to pray for revival, as exemplified in Judges 13 where the people were under oppression from the Philistines and God raises up Manoah to deliver the Israelites. God tells Manoah that he will bear a son who will grow up to deliver His people in twenty years…God often answers prayers of for changing culture by sending a new generation.
Schools have been completely secularized through such laws as Abington v. Schempp, no prayer in schools, Stone V. Graham banned school board use of “God”, religious speech unconstitutional, Lee v. Weisman banned: praying over lunch, no benedictions and invocations. Since the Court ordered the complete secularization of public schools beginning with Engel v. Vitale in 1962 the results verify the weakness of the current approach. Educational scores have plummeted evidenced by the dramatic decline in SAT scores. In recent international academic competitions in math and science American high school students finish regularly last, near last, or in the bottom half. Although American elementary students score above average, junior high students perform at average level, and high school students score at the bottom, which prompted one critic to remark, “The longer U.S. students stay in school, the less they seem to know.”—The American School Board Journal. Illiteracy has s sky-rocketed in America evidenced by ranking 65th out of 200 nations in literacy. Several third-world nations rank higher today whereas a few decades ago America was at the top. Illiteracy is so rampant that among recent high school graduates 700,000 after 12 years of public school could not read their diplomas. All these factors of the decline and failure in the quality of public education have given rise to and support for school choice. Nearly two dozen stated have laws granting some form of educational choice in order to give students an alternative to failing public education.
The educational achievements of past generations stand in stark contrast to those of today. American students in earlier times who routinely achieved at an early age today we consider extraordinary: John Q. Adams; Benjamin Rush graduated from Princeton at age 14; Declaration signer Charles Carroll entered college at age 11; Fisher Ames entered Harvard at age 12; John Trumbull who was a law student under John Adams and a justice on the Connecticut Supreme Court had already read through the Bible for the first time at age 4 and he was age 6 he won a Greek contest against his local minister and when he was 7 ½ years old Trumbull passed his Yale entrance exam, but his parents decided to hold him out until he was 13 so that he could attend college with his peers.
Needed today is to “occupy” the land to restore our godly heritage and reverse these troubling things which have affected every advance our culture was able to sustain for 300 years. According to recent polls only 10-14% of the nation believe in evolution whereas the majority believe in some sort of intelligent design/creation, 80-85% believe that there should be daily voluntary spoken prayer in our schools. We are not in the minority as we think (Prov. 23:7 As a man thinks in his heart so is he.) By the tens of millions we sit around and do nothing which is contributing to the false message that we are powerless to change our corrupt political, educational and judicial institutions. Consider that prayer had been practiced in America’s public schools for over 300 plus years and that school prayer had been constitutional for 171 consecutive years because it had been constitutional in the personal beliefs of the Founding Fathers and the beliefs of subsequent Justices sworn to uphold the Constitution. However in the 1962 Supreme Court a new group appeared on the Court with a different set of personal values. They uncovered a statement which suited their beliefs, the misleading phrase found neither in the Constitution, the First Amendment, nor any other official founding document…that phrase: “separation of church and state.” Under the new application of this phrase in 1962 in the case of Engel v. Vitale, school prayer was suddenly and without precedent ruled to be unconstitutional. Then in the very next year the Court struck down another long-standing practice in public schools, a practice implemented by founding fathers like Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Jedediah Morse, William Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson…and that practice was the use of the Bible in schools (Abington v. Schempp, Murray v. Curlett, 1963). For the second time in two years this case cited neither history nor legal precedent, and invoked not one Founding Father or previous Court decision. They did however invoke the aid of a psychologist and used his testimony, explaining, “If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be and…had been psychologically harmful to the [student].” The basis for the decision in the 1963 Bible reading cases evidence that a leader will always rule by what he personally believes to be correct. He cannot separate the public policy he enacts from that which he personally believes. In the case Stone v. Graham the Court even ruled that is was unconstitutional for students at public school to see a posted copy of the Ten Commandments…amazing since in the interior of the U.S. Supreme Court there is a picture of Moses holding the Ten Commandments etched in stone, furthermore the Ten Commandments appear in numerous civic buildings, courthouses, and legislatures across the nation. For over 2000 years in the western world the Ten Commandments have been recognized as the basis of civil law (such as don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t perjure yourself). In further defense of Stone v. Graham the Court explained in 1980 that “if posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the Commandments…this is not permissible.”
Historically Christians lose heart and become discouraged too easily. We don’t get into a “duty” mentality where we say that we’re making a stand and not moving (we must become as Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”) because it is the right and good the thing to do. On the other hand Christians are easily inspired by successful leadership.
