I’m currently listening to Vision Forum’s Christian Controversies audio series. It’s powerful stuff. Eye-opening stuff. I think anyone who wants to get a real feel for the roots of the American Revolution, and the meaning of the founding documents [i.e., the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence] should get this series.
Much of the CD titled “Patriots vs. Tories” focuses on the seven centuries of Christian thought leading up to 1776, Augustine’s theory of “Just War,” and Romans 13. This is a pretty thought-provoking series [others include "Pilgrims vs. Indians," "Christians vs. Deists," "Puritans vs. Witches," and "Yankees vs. Rebels"], and this CD traces the foundations of the Constitution and the American republican system of government all the way back through its British [or, to be more precise, the Scots-Irish] and Christian roots, through Luther, Calvin and Knox, to the principles and philosophy of the early Church.
Likewise, “Christians vs. Deists” lays waste to the arguments against faith of the Founding Fathers, and contrasts Jefferson’s Rationalism with the European Deism that didn’t catch on here for almost another century.
The fact is, despite what the Left tries to sell as genuine historical fact, the vast majority of the citizens of the nascent USA were deeply religious and very Christian. Christianity dominated the society; no public discourse could be had without using the terminology and ideas grown from the previous 700 years of Christian political and philosophical thought.
Sure, the words were the same words that ”Enlightened” Deists used: “natural law”, the idea of “unalienable rights.” But these “natural” phenomena had been derived from Godly Providence. The debate was framed in the understanding that from God were our “unalienable rights” given, and “natural law” was the way in which God had designed the universe to function. In fact, “all men are created equal” in that, before God, all people are equally reprehensible, because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
People who endeavor to divorce the history of this once-great nation from the history of Christ’s Church either have an agenda, or they’re fools. In The Federalist No. 2, [then-future SCOTUS Chief Justice] John Jay wrote:
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence [i.e., God] has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion [Emphasis mine], attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joints counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
This country and this people seems to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence…
Benjamin Franklin is often denounced as a Deist. Deism is the belief that God came along and created the universe, made sure everything worked right, and then walked away, to let humanity succeed or fail on its own merits. God, to the Deist, does not inject himself into human events, so there is no point in offering any manner of supplication to Him; He neither hears nor answers prayer. However, Franklin, this so-called Deist, called for prayer to ask the supposed uncaring God to lead the debate and decisions that the Constitutional Conventioneers had to make:
In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor…And have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?
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 rise without His aid?
We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writing that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial local interest; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.
Of course, other factions would have us believe that Thomas Jefferson was a spotless saint. Jefferson was a Rationalist. He never, to my knowledge, confessed belief in Christ as Lord and Savior. He attacked the King James Version of the Bible and excised all references to any miracles or divinity, making Jesus just a man with an inspiring message. All this does not a Christian make. But Jefferson understood the political and social terrain he tread. He knew that in order to win the support of the American people, he had to speak to them in the Christian language of the day, and in order to win the support of the Europeans, he had to frame the debate in the language of the Enlightenment.
Modern revisionists, however, read into the foundational ideas of this Christian nation the secular intent of the Enlightenment. But make no mistake: the philosophies of the Founders so often attributed to the Enlightenment, to the casting off of “outmoded” ways of thinking, were the necessary and natural culmination of centuries of Reformed Christianity. In fact, it was the conflation of the Protestant Reformation (and all its rich theological and philosophical heritage), Anglo-Saxon common law, the over-reaching of the Anglican Church, and years of oppression under various English tyrants that led directly to the founding of this country. [At least, that is, the First and Second Republics... but I'll get to that in later posts]
[Please allow me to point out that not all of the information contained herein is intended to be inferred as part of the aforementioned Vision Forum CD. This post is a combination of that, and additional reading and study, and my own opinions derived from same. I would, again, strongly encourage interested parties to order the Christian Controversies series.]
