American Government and Christianity - America's Christian Roots

Probe Ministries ^ | 2004 | Kerby Anderson

[Tailgunner Joe]

John Adams was the second president of the United States. He saw the need for religious values to provide the moral base line for society. He stated in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.{1}

In fact, John Adams wasn't the only founding father to talk about the importance of religious values. Consider this statement from George Washington during his Farewell Address:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. 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.{2}

Two hundred years after the establishment of the Plymouth colony in 1620, Americans gathered at that site to celebrate its bicentennial. Daniel Webster was the speaker at this 1820 celebration. He reminded those in attendance of this nation's origins:

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.{3}

Religion, and especially the Christian religion, was an important foundation to this republic.

Christian Character

It is clear that the framers of this new government believed that the people should elect and support leaders with character and integrity. George Washington expressed this in his Farewell Address when he said, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports."

Benjamin Rush talked about the religious foundation of the republic that demanded virtuous leadership. He said that, "the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid on the foundation of religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."{4}

He went on to explain that

A Christian cannot fail of being a republican . . . for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self- denial, and brotherly kindness which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy. . . . A Christian cannot fail of being useful to the republic, for his religion teaches him that no man "liveth to himself." And lastly a Christian cannot fail of being wholly inoffensive, for his religion teaches him in all things to do to others what he would wish, in like circumstances, they should do to him.{5}

Daniel Webster understood the importance of religion, and especially the Christian religion, in this form of government. In his famous Plymouth Rock speech of 1820 he said,

Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. . . .Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.{6}

John Jay was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers and became America's first Supreme Court Justice. He also served as the president of the American Bible Society. He understood the relationship between government and Christian values. He said, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."{7}

William Penn writing the Frame of Government for his new colony said, "Government, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad."{8}

The founders believed that good character was vital to the health of the nation.

New Man

Historian C. Gregg Singer traces the line of influence from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century in his book, A Theological Interpretation of American History. He says,

Whether we look at the Puritans and their fellow colonists of the seventeenth century, or their descendants of the eighteenth century, or those who framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we see that their political programs were the rather clear reflection of a consciously held political philosophy, and that the various political philosophies which emerged among the American people were intimately related to the theological developments which were taking place. . . . A Christian world and life view furnished the basis for this early political thought which guided the American people for nearly two centuries and whose crowning lay in the writing of the Constitution of 1787.{9}

Actually, the line of influence extends back even further. Historian Arnold Toynbee, for example, has written that the American Revolution was made possible by American Protestantism. Page Smith, writing in the Religious Origins of the American Revolution, cites the influence of the Protestant Reformation. He believes that

The Protestant Reformation produced a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of man. The English Colonies in America, in turn, produced a new unique strain of that consciousness. It thus follows that it is impossible to understand the intellectual and moral forces behind the American Revolution without understanding the role that Protestant Christianity played in shaping the ideals, principles and institutions of colonial America.{10}

Smith argues that the American Revolution "started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg." It received "its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and much of its social theory from the Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660.{11}

Most people before the Reformation belonged to classes and social groups which set the boundaries of their worlds and established their identities. The Reformation, according to Smith, changed these perceptions. Luther and Calvin, in a sense, created a re- formed individual in a re-formed world.

Key to this is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer where each person is "responsible directly to God for his or her own spiritual state.... The individuals who formed the new congregations established their own churches, chose their own ministers, and managed their own affairs without reference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy."{12}

These re-formed individuals began to change their world including their view of government and authority.

Declaration of Independence

Let's look at the Christian influence on the Declaration of Independence. Historian Page Smith points out that Thomas Jefferson was not only influenced by secular philosophers, but was also influenced by the Protestant Reformation. He says,

Jefferson and other secular-minded Americans subscribed to certain propositions about law and authority that had their roots in the Protestant Reformation. It is a scholarly common-place to point out how much Jefferson (and his fellow delegates to the Continental Congress) were influenced by Locke. Without disputing this we would simply add that an older and deeper influence -- John Calvin -- was of more profound importance.{13}

Another important influence was William Blackstone. Jefferson drew heavily on the writings of this highly respected jurist. In fact, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were among Jefferson's most favorite books.