“When the righteous rule the people rejoice; when the wicked rule the people groan.” We must get involved holding nment accountable because it is the right thing to do and a stewardship for which we will answer for before God. In Matt. 11:12 Jesus instructed us that the kingdom of heaven will be taken by active energetic folks, not passive folks. Engaged, involved people is to whom the Lord has given the kingdom keys. In 2 Kings 7 the question is asked, “Why sit we here until we die?” David himself said, “Is there not a cause?” (1 Samuel 17:29), or isn’t there a reason to do something (ref. Goliath)? Jesus has a clear directive in Luke 19:13, “Occupy until I come.”
The Constitution does not govern America. Constitution delegate John Francis Mercer sums up, “It is a great mistake to suppose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United States. It is the men whom it will bring into the government and interest [they have] in maintaining it that are to govern them. The paper will only mark out the mode and the form. Men are the substance and must do the business.” The key to our government is not how good our documents are, but how good our laws are, how good our leaders are. In America whether the righteous rule or the wicked rule depends totally upon the will of the voters. To have been given the power to determine the quality of our government and its leaders and then not to use that power is reminiscent of the servant who received the trust from the master and then decided not to do anything with it. None of the servants asked for the trust they received from the master, but the master gave it to them anyway, and they became responsible to the master for what they did with that trust. Similarly we did not ask to be born in America, nor for a government, for which we are the stewards, nevertheless the Master has given it to us and He will call us to account for our stewardship of this important trust. If our culture is moving the wrong way in America, it is because of Christian non-involvement. James A. Garfield, the 20th U.S. President, pointed this out a century ago, “Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature…[I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation…it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”
In relation to civil government 1 Timothy 2:1, 2 tells us that first of all (there is nothing else in the Bible for which we are instructed to pray “first of all”) we should pray for our leaders and those in authority, which should indicate to us that God puts a priority on that institution, the first thing on His prayer list. John Hancock, an early Founding Father and strong Christian, said, “I urge you by all that’s holy, by all that’s honorable, not only that you pray but also that you act.”
It would not have surprised Dr. Benjamin Rush to learn that our academic achievements have fallen significantly since the secularization of our public education, for he long ago observed, “There is the most knowledge in those countries where there is the most Christianity…and those parents or schoolmasters who neglect the religious instruction of their children and pupils, reject and neglect the most effectual means of promoting knowledge in our country.” The successful philosophy of education that characterized America for centuries has undergone a revolution in recent years through judicial activism, suddenly prohibiting what had been permissible for over 250 years. Secularization of education is the new order of the day. The recent decades clearly demonstrate that the more secular our public schools become, the less successful they are academically. Educator Noah Webster warned long ago, “The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. It is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system…than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system…The education of youth… lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.” The old adage, “Inspect what you expect.” certainly holds true in this regard. We must hold our elected officials, including those of the school board, accountable and elect to governing bodies not only those who espouse traditional Christian values but also those who move to uphold them. Imparting mere academic knowledge should never be a sufficient final objective for learning, nor should the secularization of education ever become acceptable. Proven elements of a sound and successful education include these three: religion, morality, and knowledge—to be instilled in our schools, our home, our church, and throughout our communities.
In order to change our culture, we must first change the way we think. Prov. 23:7 says that as a man thinks in his heart so is he. We must believe that our voice is needed and that we can make a difference. In Luke 17:5-10 the disciples come to Jesus and say to Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith.” His answer includes the parable about a man tending sheep all day long when the master says to him at the end of the day that he is hungry, feed me—tend now to me. After the servant obeyed as he was asked there is no statement of appreciation from the master. Jesus gave as a response that he was an unprofitable servant and has only done what is his duty to do. He wasn’t looking for thanks. Jesus tied together the increase of faith with doing one’s duty, staying involved and engaged, even when not inspired to do so or when appreciation of your efforts is not expressed, doing so because it is the right thing to do.
Each generation has had so far the mistaken belief that Christ would return in their generation, but nonetheless in 1 Thess. 5:2 states that we must expect Christ’s return as a thief in the night. Regardless of our eschatology, Jesus clearly told us all in Lk. 19:13 to occupy until He comes. Therefore we should heed the warning delivered in 1803 when the Rev. Matthias Burnet charged, “Finally, ye…whose high prerogative it is to…invest with office and authority or to withhold them and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider the important trust…which God…[has] put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them…Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.” It is time for Christians to re-engage in civil stewardship from a biblical viewpoint long understood by previous generations, to become salt and light in every arena of society, and to influence society in the act of simply voting. Psa. 33:12 declares, “Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord.” If America is not blessed it is because Christians did not stay involved.
In Lk. 19 and Matt. 25, parables of the minas and the talents, the master (Christ) calls the servants (his followers) together and says I’m entrusting you with this and that to take care of until I come back. He leaves for a period of time and then returns and says then to his servants that it is now time of accounting. To the one who lost nothing, but neither did he increase it, the master (note: the first command God gave was to multiply) discredited for not even taking the initiative to earn the bare minimum, rather than sitting on it and doing absolutely nothing. To the faithful, he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” To the one who increased the one to 5, he said he will make him ruler over 5 cities; to the one who returned 10 for one, he was given rulership over 10 cities…rewards of rulership over civil government! God will call us to account in the end giving us our life, and He will ask what we have done with it. We may say we did as He asked and committed our soul to Him, but He also said that he who wins souls is wise, and we may say we tithed that others might do that task. He will say that He gave us our family, what did we do with them? We may say that we did as the Lord asked, loving our wives, respecting our husbands, bringing up our children in the nourishment and admonition of the Lord. He will say I gave you your possessions..what did you do with them? You might say that we tithed, even gave offerings as instructed, and helped the widows and orphans in their afflictions…we did James 1:26. He will say I gave you your government…what did you do with that? We might say we decided not to get involved with that one. In these parables none of the servants asked for the stewardship they were given. One servant even said in his heart, “I didn’t ask for this, why are You holding me accountable?” This is where we are in America…we may not have asked for this nation or this government, but God is going to ask us about it. This is a stewardship blessing He has given us and He will hold us accountable for it.
As citizens we must vote righteously. Charles Finney, a famous American revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, was also president of a college whose students participated in the Underground Railroad and started several black colleges and universities. He wisely admonished (from Lectures on Revivals of Religion by Charles Finney), “The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics…Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this manner, but the time has come when they must act differently. Christians seem to act as if they think God does not see what they do in politics, but I tell you, He does see it, and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics.” The values of each individual candidate must be examined. An illustration of this important principle is seen in the life of Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the U.S. Constitution and who worked with the Rev. Richard Allen the founder of the A.M.E. church and served in the administrations of three Presidents each of whom were from a different political party. He once explained, “I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat…I am neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power will always fail at producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern.” (from the Eulogium on Benjamin Rush by David Ramsay). The love of correct principles, not the love of a party, must be the key to our political involvement. Frederick Douglass, who served as a minister of the Gospel, agreed: “I have one great political idea. The idea is an old one. It is widely and generally a sentitude, nevertheless it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. The best expression of it I found in the Bible. It is in substance, righteousness exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34…now this constitutes my politics– the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole my politics. I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind that it may be practiced.”–The Frederick Douglass Papers, Vol. 2.
Assuming that we are already voting, Proverbs 29:2 states “when the righteous rule the people rejoice, when the wicked rule the people groan,” and this is of our own doing in America. Looking back to recent elections only 25% of evangelical Christians even bothered to vote, meaning 3 out of 4 Bible-believing Christians refuse to be salt and light in the civil arena, refusing to help the righteous rule. With the availability of the voting records of candidates on the internet, including www.wallbuilders.com, not knowing who to vote for is a flimsy excuse, let alone the availability of public debate. The U.S. government keeps record of what every one of our representatives and senators have said and done while in office on the Library of Congress website, http://thomas.loc.gov/. Simply type in his or her name and it will give you all the speeches they gave (eg. what they said about topics such as marriage, abortion, equal rights), their voting record…just by typing in the topic of interest. In any given session of Congress, a Congressmen deals with between 10-13,000 bills of which we may only be aware of perhaps a half dozen which receive significant media attention. We need to be informed, active, and find an area in which we can become involved. Passive Christianity will not turn this nation back around, nor change the culture, improve our educational system or media environment, or the courts.
In the book of Nehemiah (chapter 3) there is a great example of where a city had once been great, was now torn down to the ground, but was rebuilt not by stone masons, but its citizens—rulers, priests, a military guy, a man and his daughters, merchants—no matter they were not qualified to do masonry work, they all got involved doing something. With everyone involved within 52 days the entire wall was rebuilt, a task that was before insurmountable. We do not have to be involved in the daunting array of today’s problems, but choose just one and follow where our hearts lead us. If everyone does something we can restore our foundation. A willingness to get involved, not necessarily by qualifications, we can make a difference. “Occupy until He comes!”
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