America's Heritage: Are we a Christian Nation?

Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice's comment that America is a "Christian nation" touched off a storm of controversy in November(1992). Fordice's comment came during a meeting of Republican leaders after President Bush's loss to Bill Clinton. The remark was meant to remind people that Christian principles were important in the formation of our nation and continue to be important to the majority of Americans.

The fact that this statement should cause controversy foretells a coming resurgence of debate over the role of Christianity in determining public policy in America. It is also foretells a re-examination of our national roots - a focus that is much needed at a crucial juncture in our history.

America has lost the roots of its heritage. To recover the quality of life we knew as our kind of Western Civilization, we must rediscover the source and determine to re-establish these teachings as guidelines of conduct in every facet of our lives and teach them to our children.

What are those mysterious principles discovered by the Founding Fathers that made this a great country, envied by so many that millions endured hardship to enter and gain the freedoms, safety and opportunities found here and almost nowhere else on earth?

The answers two generations ago were taught with pride to every child in home, school and church. But somehow we have lost our way. It is imperative that we retrace our steps, learn how we became lost and recapture our inheritance through knowledge and dedication.

The United States of America is not a Christian country or state. The writers of the Constitution said, very wisely, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In other words, there will be no state church (such as the Church of England), but the people may worship according to their wishes, anytime and anywhere. A "country" is a geographical area inhabited by a certain people under a particular political government.

However, the United States of America is a Christian nation. A nation is an aggregation of people bound together "by common ideals and a common purpose. A rich inheritance of memories and the desire to preserve those memories ... a nation is a spiritual entity brought into existence by complex historical conditions, by similar traditions and a similar imagination."

A nation is not produced by a common language, race, religion or geographical outline, but these things may contribute to the unity of a people - a nation. Several different "nations" make up the Yugoslavia of today. The Jewish people were a "nation" during the 40 years they wandered in the wilderness but they had no land of their own.

Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are based on Judeo-Christian teachings. The textbook of these teachings in the Holy Bible. It is the "Owners Manual" or "The Book of Instructions" for our nation. The Founding Fathers and many others in position of authority ever since have recertified that fact. "America is a Christian nation." This does not mean that all the people were or are Christian. It merely means that there was a Christian consensus and all our founding documents, laws, moral codes and institutions are based on Christian principles from the Bible.

In broad sense Buddhism and Confucianism made China what it is. Shintoism made Japan what it is. Hinduism made India what it is. Islam made the middle east and North Africa what it is. Communism made 30 nations what they became.

Reformation Christianity made America what it is - and this is the country we choose - and so would millions of others if they could.

In an Arabian country a few years ago, a princess, daughter of a Sheik, had an affair with her boyfriend. She was taken to the village square and beheaded. This was legal, moral, and proper according to their laws based upon the Koran. This is not to say that there is nothing good in other religions. There are good teachings in most religions, and certainly many evil things have been done in the name of Christianity. But don't blame Jesus and His teachings for man's aberrations.

To know the Christian basis of our country is to learn what every schoolboy and girl learned two generations ago about the writings and early documents executed by those who built the greatest nation in all history.

1620 - The Mayflower Compact written by the Pilgrims before they got off the Mayflower said: "In the presence of God, Amen. We ... do by these presents solemnly and mutually in ye presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves into a civil body politic."

1638 - The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (often called the first American Constitution) said, We "enter into a combination and confederation together to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we now profess." It also stated for the first time that men's rights come from God, as later stated in the Declaration of Independence.

The Great Law of Pennsylvania Colony said, "Whereas the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and the end of government and therefore government itself is a venerable ordinance of God..."

1772 - Samuel Adams: "The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty ... The rights of the colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."

1777 - The First Continental Congress appropriated funds to import for the people 20,000 Holy Bibles as "the great political textbook of the patriots."

1776 - The Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men ... "

There you have some profound statements:

* There is such a thing as Truth, and Truth can be known by man.

* Men are "created" and their rights come from God, their Creator.

* Governments exist to protect these God-given rights.


This is the very essence of our Americanism!

1787 - The Constitution was written to "secure the Blessings of Liberty."

1787 - George Washington said regarding the Constitution: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God."

Thomas Jefferson, on his memorial: "God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that the liberties are the gift of God?"

2 Corinthians 3:17: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty."


1787 - At an impasse of several weeks at the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin rose and sai:, "I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can arise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this." He then moved they resort to prayer.

