If you haven't read the Declaration of Independence you should. Pay special attention to the reasons given for leaving the crown. Notice its mentions of God.
One of my greatest ongoing frustrations is the misinformation given to students regarding the reasons we seceded from the English. It all sounds well and good. If you ask anyone who paid any kind of attention in 11 grade US History, they will tell you: "We left the crown because of economic reasons."
They even have a catchy little jingle, "Taxation without representation."
Although, this did play a small part in the reasons for revolution, there were more pressing reasons given by our founders. (Who, contrary to education again, were exceedingly religious, by the way. Twenty-four of them had seminary degrees!)
In the Declaration of Independence, Taxation without Representation is mentioned only once, while other issues, such as abolishment of slavery, religious liberty, and King George's abuse of Judges are mentioned more.
The founding fathers based most of the Declaration of Independence on the book the Two Treatises of Government which references the Bible over 1700 times.
Even the idea of our 3 branches of government (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative) comes from Isaiah 33:22. This verse describes God as King, Lawgiver, and Judge.
I am not sure if I would have been for the war against Britain. I have a feeling I would have been a loyalist, but the government the founders established was new and unique. It was a government designed to let a nation thrive in its Christian roots, and give glory to God, while also being amazingly practical to solving the problems of people by governing.
As we move further and further away from this foundation, we will see more and more breakdown of our society.
On this the 4th of July, let us celebrate our beginnings as truly as we can. We need to go back to our religious (Christian) roots.
An amazing post on a letter from John Adams to his wife on July 3rd, 1776 can be found at str.org under the title Happy Birthday
*Much of the information in this post was from a talk given for Worldview Weekend by David Barton.
1 comment:
Interesting post.
Locke probably wrote his two treatises to counter Hobbes's argument for monarchy and to buttress his movement's efforts to prevent James II from taking the English throne and (later) justify William III's ascension to the throne. Certainly there were some religious currents in these efforts, since James was Catholic and William (like Locke) was a Protestant, but Locke only uses Biblical passages to make his largely secular construction of the state, property, anthropology, slavery, and the state of nature. It was not a Christian document, however.
The Bible, then, has little direct or even indirect influence on the Declaration. The Declaration mentions God once and the Creator once; hardly a strong Christian theology (a Unitarian, Jews, or Muslim could easily assent to it).
The Declaration had little impact on the shape of the new nation. The the articles of confederation (and later the American Constitution) actually laid out the form of American government, and their main deal was how the separate powers. Neither of them use Isaiah to define the shape of the government. Moreover, Isaiah says nothing about the biggest problem both tried to solve: the balance of authority between the states and the federal government (the Articles got it wrong, Constitution got it right).
The colonies were clearly Christianish during this period, so in that sense the US has some "Christiany" origins. Many of the men who helped wrest the colonies out of the grip of the Brits did have seminary degrees, that is true, but of course, the country would not have any state-funded schools until the 1780s, so all the colleges in the colonies at the time were Christian colleges or seminaries. The men of that time were as godly, moral, upright, rich, greedy, educated, self-interested, sexually promiscuous, and corrupt as today's politicians. Sure, Benjamin Rush and John Witherspoon - godly men both - signed the Declaration. But so did Benjamin Franklin (who, along with his many acclaimed attributes, was a deist with an illegitimate son and a common-law marriage to an abandoned but still-married woman) and Thomas Jefferson (who, along with his many acclaimed attributes, was a deist and a racist slaveholder who nonetheless fathered children out of wedlock with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves). Most of the people who signed the declaration were the sociopolitical leaders of their respective colonies - they were saints and sinners all mixed together.
There are all sorts of things this country was founded on. Some were good, some were neutral, and some (racialized chattel slavery for example) were deeply unChristian and certainly didn't glorify God.
I think the US has much to be proud of, much to repent of, and much for which it should thank God. Christians should try to help the country behave Christianly, rather than trying to return it to some mythological Christian origins it hardly ever had.
That's my very verbose two cents. Happy fourth.
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