America’s Constitutional Foundation of Biblical Covenant

Canada Free Press ^ | June 13, 2010 | Kelly O'Connell

[Alex Murphy]

Outlined in this essay is a brief description of how the biblical concept of covenant became the foundation for America’s Constitution. While this history is now an almost unknown, sub rosa embarrassment to modern eyes, yet the development of American political theory was once highly regarded by most of the world. Seminal colonial American historian Donald Lutz, in his Origin of American Constitutionalism, explains the importance of the Bible’s covenant concept to our Pilgrim and Puritan forbears.

As opposed to being the result of the crazed imposition of a small band of religious zealots, the covenant approach to creating new communities was simply an outgrowth of their Christian world view. These immigrants wanted to protect their right to worship, and create a foundation for proper civil society. Overall, the US Constitution is simply the logical result of adding together all the early colonial covenants, compacts and charters, which summed up their novel government ideas. Of course, when Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted the Declaration and Constitution, they created a new and unique masterpiece of political philosophy. Yet our Founders would never have achieved these great heights without the earliest American immigrants creating the foundation of the first colonies via biblically inspired covenants....

....the covenant mindset of colonial Americans was a direct reflection of the overall seriousness with which they regarded their Christian religion. Further, these covenants were a reflection of the Puritan’s well-organized and disciplined minds regarding their beliefs as to the proper interaction between God, man and society....

...the ideas behind the federal form of government – being a healthy mix of both local and national rule – were also taken from a biblical world view. The original source being Puritan federal theology.

[Alex Murphy]

According to Daniel Elazar, in his “Covenant and Constitutionalism,” America’s political formula was self-consciously modeled upon the biblical covenant model, albeit a secular version. Early American immigrants relocated from Europe to find a new life and religious freedom. These hardy Calvinists were most familiar with their own biblical world view. Nearly every incipient American town or settlement was founded by a formal covenant agreement....

....the nature of America’s famed “federal” government resulted from the need for these hardy colonists to establish self-rule when so far from mother England. But the ideas behind the federal form of government – being a healthy mix of both local and national rule – were also taken from a biblical world view. The original source being Puritan federal theology.

[Corin Stormhands]

bookmark

[USALiberty]

RIGHT! And this is why we need to RECLAIM AMERICA FOR CHRIST. We do that by making our civil law once again aligned with BIBLICAL LAW.

We need a SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

http://www.forerunner.com/revolution/index.html

[Huck]

The right of the people to eat shellfish shall not be infringed.

[Guyin4Os]

Biblical covenants involved a suzerain and a subject or subjects. For example, in the Abrahamic Covenant, God, the sovereign, grants Abraham, the subject, and his descendants, the land of his sojournings, to be possessed in what was then the future. In the Davidic Covenant, the same God grants that David's dynasty will last forever. In the Mosaic Covenant, God lays down the behavioral requirements for the Israelites to live securely in the land that was promised.

I see no similarity between the Biblical Covenants and the US constitution, which involves the people of the US securing and protecting their own individual rights through the power of a federal republican government. Our constitution restrains government. In the case of the Mosaic covenant, it restrains the people. The other covenants involve GRANTS from God to a person or people.

If one wants to find a comparison between Biblical covenants and human equivalents, one should look not to the US Constitution, but to the ancient Hittite suzerainty treaties.

[Manic_Episode]

The three branches of the U.S. Government: Judicial, Legislative, Executive

• At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;

“For the LORD is our judge,

the LORD is our lawgiver,

the LORD is our king;

He will save us.”

[Guyin4Os]

RIGHT! And this is why we need to RECLAIM AMERICA FOR CHRIST. We do that by making our civil law once again aligned with BIBLICAL LAW.

Bite your tongue. There is not a shred of evidence in the Bible that the Torah was ever meant to be a permanent law for the nations. It was given to Israel to tide them over for a period of time.

I'll stick to the US Constitution thank you very much.

[Guyin4Os]

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22

This does not mean that Madison wanted Biblical law to govern the United States. It is one thing for an individual leader or government to learn principles for governing from the Bible. It is quite another to use Biblical law as the model for a nation's law. The former is legitimate. The latter lacks an understanding of what Biblical Law is all about.

[Slyfox]

All of our founders were raised in towns which had populations of less than 5,000 people. All of our founders were politically engaged at the local level. (For example, George Washington worked as a town surveyor and as a representative to the House of Burgesses.)

Each one of our founders understood the importance of government at the local level, so their world view came from that vantage point -- that what makes America great should be protected against the encroachment of big government, be it King George or unlimited rule of any kind.

All of our founders were learned in the important aspects of political philosophy, which included the centuries-long debate on the separation of Church and State. From that very debate came the understanding of the importance of the individual and the freedom (inalienable rights) that comes not from man but from God.

All of these ideas came not from comic books, not from the Koran, but from Christian philosophy, which included most precisely, the debate between King James and Cardinal Bellarmine, the result of which directly influenced Thomas Jefferson.

Our founding documents were incredibly unique at the time they were written, and they are still so. We should not apologize for our Christian heritage. America should be shouting this information from the rooftops.

[Lee N. Field]

All of which is to say, there is no sense in which our beloved United State is in covenant with God. The USoA is not "my people who are called by my name". Saying it doesn't make it so. There was only one typological Israelite theocracy.

< /soapbox>

[CAluvdubya]

Very eloquently said!

I'm a firm believer that we do need to take back our country from the ground up, so to speak. If we can entrench ourselves at the local levels, we have higher hopes of moving those people up through the ranks.

We need to get back to our Christain roots, that on which this country was founded!

[USALiberty]

The US Constitution was BUILT upon the solid foundation of scripture. Duuuuh!

[Manic_Episode]

"The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code.”

John Quincy Adams. Letters to his son. p. 61

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Patrick Henry:

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

[May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses]

=====================================================

James Madison “ We’ve staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all of our heart.”

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

[1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia

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George Washington:

“ It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

[Guyin4Os]

I love those quotes. And I want our president and leaders to be men of God. But the founders intentionally constituted our government to be secular. Great Britain's government was an admixture of church and state. The monarch was/is also the head of the church. As a result, religious persecution occurred when subjects chose other religions. Therefore, the founders of the US set out to establish a government that had no religious test for office.

This does not mean that they did not want our elected officials to be ethical, moral, godly. But they left it to the citizens and the states to decide who the leaders would be.

The notion that our founders intended the United States Government to be a "Christian government" is not only laughable, it is downright wrong. We are a Christian nation with a secular government that allows ALL religious to be practiced openly and freely. Attempts to somehow "reconstruct" and/or "christianize" our government will not only fall flat, they are misguided and betray a lack of understanding of the Torah, the Nebhiim, the Ketubhim, the Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Book of the Revelation.

The Bible does not encourange believers to Christianize the United States government. It tells us to make disciples our of ALL nations and to prepare for the coming of our Lord, who will establish HIS kingdom.

So get a grip and start witnessing and leading people to Christ instead of wringing your hands over this notion of making our government "christian."