1787- Washington's Inaugural Address: "The propitious smiles of heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained." All inaugural addresses and state constitutions refer to Almighty God, the author and sustainer of our liberty.

1789 - Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation: "Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favor..."

1797 - Washington's Farewell Address: "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."

Patrick Henry: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ."

John Quincy Adams: "The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention if the Bible." The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: "It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

1789-1795 - John Jay, first chief justice of the United States: "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

1843 - Emma Willard, educator and historian: "The government of the United States is acknowledged by the wise and good of other nations, to be the most free, impartial and righteous government of the world; but all agree that for such a government to be sustained many years, the principles of truth and righteousness, taught in the Holy Scriptures, must be practiced. The rulers must govern in the fear of God, and the people obey the laws ... A nation cannot exist without religion. France tried that and failed. We were born a Protestant Christian nation, and, as such, baptized in blood. Our position ought to be defined as that."

1861 - Abraham Lincoln: "It is the duty of all nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."

1863 - Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "That we here highly resolve ... that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

1892 - The Supreme Court of the United States after citing 87 precedents decided: "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise: and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian ... This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ... we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."

1983 - Oct. 4, 1982, Joint Resolution of Congress: "Whereas the Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and blessed nation of people. Whereas Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of The United States ... Whereas that renewing our knowledge of, and faith in God through Holy Scriptures can strengthen us as a nation and a people. Now therefore be it resolved ... that the President is authorized and requested to designate 1983 as a national "Year of the Bible" in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has been for our nation, and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures."

February 3, 1983 - President Ronald Reagan issued the above requested proclamation. President George Bush declared 1990 to be the international year of Bible reading.

Considering the small sampling of evidence presented, it is no wonder that our motto: "In God We Trust" is found on all our coinage, engraved on walls of both houses of Congress, and that every session begins with a prayer by its chaplain, that a prayer room is in the Capitol with a glass window depicting Washington in prayer surrounded by a quotation of Psalm 16:1. The Ten Commandments are emblazoned on the wall in the Supreme Court just over the head of the Chief Justice as a symbol of the source of all our laws. Biblical quotations are etched on and in the Washington Monument, the Lincoln memorial, the Library of Congress and many other official buildings. Our Pledge of allegiance is to the flag of "One Nation under God."

Surely, with even these few stated facts, no intellectually honest person can deny that our nation exists on the bedrock of biblical Christianity and has so prospered. But strangely, and in spite of our strong spiritual heritage, as so often happens when man becomes prosperous and feels self-sufficient, he ignores his early teachings and begins to create for his own pleasure, an immoral society. He turns his back on God. And thus it is that we find ourselves living in the presently decadent, graphic, licentious, violent and often godless society in fear for our own safety. If you doubt this, just read through your daily newspaper. There are always evil forces willing to contribute to the expedition of the downturn in spiritual and moral values. America was no exception.

Early in this century, some of the "intellectuals" in our society became enamored with philosophical bantering of some European philosophers of the last century. They read the doctrines of Freud, the Materialism of Feurbach, nihilism of Nietsche, dialectic of Hegel, the communism of Marx, and of behaviorist-socialism, existentialism, rationalism, fabianism and humanism. From this gathering of intellectuals was formed the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and in promoting socialism, they became advocates of the ideology of Karl Marx. Chapters of this organization, now the League for Industrial Democracy, were formed in 125 colleges by the 1930s.

They were joined by John Dewey, who became president of the organization in 1941. John Dewey, the "godfather of progressive education," was also a member of the American Humanist Association and signed its Manifesto in 1933. Humanism teaches atheism, autonomous man, amorality, evolution and one-world socialism. Through Dewey's influence at Columbia University, the teachings of humanism permeated our educational system and excluded from our textbooks the moral and biblical teachings which were so much a part of our American culture. Now after two generations of Americans have been subjected to this "godless" philosophy through our schools, what are the results?

It has created a spiritually apathetic society that hardly murmured when in 1962, citing no precedents, a liberal Supreme Court abolished prayer from the public schools and the next year abolished Bible reading from the schools. The American public was conditioned to accept this and so from that time there was a startlingly great rise in teenage pregnancies (up 556%), venereal disease (up 226%). Family divorce which had declined for 15 years, then tripled each year since. S.A.T. scores, previously stable, declined remarkably. The high principles that made America great were lost.