In his section on the "Nature of Laws in General," Blackstone wrote, "as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature."{14}

In addition to the law of nature, the other source of law is from divine revelation. "The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures." According to Blackstone, all human laws depended either upon the law of nature or upon the law of revelation found in the Bible: "Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws."{15}

Samuel Adams argues in "The Rights of the Colonists" that they had certain rights. "Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these: First, a Right to Life; second, to Liberty; third, to Property; . . . and in the case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent."{16} This concept of natural rights also found its way into the Declaration of Independence and provided the justification for the American Revolution.

The Declaration was a bold document, but not a radical one. The colonists did not break with England for "light and transient causes." They were mindful that they should be "in subjection to governing authorities" which "are established by God" (Rom. 13:1). Yet when they suffered from a "long train of abuses and usurpations," they believed that "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish [the existing government] and to institute a new government."

Constitution

The Christian influence on the Declaration is clear. What about the Constitution?

James Madison was the chief architect of the Constitution as well as one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. It is important to note that as a youth, he studied under a Scottish Presbyterian, Donald Robertson. Madison gave the credit to Robertson for "all that I have been in life."{17} Later he was trained in theology at Princeton under the Reverend John Witherspoon. Scholars believe that Witherspoon's Calvinism (which emphasized the fallen nature of man) was an important source for Madison's political ideas.{18}

The Constitution was a contract between the people and had its origins in American history a century earlier:

One of the obvious by-products [of the Reformation] was the notion of a contract entered into by two people or by the members of a community amongst themselves that needed no legal sanctions to make it binding. This concept of the Reformers made possible the formation of contractuals or, as the Puritans called them, "covenanted" groups formed by individuals who signed a covenant or agreement to found a community. The most famous of these covenants was the Mayflower Compact. In it the Pilgrims formed a "civil body politic," and promised to obey the laws their own government might pass. In short, the individual Pilgrim invented on the spot a new community, one that would be ruled by laws of its making.{19}

Historian Page Smith believes, "The Federal Constitution was in this sense a monument to the reformed consciousness. This new sense of time as potentiality was a vital element in the new consciousness that was to make a revolution and, what was a good deal more difficult, form a new nation."{20}

Preaching and teaching within the churches provided the justification for the revolution and the establishment of a new nation. Alice Baldwin, writing in The New England Clergy and the American Revolution, says,

The teachings of the New England ministers provide one line of unbroken descent. For two generations and more New Englanders had . . . been taught that these rights were sacred and came from God and that to preserve them they had a legal right of resistance and, if necessary a right to . . . alter and abolish governments and by common consent establish new ones.{21}

Christian ideas were important in the founding of this republic and the framing of our American governmental institutions. And I believe they are equally important in the maintenance of that republic.

Notes

1. John Adams, October 11, 1798, in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts. Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams - Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustration (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1854), Vol. IX, 228-229.
2. George Washington, Farewell Address (September 19, 1796). Address of George Washington, President of the United States, and Late Commander in Chief of the American Army. To the People of the United States, Preparatory to His Declination.
3. Daniel Webster, December 22, 1820. The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853), Vol. I, 48.
4. Benjamin Rush, "Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic," Early American Imprints. Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 8.
5. Ibid.
6. Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster, 22ff.
7. John Jay, October 12, 1816, in The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed., (New York: G.P Putnam & Sons, 1893; reprinted NY: Burt Franklin, 1970), Vol. IV, 393.
8. William Penn, April 25, 1682, in the preface of his Frame of Government of Pennsylvania. A Collection of Charters and Other Public Acts Relating to the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1740), 10-12.
9. C. Gregg Singer, A Theological Interpretation of American History (Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1964), 284-5.
10. Page Smith, Religious Origins of the American Revolution (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 1.
11. Ibid, 2.
12. Ibid., 3.
13. Ibid, 185.
14. William Blackstone, "Of the Nature of Laws in General," Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Section II.
15. Ibid.
16. Samuel Adams, "The Rights of the Colonists" (Boston, 1772), The Annals of America, Vol. II, 217.
17. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1987), 94.
18. James H. Smylie, "Madison and Witherspoon: Theological Roots of American Political Thought," American Presbyterians, 112.
19. Smith, Religious Origins, 3.
20. Ibid., 4
21. Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 1928), 169.