A 1982 survey of top discipline problems in the public schools listed: Rape, robbery, assault, burglary, arson, bombings, murder, suicide, absenteeism, vandalism, extortion, drug abuse/pushing, alcohol abuse, gang warfare, pregnancies, abortions and venereal disease. Contrast this with discipline problems in 1940: Talking in class, chewing gum, making noise, running in halls, getting out of turn in line, not putting papers in waste baskets. What happened to our children?

People try to blame television programs, family breakdown, drugs, alcohol and many other things as the cause of this decadence. But this thinking is too superficial, it doesn't go deep enough.

We must recognize that those who create, participate in and accept the raw-sex and violence of T.V., movies, magazines and books, the casual attitude towards family breakdown, drug abuse, uncommitted sex, sodomy, drive-by shootings, wholesale murders, child molestation, racism, gay-bashing, greed and scandal in politics, business and practically all the ills of society are products of the amoral, permissive educational system and the two generations of people produced by this system and now they determine the moral tone of society.

There is no other cause for society's breakdown. Think it through! It will be interesting to see all the artifices and contortions some will go through to try to deny the truths of this study. Perhaps it takes someone more than two generations old (such as I) to note the drastic change from the peaceful, neighborly, spiritually conscious society in which I grew and was taught.

Only when enough Americans resolve to restore our national character can we hope to see a society wherein people of all classes, colors and religious beliefs can live together in peace and harmony. It is going to take a generation, but we better begin right now.

PART TWO:IS AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION?

Was America founded as a Christian nation?

There are many today who would doubt or deny that this is true. There has even been an attempt to cover up and, in some cases, to destroy the legacy of Christian thinking that has gone into the formation of our republic. Yet what were the true thoughts and intentions of the men and women who came before us?

A careful look into the past reveals landmarks which were essential in guiding America along the pathway that led us to where we are today. More often than not, at each one of these landmarks, there also appears irrefutable evidence that a sense of divine destiny accompanied the most important events of our history.

Here in part are some of these landmarks:

1490-1492 - Columbus' commission was given to set out to find a new world.

According to Columbus' personal log, his purpose in seeking undiscovered worlds was to "bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens. .... It was the Lord who put into my mind ... that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies ... I am the most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely ... No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service." (Columbus' Book of Prophecies)

April 10, 1606 - The Charter for the Virginia Colony read in part:

"To the glory of His divine Majesty, in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."

November 3, 1620 - King James I grants the Charter of the Plymouth council.

"In the hope thereby to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God Almighty."

November 11, 1620 - The Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact aboard the Mayflower, in Plymouth harbor.

"For the glory of God and advancement of ye Christian faith ... doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God and one of another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick."

March 4, 1629 - The first Charter of Massachusetts read in part:

"For the directing, ruling, and disposeing of all other Matters and Thinges, whereby our said People may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of the Country to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth, which in our Royall Intencon, and The Adventurers free profession, is the principall Ende of the Plantacion.."

January 14, 1638 - The towns of Hartford, Weathersfield and Windsor adopt the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.

"To mayntayne and presearve the liberty and purity of the Gospell of our Lord Jesus, which we now professe..."

August 4, 1639 - The governing body of New Hampshire is established.

"Considering with ourselves the holy will of God and our own necessity, that we should not live without wholesome laws and civil government among us, of which we are altogether destitute, do, in the name of Christ and in the sight of God, combine ourselves together to erect and set up among us such government as shall be, to our best discerning, agreeable to the will of God..."

September 26, 1642 - The rules and precepts that were to govern Harvard were set up.

"Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternall life, John 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdome, Let every one seriously set himselfe by prayer in secret to seeke it of him Prov. 2.3."

Harvard College was founded on Christi Gloriam and later dedicated Christo et Ecclesiae. The founders of Harvard believed that "all knowledge without Christ was vain."

The charter of Yale University clearly expressed the purpose for which the school was founded: "Whereas several well disposed and Publick spirited Persons of their sincere Regard to & zeal for upholding & propagating of the Christian Protestant Religion ... youth may be instructed in the Arts & Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church & Civil State."

In addition to Harvard and Yale, 106 out of the first 108 schools in America were founded on the Christian faith.

April 3, 1644 - The New Haven Colony adopts their charter.

"That the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses ... be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction ..."

1647 - Governor William Bradford publishes Of Plimouth Plantation.