[Old Professer]

There is a smell of revanchism in the air.

[risk]

It's a misnomer to assume that all opponents of the notion of a Christian American government are pagans or communists. Many Christians have a strongly-imbued fear of a government that would seek to impart a particular view of faith. This is the main reason why our primarily Christian founding fathers left religion out of our Constitution except to proscribe its establishment. That's obvious from what they wrote about their decision.

So how do we cope with those on the left who would use government to transform our culture? The same way we must cope with the religionists. I spoke with someone the other day who said that same sex "marriage" was a human right akin to the right to vote. Your camp argues that we have to Christianize the government to meet those challenges. I say definitely not. There is a better way. It takes much more thought in the short term, but in the long run we betray none of the principles on which our nation was founded.

Like the terrorists, we can't let the culture transformers goad us into dismantling our more perfect union. We have to discipline ourselves to either think within the confines of the founding fathers' vision, or revise the Constitution to exceed it. Anything less would be a betrayal of our legacy. You'll understand why I will remain skeptical about any contemporary thinker's ability to improve on such a brilliant document.

[qam1]

right to bear arms Luke 22:36

22:36

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

That's a stretch and way out of context.

Considering two phrases later

22:38

And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.

Considering this chapter is about Jesus being turned over to the priest and he got really pissed later at Peter for using one of those swords on a poor priest's assistant, I have no idea where you get this means citizens have the right to keep and bears arms

Read what the Apostle Peter said about submission to government in 1 Peter...specifically chapter 2:13-17. We are to have a submissive spirit. There can be no civilization without government. This goes for any type of government. We are to honor all men (red, black, Christian, pagen, etc...), because all men are intrinsically precious to God.

You are arguing my case for me, This is probably the most un-American Chapter written in the Bible

1 Peter

2:13

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;

So much for addressing grievance, petitioning the government or protesting.

I always wondered how Christians can be any against any law (ordinance of man) even abortion with a line like that,   

2:14

Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

What no trail by jury? The governor decides your fate

2:15

For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

So much for freedom of speech

2:16

As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

Sorry by I like causing my government especially Democrats and RINOS "Maliciousness"

2:17

Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

First two are nice.

But the last one, If a Republic/Democracy is God's ideal why would he tell us to honour the king?

2:18

Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

Slaves obey your masters, even if he is a sadistic son of a *^&*(

2:19

For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

2:20

For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

So matter how bad or cruel the government is, Shut up and take it. 

Even in our political life...see 1 Timothy 2:1-3.

Not at all, It's about praying our kings are nice to us instead of tossing his ass out if he is not.

[NCPAC]

"Of course, they'll have the fun of pointing their gnarled fingers at the rest of us and saying, "Unbelievers! We're BETTER than you!"

LC, a lot of them are already doing that: You can feel the haughtiness and self perceived superiority dripping off of their words.

[Long Cut]

" Ah, personal attacks. The last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt."

Notice that it came right after the "victim" card a few posts earlier.

I find it so amusing that the religionists can find no greater insult to a belief set they don't like (like the strawmen of secularism and humanism) than to call them a "religion".

Also, to call someone a "hypocritical bigot", when they themselves want to have their own religion "recognized" as above all others, ,is a good bit of chutzpah as well.

[Tribune7]

They wrote the equivalent of "A.D." . .

Which they felt obliged to spell it out. It's a significant indication of our Christian roots. Quick quizz if some school district put "Year of Our Lord" on a proclamation would it be Constitutional?

you're saying that justifies dogmatic laws in this country?

Well most laws are based on some kind of dogma (look up the word). What I am saying, however, is that your statement "There's not a single thing about Christianity"in the Constitution is verifiably incorrect.

[NCPAC]

"Notice that it came right after the "victim" card a few posts earlier."

Whenever anyone plays the "victim" (or "racism") card, I automatically dismiss their argument. Automatically.

Anyone who cannot make his or her argument without crying "victim" is not worth listening to, even if he/she has an opinion worth considering.

[Hat-Trick]

Many Christians have a strongly-imbued fear of a government that would seek to impart a particular view of faith.

Count me in, in this regard. The Founders had not so distant bad memories of the Church of England, and good reason to protect their new republic from repeating these mistakes.

Like the terrorists, we can't let the culture transformers goad us into dismantling our more perfect union. We have to discipline ourselves to either think within the confines of the founding fathers' vision, or revise the Constitution to exceed it. Anything less would be a betrayal of our legacy. You'll understand why I will remain skeptical about any contemporary thinker's ability to improve on such a brilliant document.

The arrogance and impenetrable ignorance of these "contemporary thinkers" is at times astounding. The Founders gave us the perfect balance of being able to practice whatever kind of spirituality that we are led to by our own free-will, without elevating one form of religion or spirituality above others.

[PhilipFreneau]

>> Well you're in good company. Jerry Falwell, who said that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11, agrees with you. So does Pat Robertson. I'll bet you could get a job at Coral Ridge ministries. They'd love to have someone on deck like you who's so quick to spit out a blob of propaganda for the cause. I'll bet you could make a career out of it.

Nice comback, risk. But it will not cover your idiotic defense of the A.C.L.U.

[PhilipFreneau]

>> Ah, personal attacks. The last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.

What a comeback! (It does not change the fact that anyone who justifies the A.C.L.U. is an idiot.)

[PhilipFreneau]

>> The televangelists and the other nabobs of Christian revisionism play right into the hands of leftist propagandists. See, they cry, the religious right wants to undo two hundred years of religious freedoms in our country!

Baloney. Christian-hating historical revisionists are the ones who are trying to destroy our religious freedom.

[malakhi]

Our grave mistake was allowing that communist front group, the ACLU, have a voice in public policy.

Absolutely. To protect our rights, groups like the ACLU must be censored. (Rolls eyes)

[foreverfree]

bump

[PhilipFreneau]

>> Absolutely. To protect our rights, groups like the ACLU must be censored. (Rolls eyes)

Who said anything about censorship, malakhi? Jeesh...

[malakhi]

Too many parents are letting the liberal media raise their children for them. Someone needs to step in and do something.

"It takes a village", eh?

I don't find your nanny state ideas any more appealing than Hillary's.

[malakhi]

Call me an extremist, but I am not an anarchist

You aren't an anarchist. You are a religious socialist. Believing in traditional moral values doesn't, of itself, make you a conservative.

[malakhi]

Ah, "It Takes A Village", huh?

Heheh, you beat me. Good posts, LC.

[malakhi]

Thus, they want the government to FORCE those others to recognize their "superiority".

One would think, after the last 70+ years, that they would understand the danger of giving the government this kind of power.

[Bella_Bru]

I don't find your nanny state ideas any more appealing than Hillary's.

Yeah, and us uppity Jews don't sit well with some folks either.

Need that government to make us raise are kids Christian we do.

*vomit*

[malakhi]

Who said anything about censorship, malakhi? Jeesh...

You did, PF. Let me quote you again:

Our grave mistake was allowing that communist front group, the ACLU, have a voice in public policy.

To disallow them from having a voice in public policy would be to censor them.

I strongly disagree with the ACLU on most occasions. But they have as much a right to express their views as anyone.