"Lastly, (and which was not least,) a great hope and inward zeall they (the Pilgrims) had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagation and advancing of ye gospell or ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work ... their desires were set on ye ways of God, and to employ his ordinances; but they rested on his providence, and know whom they had beleeved."

April 21, 1649 - The Maryland Toleration Act is passed.

"Be it therefor ... enacted ... that no person or persons whatsoever within this province ... professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall ... henceforth be any ways troubled, molested (or disapproved of) ... in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof ..."

April 25, 1689 - The Great Law of Pennsylvania is passed.

"Whereas the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and the end of government ... therefore government itself is a venerable ordinance of God ..."

May 20, 1775 - North Carolina passes the Mecklenburg County Resolutions.
"We hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; are, and of a right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under control of no other power than that of our God and the general government of Congress."

Summer 12, 1775 - Continental Congress issues a call to all citizens to fast and pray and confess their sin that the Lord might bless the land.

"And it is recommended to Christians of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and to abstain from servile labor and recreation on said day."


Summer 2-4, 1776 - Declaration of Independence written and signed.

"We hold these truths ... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ... appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world ... And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence..."

As the Declaration was being signed, Samuel Adams said: "We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let his kingdom come."

On the same day, Benjamin Franklin suggested that the national motto be: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

Historian and philosopher G.K. Chesterton said of the founding of America that it is "the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth in dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence."

September 17, 1787 - The Constitution of the United States is finished.

At least 50 out of the 55 men who framed the Constitution of the United States were professing Christians. (M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company, Plymouth Rock Foundation., 1982).

Eleven of the first 13 States required faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible as qualification for holding public office.

The Constitution of each of the 50 States acknowledges and calls upon the Providence of God for the blessings of freedom.

1787 - James Madison, the "architect" of the federal Constitution and fourth president:

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future .. upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God."

April 30, 1789 - Washington gives his First Inaugural Address.

"My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being Who rules over the universe, Who presides in the council of nations, and Whose providential aid can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by Himself for these essential purposes."

March 11, 1792 - President George Washington:

"I am sure that never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which so often manifested in the Revolution."

December 20, 1820 - Daniel Webster, Plymouth Massachusetts:

"Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers brought hither their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate ... and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political and literary."

July 4, 1821 - John Quincy Adams:

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration ... they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct."

1833 - Noah Webster:

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles ... This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions and government ... the moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws."

1841 - Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America):

"In the United States of America the sovereign authority is religious ... there is no other country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America."

June 8, 1845 - President Andrew Jackson asserts:

"The Bible is the rock upon which our Republic rests."

February 11, 1861 - Abraham Lincoln, farewell at Springfield, Illinois:

"Unless the great God who assisted (Washington) shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same Omniscient Mind and Mighty Arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail ... Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now."

Lincoln on the Bible:

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we would not know right from wrong. All things most desireable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it." (George L. Hunt, Calvinism and the Political Order, Westminster Press, 1965, p.33)

1884 - U.S. Supreme Court reiterates the Declaration's reference to our rights as being God-given.

These inherent rights have never been more happily expressed than in the Declaration of Independence, "we hold these truths to be self-evident" that is, so plain that their truth is recognized upon their mere statement "that all men are endowed" - not by edicts of emperors, or by decrees of parliament, or acts of Congress, but "by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to secure these" - not grant them but secure them "governments are instituted among men."

1891 - The U.S. Supreme Court restates that America is a "Christian Nation."

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian ... this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ... we find everywhere a clear definition of the same truth ... this is a Christian nation." (Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States, 143 US 457, 36 L ed 226, Justice Brewer)

1909 - President Theodore Roosevelt:

"After a week on perplexing problems ... it does so rest my soul to come into the house of The Lord and to sing and mean it, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty' ... (my) great joy and glory that in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of the Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world." (Ferdinand C. Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt - The Man As I knew Him, A.L. Burt, 1919)

1913 - President Woodrow Wilson:

"America was born to exemplify the devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the Holy Scriptures."

1952 - US Supreme Court defines the "Separation of Church and State."

"We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being ... No Constitutional requirement makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against the efforts to widen the scope of religious influence. The government must remain neutral when it comes to competition between sects ... The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Church and State."

1980 - President Ronald Reagan:

"The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the Healing of America ... our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal."

May 3, 1990 - President George Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer.