Bibles & Religion Archives - Page 12 of 18

Unconfirmed Quotation: Franklin Principles of Primitive Christianity

~~Unconfirmed~~ Quotation

“Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles
of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
– Benjamin Franklin

This particular quotation above has been used in many works since the 1970s that seek to remind Americans of our religious heritage.¹ In fact, David used it in the Myth of Separation (1989), but around 1995, when he was preparing Original Intent and was unable to find this quote in any primary source, he stopped using it and WallBuilders put it on our “Unconfirmed Quotations” list. But we are now able to report that we have found an early primary source that does attribute the core of this quotation to Franklin.

Before we get to the quote, we would remind readers that in the early 1990s, David challenged historical writers on all sides of the debate over religion in the Founding Era to stop relying on secondary sources and quotations from later Eras and to instead utilize original sources. As an act of good faith, David went through his earlier works and not only removed quotations that could not be verified from original sources, he publicly announced them on WallBuilders’ website. Although many people, including several respected academics, have told him that they admire his honesty and transparency, others have attempted to use this practice against him. For instance, in a recent critique of David’s work, Professor Gregg Frazer of The Master’s College writes:

Having been confronted over the use of false quotes, Barton was forced to acknowledge their illegitimacy in some way on his website. There, he describes them as “unconfirmed” – as if there is some doubt about their legitimacy. In a computer age with search capabilities, we know that these quotes are false – the fact that they are listed as “unconfirmed” reflects a stubborn attempt to hold onto them and to suggest to followers that they might be true. That is made worse by the fact that under these “unconfirmed” quotes are paragraphs maintaining that the bogus quote is something that the person might have said.²

So much for honesty and transparency.

As we clearly state in our piece “Taking on the Critics”, we were not confronted by any individual or group about these quotes. To the contrary, we were the first to step forward and challenge all sides in the historical debate over religion in the Founding to “raise the bar” and use only quotations that could be verified by primary sources.

Calling these unconfirmed quotes “bogus” implies that they were simply made up by David. Yet each and every one of them can be found in reputable secondary sources such as George Bancroft’s A History of the United States (1866).

Frazer suggests that David and WallBuilders live in a fantasy world where they stubbornly engage in wishful thinking that these unconfirmed quotations are accurate. He ignores the fact that we have been able to confirm numerous of these quotations. We clearly list and document this fact.

With respect to the above quotation from Franklin, David originally cited it to works from the 1970s (see footnote 1 above). But in searching backwards to find a primary source, he found it in George Bancroft’s 1866 History of the United States, which stated:

He [Franklin] remarked to those in Paris who learned of him the secret of statesmanship: “He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”³

This is no insignificant source, for Bancroft is considered “The Father of American History.” He is most famous for his thorough, systematic history of the nation published in ten volumes from 1854-1878). David did not simply make this quote up. It appeared in one of the greatest histories of the United States ever written! But, adhering to his own standards, he stopped using it until it could be confirmed in an original source. As noted, above, we have found such a source.

Here is its context: Franklin had been sent by America as an ambassador to France in 1776, a position in which he served until 1785. He was highly beloved by the French, and he offered them many useful and friendly recommendations including political advice to those who would listen.⁴ Shortly after Franklin’s death in 1790, Jacques Mallet Du Pan, a French journalist and leader, published his historical memoirs, in which he reported:

Franklin often told his disciples in Paris that whoever should introduce the principles of primitive Christianity into the political state would change the whole order of society.⁵

While this 1793 work does not contain the word for word quotation so often cited today, it clearly communicates the main ideas in the quotation. One reason for the difference may be because the work was written in French, so there may be some variations in how a particular translator renders that statement into English.⁶

It may be objected that a second-hand account of what someone said is not as reliable, say, a letter clearly penned by Franklin in which he writes the same quotation. We agree. And yet students of the American founding repeatedly utilize such sources. For instance, speeches made in the Federal Convention of 1787 are regularly quoted as if they were directly spoken by particular delegates, although in most (but not all) cases what is being quoted is Madison’s notes of the speeches.

Those who wish to deny America’s Christian heritage will undoubtedly brush off Du Pan’s account of Franklin’s views. Yet those interested in an accurate account of religion in the American Founding cannot afford to be so dismissive of this intriguing find.

Endnotes

¹ See, for example, Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), 370; Stephen McDowell, America’s Providential History (Charlottesville, VA: Providence Foundation, 1989), 1; William Federer, America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations (Coppell, TX: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1994), 246; Martin H. Manser, Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2001), 31; Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought, Scott J. Hammond, Kevin r. Hardwick, Howard L. Lubert, editors (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), II:228.

² From a written review on David Barton and WallBuilders conducted by Dr. Gregg Frazer at the request of Dr. Jay Richards. That written critique was subsequently passed on to David Barton on August 13, 2012, by the Rev. James Robison, who had received it from Jay Richards.

³ George Bancroft, History of the United States, From the Discovery of the American Continent (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1866), IX:492.

⁴ See, for example, Benjamin Franklin, Two Tracts: Information to Those Who Would Remove to America. And, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (London: 1784), 3-24, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.”

⁵ M. Mallet Du Pan, Considerations on the Nature of the French Revolution, and on the Causes which Prolong its Duration Translated from the French (London: J. Owen, 1793), 31.

⁶ The original reads: “Francklin répéta plus d une fois à ses Paris que celui qui transporteroit état politique les principes du christianisme changeroit la face de la société.” Jacques Mallet du Pan, Considerations sur la nature de la revolution de France (Londres, 1793), 28.

Statement: David Barton on The Jefferson Lies

Statement: David Barton on The Jefferson Lies

The announcement that Thomas Nelson has pulled The Jefferson Lies because it has “lost confidence” in the work has become national news. However, while Thomas Nelson may have “lost confidence” in the work, others have not and thus the book has already been picked up by a much larger national publisher and distributor. Even at the time Nelson dropped the work, they admitted that it was still selling very well.

As is the case with all of our published items, we go above and beyond with original source documentation so that people can be thoroughly confident when they see the truth of history for themselves. We find it regrettable that Thomas Nelson never contacted us with even one specific area of concern before curtly notifying us they had dropped the work. Had they done so, we would have been happy to provide them with the thorough and extensive historical documentation for any question or issue they raised; they never asked. The Jefferson Lies has not been pulled from publication and it will continue to sell nationally.

The Jefferson Lies: Taking on the Critics

For generations, America recognized an equality of individualism that made the carpenter as important as the university president and the shopkeeper the equal of the statesman. But today, under the influence of Poststructuralism, America has begun to divide itself into groups based not only on identity (e.g., black/white/Latino, straight/gay, union/right-to-work, conservative/liberal, etc.) but also on distinctions such as economic income, social standing, and even degree of academic knowledge – and especially in the latter category as pretentious scholars in law and academics claim exclusive knowledge they believe places them above ordinary citizens.

For example, I repeatedly hear legislators urge that a bill be passed so that they can find out from the judges whether or not it is constitutional. They apparently believe that only a small group is capable of unraveling the meaning of the Constitution and have forgotten that it is actually a very simple document that can be read in its entirety in less than twenty minutes. In fact, it is so easy to understand that for decades, school children took an annual written exam to demonstrate their mastery of its content; and popular texts included the 1828 Catechism on the Constitution by Arthur Stansbury – a work for elementary students. Thankfully, citizens have begun bypassing America’s frequently haughty academic aristocracy – evidenced by the fact that two recent modern-language editions of The Federalist Papers have become national best-sellers.

And just as they have done with the Constitution, academic elitists have also tried to make themselves the sole caretakers of historical knowledge, holding that history is too complicated, with too many intricacies for the average person to understand. They even become intolerant of those who try to break through these false barriers and open history to the average citizen. I personally know this to be true, for I often find myself the object of their attacks.

I have penned numerous best-selling history works, and characteristic of each is a heavy reliance on primary-source documentation. Across the past twenty years, I have amassed a collection of some 100,000 originals (or certified copies of originals) predating 1812, including hand-written documents and works of those who framed and signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Not many individuals in America have read more original works (or fewer modern ones) than I have; and the general public has responded enthusiastically to this history based on original documentation.

In fact, notice how these types of history books regularly appear on the New York Times bestseller list. Whether it is David McCullough’s John Adams, Glenn Beck’s Being George Washington, Newt Gingrich’s Valley Forge, or my own The Jefferson Lies, people are willing to pay good money to learn the simple uncomplicated history that used to be taught in school.

Conversely, typical history works by modern elitist professors generally sell very poorly; and seeing their own influence wane, they often lash out and condescendingly criticize the more popular documentary works. But this practice is not new. After all, when the Apostle Paul began to attract a growing following, some of the intellectuals of his day who were losing standing “went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying,” “sowing mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people” (Acts 13:44-45, 14:2).

After The Jefferson Lies, rose to a New York Times best-seller, similar attacks were launched against it from academic elitists. I will address three of these attacks below, but first, I must tackle their oft-repeated talking-point that I am not a qualified historian – a claim they make to cast a shadow of doubt over all the facts I present. However, this charge, like their others, is completely false. After all, I am:

Recognized as an historical expert by both state and federal courts;
Called to testify as an historical expert by both the federal and state legislatures;
Selected as an historical expert by State Boards of Education across the nation to assist in writing history and social studies standards for those states;
Consulted as an historical expert by public school textbook publishers, helping write best-selling history texts used in public schools and universities across the nation.

Their real objection is that I make history uncomplicated, and thus make them irrelevant. In fact, the very point of The Jefferson Lies was to allow Jefferson to speak for himself through his 19,000 letters, thereby eliminating the need for the educational elitists who for the past fifty years have anointed themselves as Jefferson’s sole interpreters.

Consider some of their objections against The Jefferson Lies.

Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter

A common mantra for today’s academics is “Publish or die.” Believing that if they are not publishing something new that their academic career is regressing, they therefore regularly “discover” something they believe to be a new revelation on some obscure micropoint of history, and then, as if having received an earth-shattering revelation, write an article or book giving their personal opinions about it. Significantly, however, the public does not respond well to these works, for publishers claim that with few exceptions most academic scholars’ books sell only two hundred or so copies a year.¹

Professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, in their work penned against The Jefferson Lies, begin by candidly admitting that they are critiquing “Barton and religious conservatives in general,”² thereby openly confessing their hostility toward me and my personal religious beliefs. As they acknowledge up front, and as will be evident below, their real problem with The Jefferson Lies is much more about its worldview than its historical content.(Throckmorton is a psychology professor at Grove College currently writing about sexual orientation and identity, and Coulter teaches political science there.)

For example, early in the book I applaud American Exceptionalism, which I define as “the belief that America is blessed and enjoys unprecedented stability, prosperity, and liberty as a result of the institutions and policies produced by unique ideas such as God-given inalienable rights, individualism, limited government, full republicanism, and an educated and virtuous citizenry.”³ But Throckmorton and Coulter launch into a lengthy exegesis, quoting a number of liberal professors to prove that American Exceptionalism is a bad thing, not something good.⁴ So from the start, these two make clear that they object to the philosophy I set forth that America’s blessings, prosperity, and liberties are the result of God-given rights and ideas.

Another insightful moment in their critique occurs when these two try to explain away those 100,000 originals that form much of the basis of my historical works. They attempt to dismiss those works by stating, “While he [Barton] does have a nice collection of Bibles and signatures, he also has a lot of old newspapers which have little relevance to the claims he makes.”⁵

Notwithstanding the fact that they’ve never seen my collection and therefore don’t know what I do have, their comment about old newspapers is particularly revealing. Every genuine historian knows that old newspapers have great significance; in fact, it is hard to underestimate the importance of old newspapers in the way that these two have done. While newspapers do not replace primary source writings when such are available, there are definitely many times that newspapers themselves become the primary source documents and therefore cannot be dismissed out of hand as these two professors have done.

Significantly, many of the writings of the Founding Fathers, including the indispensable Federalist Papers, first appeared as newspaper articles; and old newspapers regularly contain noteworthy historical information found in no other source. For example, nowhere in George Washington’s writings does he say that he leaned over and kissed the Bible at his inauguration, but numerous old newspapers reporting those proceedings establish that fact (along with reporting the six other religious activities that occurred at his inauguration). So, contrary to their preposterous claim, old newspapers do have much relevance, not only to my claims but also those made by many other historical writers as well.

Furthermore, while my collection does include a “nice collection of Bibles and signatures,” it also has scores of full-length books by Founding Fathers as well as countless legal works, court rulings, religious sermons, military writings, original documents from black history, women’s history, and writings in scores of other areas. Yet even if it were nothing more than a “nice collection of Bibles and signatures,” that would still be significant, for that collection contains Bibles such as the John Thompson Bible of 1798, which documents Jefferson’s role in helping print that Bible – an aspect of Jefferson’s actions that these professors foolishly dismiss as being insignificant.

But aside from their flawed view about the importance of specific types of original documents, consider some of the absurdities contained in their critique. For example, Throckmorton and Coulter object to my statement that, “In 1803, President Jefferson signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe to provide them Christian ministry and teaching.”⁶ To prove their objection, they quote the treaty, including the part stating:

And whereas, the greater part of the said [Kaskaskia] tribe have been baptised [sic] and received into the Catholic church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for the said tribe the duties of his office and also to instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature. And the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.⁷

This treaty is signed at the bottom by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison.

So, let’s see: I state that Jefferson signed a treaty “with the Kaskaskia tribe to provide them Christian ministry and teaching,” and the two provide the part of the treaty proving that it does. I made the simple statement; they show documentation that the statement was correct; end of story, right? Hardly! After proving that the treaty does indeed have that provision, they then launch into a lengthy explanation attempting to show why that provision is really not important. It is amusing to see the lengths to which they go in their convoluted attempts to explain why historical documents do not really mean what they actually say.

Similarly, I state that “Other presidential actions of Jefferson include . . . closing presidential documents with the appellation, ‘In the year of our Lord Christ’.”⁸ I then include in the book a picture of such a signed document. But Throckmorton and Coulter dismiss that document with the statement that “we know of no other document signed by Jefferson with the phrase ‘in the year of our Lord Christ’ printed on the form.”⁹ So apparently, since they personally know of no other similar documents, then the one I showed apparently means nothing (at least to them). Significantly, however, we personally own other such Jefferson documents; and literally scores, if not hundreds, of similar Jefferson documents are contained in other libraries and archives. But because these professors don’t personally know about them, then they apparently don’t exist! Clearly, so strong are their own personal predilections about Jefferson that they won’t even allow what they see with their own eyes to alter their predetermined conclusions.

Throckmorton and Coulter also object to my statement that “in 1798, Jefferson personally helped finance the printing of one of America’s groundbreaking editions of the Bible. That Bible was a massive, two-volume folio set that was not only the largest Bible ever published in America to that time, but it was also America’s first hot-pressed Bible.”¹⁰ That Bible, published by John Thompson, is known as the Thompson Bible; but Throckmorton and Coulter claim that Jefferson subscribing, or helping fund this Bible, is an insignificant and irrelevant thing:

At the completion of the effort [the Bible], the printers compiled a list of subscribers for placement at the end of the second volume. . . . [A]ccording to the subscriber’s list, 1272 people paid to receive one [sic] these Bibles, with Jefferson’s name listed among the subscribers. . . . Certainly, several Founders subscribed. . . . The subscribers were not investors in the project. The investors in the project were printers, John Thompson and Abraham Small.¹¹

As they do so often throughout their critique, they entirely miss the primary point obviously being made in that section of the book – which is that individuals associate their name and money only in projects with which they have a general philosophical agreement, as Jefferson did here. But if they are right that being a subscriber is trivial and irrelevant, then if we should someday see a racist anti-Semitic publication with Throckmorton’s name listed as a subscriber, we should dismiss it as meaningless??? Hardly! Being a subscriber to a work tells us something of what that person believes and supports – which is why it is significant that Jefferson’s name appeared in the Thompson Bible and that he also offered to help finance other Bibles as well.

Furthermore, the Thompson Bible was one of many examples I provided to demonstrate occasions where Jefferson helped promote/fund/print the traditional unedited Bible. But Throckmorton and Coulter deliberately ignore this broader point and devolve into a pointless discussion about what a subscriber is. On multiple occasions, these two acknowledge that the particular fact I set forth did indeed happen but then try to shift the focus away from the self-evident simplicity of that which appears in the original documents.

(By the way, contrary to their errant claim, subscribers definitely were investors, for frequent was the occasion when printers were unable to publish a work due to a lack of subscribers.¹² It was common that if printers or authors did not have sufficient up-front, in-hand funds from subscribers, the work was not printed; so subscribers definitely were investors in the work.)

Another of their oft-repeated complaints is that I don’t include enough of what they personally consider to be negative things about Jefferson. But part of the reason I wrote my book was to reintroduce the numerous good things about Jefferson that so many of today’s Deconstructionist scholars refuse to acknowledge. Strikingly, if most of today’s academics were to write a biography about the Biblical David, they would undoubtedly include what occurred with Bathsheba, Uriah, Absalom, and Adonijah but completely ignore David’s role as the courageous shepherd who slew the lion and the bear, the fearless youth who defeated Goliath, the beloved leader venerated by his nation, and the tender and repentant individual who was a devout worshipper of God – they would highlight the bad and downplay the good.

Sadly, many of today’s academics miss the big things in history and focus on the miniscule. They would have fit well into medieval times, when the scholars of that era vigorously debated what they believed to be the compelling issues of that day – such as how many angels would fit on the point of a needle,¹³ or whether God in His majesty could create a rock so big that God in His power could not move it. They were completely out of touch with society and even accelerated its decline by remaining focused on meaningless trivia and minutia – or as Jesus said, they were able to find what they believed to be the microscopic speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye but completely miss the obvious plank in their own.

Clay S. Jenkinson

Clay Jenkinson also wrote a scathing review of The Jefferson Lies. He is described as “an American humanities scholar, author, and educator” who “co-hosts public radio’s The Jefferson Hour” and “lectures at Dickinson State University and Bismarck State College.”¹⁴ Interestingly, to prove me wrong, Jenkinson uses the very historical malpractices that my book is written to expose – including lifting very short phrases from lengthy historical writings and making them say the reverse of what they actually say.

For example, I provide scores of Jefferson’s own writings and declarations to conclusively demonstrate that he was not a deist; but Jenkinson completely dismisses all of that documentation on the basis of six words that Jefferson told his nephew: “Question with boldness the existence of God.” However, I also used that same six-word phrase in my book – only I printed the entire part of that letter (several pages long) containing that phrase. Jefferson explained that if someone was willing, with an open mind, to “question with boldness the existence of God,” that he would end up proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that there truly was a God.¹⁵ But Jenkinson lifted and used the six-word phrase completely out of context to make it say the opposite of what Jefferson said.

Additionally, Jenkinson, like Throckmorton and Coulter, admits major points I make in The Jefferson Lies but then also tries to explain them away. For example, I show that even though modern scholars repeatedly claim that Jefferson omitted everything related to the Divine and the supernatural from his so-called “Jefferson Bible,” that he actually included Jesus raising the dead, healing the sick, casting out demons, calling Himself the Son of God, speaking of His Second Coming, etc.¹⁶ Jenkinson admits that Jefferson did include these passages but then dismisses them as unimportant by (1) first pointing out that all other scholars similarly dismiss those passages, and (2) then giving his own personal opinion that Jefferson really didn’t believe what he included in that work.¹⁷ This ploy is called “psychohistory,” and results when a modern so-called “psychological” analysis is applied to the actions of a person long dead; “psychobabble” is the result of such an analysis. This trick enables folks like Jenkinson (and scholars like him) to assert that he personally knows what Jefferson was secretly thinking two centuries ago, so therefore whatever Jefferson actually said or did should be completely ignored.

Strikingly, Jenkinson’s attempt to prove me wrong involves: (1) lifting short phrases out of context from Jefferson’s lengthy works; (2) imputing to Jefferson sinister motives that lack historical evidence and can be proven only in the inner workings of Jenkinson’s own mind; and (3) invoking what other academics say about Jefferson rather than using Jefferson’s own words – the very historical malpractices that The Jefferson Lies was written to combat.

Alan Pell Crawford

Alan Crawford, a journalist and author, also penned a review very critical of The Jefferson Lies; and like the others, he, too, resorts to the tools of modern historical malpractice in order to discount the clear message of historical documents. For example, in summarizing my views about Jefferson, Crawford claims:

That Jefferson might have been what we would think of as a deist or even a Unitarian, as many historians believe, Mr. Barton also disputes. Jefferson was “pro-Christian and pro-Jesus,” he says, although he concedes that the president did have a few qualms about “specific Christian doctrines.” The doctrines Jefferson rejected – the Divinity of Christ, the Resurrection, the Trinity – are what place him in the camp of the deists and Unitarians in the first place.¹⁸

Significantly, in the chapter on Jefferson’s religious beliefs, I document that Jefferson went through several religious phases during his life. In the first half of his life, he held orthodox Christian views, and in his “Notes on Religion, 1776,” he consistently expounded what orthodox Christians still believe today. In middle life, his faith faltered when his beloved wife unexpectedly died, but he eventually retained his orthodox beliefs. But many decades later in the last years of his life, he embraced what was known as Christian Restoration or Christian Primitivism, which promoted Unitarianism and called into question some orthodox Christian doctrines, thus reversing his beliefs of earlier decades.

But Crawford, ignoring Jefferson’s many writings documenting his changing religious phases, instead asserts that Jefferson was a Unitarian for his entire life. On what grounds does he claim this? – on the basis of any Jefferson writing? No. Rather, he says it is because “many historians believe . . .” So, like the other critics, Crawford refuses to allow Jefferson to speak for himself but instead believes that only modern academics like himself can speak for Jefferson.

Crawford further claims that “No Jefferson scholar to my knowledge has ever concluded that Jefferson was an ‘atheist,’ as Mr. Barton suggests.”¹⁹ But by this claim, Crawford proves that he has not even read the book he is critiquing, for I begin each chapter with a list of documented quotations from modern writers and scholars repeating a particular lie about Jefferson, and I certainly did that in this chapter as well. But Crawford, like Throckmorton and Coulter, says “to my knowledge,” thus again limiting historical truth to his own personal experience rather than to objective documents and facts.

— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —It is striking that the negative critiques of The Jefferson Lies revolve around the academic arrogance that says “Unless we tell you so, it just can’t be; we are the sole gatekeepers of historical truth.” But Governor Mike Huckabee, in speaking of my approach to history, stated: “In typical Barton style, every syllable is given scholarly research and backed up with source documents. Those who hate America and God’s Word won’t like it, but they won’t be able to discredit it.” Clearly, academics such as Throckmorton, Coulter, Jenkinson, Crawford, et. al., simply don’t like what the self-evident documentation actually proves.

I find it refreshing and uplifting that ordinary citizens today are hungry to be reconnected with their simple and clearly-documented history – they want to rediscover America’s greatness, find a renewed national purpose, and learn how to get the nation back on track; but just like the citizens in Nehemiah 3:5, Americans have likewise found that most of today’s academics are like the “nobles who would not put their shoulders to the work.” Indeed, far too many scholars, rather than helping restore the nation, insist on destroying American Exceptionalism – on teaching students why they should apologize for America rather than appreciate it. But most Americans today definitely do not agree with these academic elitists – which is why the published attacks of Throckmorton et. al. do not sell well but books like The Jefferson Lies do.

For those who may have been influenced by seeing a negative critique of The Jefferson Lies, I urge you to read the book yourself, examine its 756 footnotes, and allow Jefferson to speak on his own behalf. I predict that if you do, you will be persuaded by the abundance of primary source documentation and will quickly see through the shallow motives behind the critics’ self-serving and disingenuous attacks.

Endnotes

¹ See, for example, “How many copies does an average university press book sell?” Political Science Job Rumors (accessed on July 9, 2012); “Sales Statistics,” How Publishing Really Works, March 17, 2009; Steven Piersanti, “The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing,” Berrett-Koehler Publishers, July 26, 2007; etc.

² Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President (Grove City, PA: Warren Throckmorton, 2012), “On getting American history wrong.”

³ David Barton, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), xix.

⁴ Throckmorton and Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right (2012), “On getting American history wrong.”

⁵ Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, “The Book David Barton Doesn’t Want You To Read,” Religion Dispatches, June 11, 2012.

⁶ Barton, The Jefferson Lies (2012), 71.

⁷ Throckmorton and Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right (2012), “Did Jefferson provide missionaries to the Kaskaskia Indians?”

⁸ Barton, The Jefferson Lies 2012), 136.

⁹ Throckmorton and Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right (2012), “Did Jefferson sign presidential documents “In the Year of Our Lord Christ?”

¹⁰ Barton, The Jefferson Lies (2012), 68.

¹¹ Throckmorton and Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right (2012), “Most Beautiful Production of Its Nature Hitherto Seen.”

¹² See, for example, “Art by the Book,” The Age, July 22, 2006; “Phillis Wheatley,” Answers.com (accessed on July 11, 2012); Richard Gray, A History of American Literature (West Sussex: Blackwell Publishers, 2012), 155; “A Pair of Albums, Each Titled ‘Sketches of Custome by Coke Smyth,’ Containing Original Watercolours,” AbeBooks.com, book description for John Richard Coke Smyth, A Pair of Albums, Each Titled Sketches of Costume, 1835, accessed on July 11, 2012; “William Hogarth Biography,” Hogarth Biography, accessed on July 11, 2012; and many others.

¹³ Richard Baxter, The Reasons of the Christian Religion (London: R. White, 1667), 530.

¹⁴ “Clay S. Jenkinson,“ Wikipedia, accessed on July 6, 2012.

¹⁵ Barton, The Jefferson Lies (2012), 61-63, quoting Thomas Jefferson, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), 2:216-218.

¹⁶ Barton, The Jefferson Lies (2012), 73, 80.

¹⁷ Clay S. Jenkinson, “Review of David Barton’s Book The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson,” The Thomas Jefferson Hour, June 3, 2012.

¹⁸ Alan Pell Crawford, “A Still Unsettling Founding Figure,” The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2012.

¹⁹ Alan Pell Crawford, “A Still Unsettling Founding Figure,” The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2012.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

The Aitken Bible and Congress

Prior to the American Revolution, the only English Bibles in the colonies were imported either from Europe or England. Publication of the Bible was regulated by the British government, and an English language Bible could not be printed without a special license from the British government; all English language Bibles had to bear the imprint of the Crown. However, other language Bibles were printed in America, including America’s first – the Eliot Bible (1661-1663), by John Eliot, the “Apostle to the Indians,” but his Bible was in the Massachusetts Indian language. Bibles could also be printed in French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, other Indian languages – just about anything but English.

Because English language Bibles could not be printed in America but had to be imported, when the Revolution began and the British began to blockade all materials coming to America, the ability to obtain such Bibles ended. Therefore, in 1777, America began experiencing a shortage of several important commodities, including Bibles. On July 7, a request was placed before Congress to print or import more, because “unless timely care be used to prevent it, we shall not have Bibles for our schools and families and for the public worship of God in our churches.”¹ Congress concurred with that assessment and announced: “The Congress desire to have a Bible printed under their care and by their encouragement.”² A special committee overseeing that project therefore recommended:

[T]he use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great, . . . your Committee recommend that Congress will order the Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different ports of the States of the Union.³

Congress agreed with the committee’s recommendation and ordered Bibles imported.⁴ While those Bibles were ordered imported by Congress, there is no indication that any ever arrived.

(Interestingly, decades later in 1854, when a group claimed that the government was violating the separation of church and state by allowing government-sponsored religious activities in public, James Meacham of the House Judiciary Committee responded with a lengthy report refuting their claims. In so doing, he specifically cited that 1777 act of Congress, noting:

I do not deem it out of place to notice one act of many to show that Congress was not indifferent to the religious interests of the people and they were not peculiarly afraid of the charge of uniting Church and State. On the 11th of September, 1777, a committee having consulted with Dr. Allison [an early congressional chaplain] about printing an edition of thirty thousand Bibles, and finding that they would be compelled to send abroad for type and paper with an advance of £10,272, 10s [over $2 million in today’s currency], Congress voted to instruct the Committee on Commerce to import twenty thousand Bibles from Scotland and Holland into the different ports of the Union. The reason assigned was that the use of the book was so universal and important. Now, what was passing on that day? The army of Washington was fighting the battle of Brandywine; the gallant soldiers of the Revolution were displaying their heroic though unavailing valor; twelve hundred soldiers were stretched in death on that battlefield; Lafayette was bleeding; the booming of the cannon was heard in the hall where Congress was sitting [in Philadelphia] – in the hall from which Congress was soon to be a fugitive. At that important hour, Congress was passing an order for importing twenty thousand Bibles; and yet we have never heard that they were charged by their generation of any attempt to unite Church and State or surpassing their powers to legislate on religious matters.⁵)

Four years later, in January of 1781, Robert Aitken (publisher of the Pennsylvania Magazine in Philadelphia) petitioned Congress for permission to print an English-language Bible on his presses in America rather than import the Bibles. In his memorial to Congress, Aitken said “your Memorialist begs leave to, inform your Honours That he both begun and made considerable progress in a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools” and went on to say “your Memorialist prays, that he may be commissioned or otherwise appointed & Authorized to print and vend Editions of, the Sacred Scriptures, in such manner and form as may best suit the wants and demands of the good people of these States.”⁶ Congress appointed a committee⁷ that was to “from time to time [attend] to his progress in the work; that they also [recommend] it to the two Chaplains of Congress to examine and give their opinion of the execution.”⁸ The committee, comprised of Founding Fathers James Duane, Thomas McKean, and John Witherspoon,⁹ reported back to Congress in September of 1782 giving its full approval. They also included assurances from the two chaplains of Congress that “Having selected and examined a variety of passages throughout the work, we are of opinion that it is executed with great accuracy as to the sense, and with as few grammatical and typographical errors as could be expected in an undertaking of such magnitude.”¹⁰ Congress gave Aitken a ringing endorsement in the form of a congressional resolution to “publish this Recommendation in the manner he shall think proper”¹¹ to help sell and circulate the Bible. The complete text of this Congressional resolution is:

Whereupon,
RESOLVED,
THAT the United States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this Recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.¹²

Robert Aitken then proceeded to print his Bible, now known as the Aitken Bible or the Bible of the Revolution. That Bible – approved by the Founding Fathers in Congress – was the first English-language Bible to be printed in America. Records show that of the 10,000 originally printed by Aitken, 30-40 total copies still exist¹³ (5-10 of which are in private hands); one of these existing Bibles is at WallBuilders.

(Incidentally, on May 30, 1783, the Rev. John Rodgers, a military chaplain and close friend of George Washington, suggested to his Commander-in-Chief that one of these congressionally approved Bibles be given to every member of the Continental Army. Washington was highly pleased with the suggestion but regretfully noted that Roger’s proposal had arrived too late – Congress had just disbanded the Continental Army, retaining only a skeleton force. Washington lamented:

Your proposition respecting Mr. Aitkin’s Bibles would have been particularly noticed by me – had it been suggested in season… It would have pleased me if Congress should have made such an important present to the brave fellows who have done so much for the security of their country’s rights and establishment.¹⁴)

Of this Bible, and of Congress’ direct role in its creation and distribution, one early historian observed:

Who, in view of this fact, will call in question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the states assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!¹⁵

You can view the Congressional actions concerning the Aitken Bible in the WallBuilders “Library” section here.

Endnotes

¹ Letters of Delegates to Congress, ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington: Library of Congress, 1981), 7:311, n1.
² Letters of Delegates, ed. Smith (1981), VII:311, “Committee on Publishing a Bible to Sundry Philadelphia Printers,” July 7, 1777.
³ Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907), VIII:734, September 11, 1777.
⁴ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), VIII:735, September 11, 1777.
⁵ Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives, Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. P. Nicholson, 1854), II:126, “Rep. No. 124: Chaplains in Congress and in the Army and Navy,” March 27, 1854.
⁶ The Holy Bible as Printed by Robert Aitken and Approved & Recommended by the Congress of the United States of America in 1782 (New York: Arno Press, 1968), Introduction to this Aitken Bible reprint.
⁷ Journals of the Continental Congress (1912), XIX:91, January 26, 1781.
⁸ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572-573, September 12, 1782.
⁹ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572, September 12, 1782.
¹⁰ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:573, September 12, 1782.
¹¹ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XIII:574, September 12, 1782; The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments (Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1782).
¹² Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XIII:574, September 12, 1782; The Holy Bible (1782).
¹³ “ The First English Language Bible Published in North America,” Library of Congress, accessed on March 29, 2012.
¹⁴ George Washington to John Rodgers on June 11, 1783, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1938), 27:1.
¹⁵ W. P. Strickland, History of the American Society from its Organization to the Present Time (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849), 20-21.

“One Nation Under God”

by David Barton¹

Despite America’s great diversity, nothing unifies Americans more than their support for public acknowledgments of God. Consider:

93% want “In God we Trust” to remain on coins and currency²
90% support keeping “under God” in the Pledge³
84% support references to God in schools, government buildings, and public settings⁴
82% support voluntary school prayer⁵
76% support Ten Commandments displays on public property⁶

There are few other subjects on which over three-fourths of Americans consistently agree; and while the Left complains that religious expressions are divisive, the evidence proves otherwise; religious expressions have unified Americans from the beginning.

In fact, at the first-ever meeting of Congress in 1774 when it was suggested that Congress open with prayer, some delegates predicted that the act would be divisive,⁷ but John Adams reported exactly the opposite, noting that “it has had an excellent effect upon everybody here.”⁸ Several Supreme Court Justices still believe that such acts are unifying, noting:

[T]he founders of our Republic knew…that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so inclined to foster among religious believers of various faiths a toleration – no, an affection – for one another than voluntarily joining in prayer together to God Whom they all worship and seek.⁹

Yet the public acknowledgement of God was more than just a pleasant practice in early America; it actually formed the basis of our government philosophy – a philosophy set forth in eighty-four simple words in the Declaration of Independence:

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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government.¹⁰

Thus, five immutable principles constitute the heart and soul of American government:

1. Government acknowledges that there is a Creator
2. Government acknowledges that the Creator gives specific inalienable rights to man
3. Government acknowledges that it exists to protect God-given rights
4. Government acknowledges that below the level of God-given rights, government powers are to be operated only with the permission of citizens – i.e., with the “consent of the governed”
5. If government fails to meet the four standards above, the people have an inalienable right to abolish that government and institute a new one that does observe the four criteria above.

Significantly, without a public and official recognition of God, there is no hope of limited government, for rights come only from God or from man. If rights come from God, then we can require man to protect those rights – as we did in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. But if our rights come from man, then man is permitted to regulate or abolish those rights, and government’s power over our lives therefore becomes absolute and unlimited, as has been the growing trend since the 1990s.

The Founders understood that irrevocable limitations can be placed on government only when God is recognized as the source of our rights; they also understood that if we became complacent in our recognition of God as the center of our lives and government, then we would lose our liberties. As Thomas Jefferson warned:

[C]an the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? – that they are not to be violated but with His wrath?¹¹

According to Jefferson, the only “firm basis” of our national liberties is a “conviction in the minds of the people” that our liberties are from God and that government cannot intrude into those liberties without incurring God’s wrath.

President George Washington likewise admonished:

[I]t 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.¹²

President John Adams similarly urged:

[T]he safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him.¹³

And Samuel Adams agreed, reminding Americans:

May every citizen . . . have a proper sense of the Deity upon his mind and an impression of the declaration recorded in the Bible, “Him that honoreth Me I will honor, but he that despiseth Me shall be lightly esteemed” [I Samuel 2:30].¹⁴

To restore honor and restore America, we first must restore God to His rightful place in our own lives and thinking. We must then reintroduce those original principles back into the public arena, thus restoring the foundation on which our Declaration and Constitution were built and the only foundation which allows them to operate as intended.

It is time for us to re-embrace the truth of President Reagan’s warning that:

If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.¹⁵

Endnotes

¹ This is an op-ed article that David Barton wrote for a national website.
² Dana Blanton, “FOX Poll: Courts Driving Religion Out of Public Life; Christianity Under Attack,” Fox News, December 1, 2005 (November 29-30, 2005 poll results).
³ Dana Blanton, “FOX Poll: Courts Driving Religion Out of Public Life; Christianity Under Attack,” Fox News, December 1, 2005 (November 29-30, 2005 poll results).
⁴ See, “Vast Majority in U.S. Support ‘Under God’,” CNN, June 29, 2002; Howard Fineman, “One Nation, Under… Who?” The Daily Beast, July 7, 2002.
⁵ Dana Blanton, “FOX Poll: Courts Driving Religion Out of Public Life; Christianity Under Attack,” Fox News, December 1, 2005 (November 29-30, 2005 poll results).
⁶ Dana Blanton, “FOX Poll: Courts Driving Religion Out of Public Life; Christianity Under Attack,” Fox News, December 1, 2005 (November 29-30, 2005 poll results).
⁷ John Adams, Letters of John Adams Addressed to His Wife, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), I:23-24, to Abigail Adams on September 16, 1774. See also Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), I:26-27, September 6-7, 1774.
⁸ Adams, Letters of John Adams, ed. Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), I:23-24, to Abigail Adams on September 16, 1774.
⁹ Lee v. Weisman, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467, 519 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
¹⁰ The Declaration of Independence.
¹¹ Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, 236-237.
¹² Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), II:302, proclamation for a National Thanksgiving on October 3, 1789.
¹³ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), IX:169, proclamation for a National Thanksgiving on March 23, 1798.
¹⁴ Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), IV:189, article signed “Vindex” originally published in the Boston Gazette on June 12, 1780.
¹⁵ Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas,” The American Presidency Project, August 23, 1984.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

John Locke – A Philosophical Founder of America

John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the most important, but largely unknown names in American history today. A celebrated English philosopher, educator, government official, and theologian, it is not an exaggeration to say that without his substantial influence on American thinking, there might well be no United States of America today – or at the very least, America certainly would not exist with the same level of rights, stability of government, and quality of life that we have enjoyed for well over two centuries.

Historians – especially of previous generations – were understandably effusive in their praise of Locke. For example:

In 1833, Justice Joseph Story, author of the famed Commentaries on the Constitution, described Locke as “a most strenuous asserter of liberty”¹ who helped establish in this country the sovereignty of the people over the government,² majority rule with minority protection,³ and the rights of conscience.⁴
In 1834, George Bancroft, called the “Father of American History,” described Locke as “the rival of ‘the ancient philosophers’ to whom the world had ‘erected statues’,”⁵ and noted that Locke esteemed “the pursuit of truth the first object of life and . . . never sacrificed a conviction to an interest.”⁶
In 1872, historian Richard Frothingham said that Locke’s principles – principles that he said were “inspired and imbued with the Christian idea of man” – produced the “leading principle [of] republicanism” that was “summed up in the Declaration of Independence and became the American theory of government.”⁷
In the 1890s, John Fiske, the celebrated nineteenth-century historian, affirmed that Locke brought to America “the idea of complete liberty of conscience in matters of religion” allowing persons with “any sort of notion about God” to be protected “against all interference or molestation,”⁸ and that Locke should “be ranked in the same order with Aristotle.”⁹

Such acknowledgments continued across the generations; and even over the past half century, U. S. presidents have also regularly acknowledged America’s debt to John Locke:

President Richard Nixon affirmed that “John Locke’s concept of ‘life, liberty and property’” was the basis of “the inalienable rights of man” in the Declaration of Independence.¹⁰
President Gerald Ford avowed that “Our revolutionary leaders heeded John Locke’s teaching ‘Where there is no law, there is no freedom’.”¹¹
President Ronald Reagan confirmed that much in America “testif[ies] to the power and the vision of free men inspired by the ideals and dedication to liberty of John Locke . . .”¹²
President Bill Clinton reminded the British Prime Minister that “Throughout our history, our peoples have reinforced each other in the living classroom of democracy. It is difficult to imagine Jefferson, for example, without John Locke before him.”¹³
President George W. Bush confessed that “We’re sometimes faulted for a naive faith that liberty can change the world, [but i]f that’s an error, it began with reading too much John Locke . . .”¹⁴

The influence of Locke on America was truly profound; he was what we now consider to be a renaissance man – an individual skilled in numerous areas and diverse subjects. He had been well-educated and received multiple degrees from some of the best institutions of his day, but he also pursued extensive self-education in the fields of religion, philosophy, education, law, and government – subjects on which he authored numerous substantial works, most of which still remain in print today more than three centuries after he published them.

In 1689, Locke penned his famous Two Treatises of Government. The first treatise (i.e., a thorough examination) was a brilliant Biblical refutation of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha in which Filmer had attempted to produce Biblical support for the errant “Divine Right of Kings” doctrine. Locke’s second treatise set forth the fundamental principles defining the proper role, function, and operation of a sound government. Significantly, Locke had ample opportunity to assert such principles, for he spent time under some of England’s worst monarchs, including Charles I, Charles II, and James II.

In 1664, Locke penned “Questions Concerning the Law of Nature” in which he asserted that human reason and Divine revelation were fully compatible and were not enemies – that the Law of Nature actually came from God Himself. (This work was not published, but many of its concepts appeared in his subsequent writings.)

In 1667, he privately penned his “Essay Concerning Toleration,” first published in 1689 as A Letter Concerning Toleration. This work, like his Two Treatises, was published anonymously, for it had placed his very life in danger by directly criticizing and challenging the frequent brutal oppression of the government-established and government-run Church of England. (Under English law, the Anglican Church and its 39 Doctrinal Articles were the measure for all religious faith in England; every citizen was required to attend an Anglican Church. Dissenters who opposed those Anglican requirements were regularly persecuted or even killed. Locke objected to the government establishing specific church doctrines by law, argued for a separation of the state from the church, and urged religious toleration for those who did not adhere to Anglican doctrines.) When Locke’s position on religious toleration was attacked by defenders of the government-run church, he responded with A Second Letter Concerning Toleration (1690), and then A Third Letter for Toleration (1692) – both also published anonymously.

In 1690, Locke published his famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This work resulted in his being called the “Father of Empiricism,” which is the doctrine that knowledge is derived primarily from experience. Rationalism, on the other hand, places reason above experience; and while Locke definitely did not oppose reason, his approach to learning was more focused on the practical, whereas rationalism was more focused on the theoretical.

In 1693, Locke published Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Originally a series of letters written to his friend concerning the education of a son, in them Locke suggested the best ways to educate children. He proposed a three-pronged holistic approach to education that included (1) a regimen of bodily exercise and maintenance of physical health (that there should be “a sound mind in a sound body”¹⁵), (2) the development of a virtuous character (which he considered to be the most important element of education), and (3) the training of the mind through practical and useful academic curriculum (also encouraging students to learn a practical trade). Locke believed that education made the individual – that “of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.”¹⁶ This book became a run-away best-seller, being printed in nearly every European language and going through 53 editions over the next century.

Locke’s latter writings focused primarily on theological subjects, including The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (1695), A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (1697), A Common-Place-Book to the Holy Bible (1697), which was a re-publication of what he called Graphautarkeia, or, The Scriptures Sufficiency Practically Demonstrated (1676), and finally A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians (published posthumously in 1707).

In his Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke urged the Church of England to reform itself so as to allow inclusion of members from other Christian denominations – i.e., the Dissenters. He recommended that the Church place its emphasis on the major things of Christianity (such as an individual’s relationship with Jesus Christ) rather than on lesser things (such as liturgy, church hierarchy and structure, and form of discipline). That work also defended Christianity against the attacks of skeptics and secularists, who had argued that Divine revelation must be rejected because truth could be established only through reason.

(While these are some of Locke’s better known works, he also wrote on many other subjects, including poetry and literature, medicine, commerce and economics, and even agriculture.)

The impact of Locke’s writings had a direct and substantial influence on American thinking and behavior in both the religious and the civil realms – an influence especially visible in the years leading up to America’s separation from Great Britain. In fact, the Founding Fathers openly acknowledged their debt to Locke:

John Adams praised Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding, openly acknowledging that “Mr. Locke . . . has steered his course into the unenlightened regions of the human mind, and like Columbus, has discovered a new world.”¹⁷
Declaration signer Benjamin Rush said that Locke was not only “an oracle as to the principles . . . of government”¹⁸ (an “oracle” is a wise authority whose opinions are not questioned) but that in philosophy, he was also a “justly celebrated oracle, who first unfolded to us a map of the intellectual world,”¹⁹ having “cleared this sublime science of its technical rubbish and rendered it both intelligible and useful.”²⁰
Benjamin Franklin said that Locke was one of “the best English authors” for the study of “history, rhetoric, logic, moral and natural philosophy.”²¹
Noah Webster, a Founding Father called the “Schoolmaster to America,” directly acknowledged Locke’s influence in establishing sound principles of education.²²
James Wilson (a signer of the Declaration and the Constitution, and an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court) declared that “The doctrine of toleration in matters of religion . . . has not been long known or acknowledged. For its reception and establishment (where it has been received and established), the world has been thought to owe much to the inestimable writings of the celebrated Locke…”²³
James Monroe, a Founding Father who became the fifth President of the United States, attributed much of our constitutional philosophy to Locke, including our belief that “the division of the powers of a government . . . into three branches (the legislative, executive, and judiciary) is absolutely necessary for the preservation of liberty.”²⁴
Thomas Jefferson said that Locke was among “my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced.”²⁵

And just as the Founding Fathers regularly praised and invoked John Locke, so, too, did numerous famous American ministers in their writings and sermons.²⁶ Locke’s influence was substantial; and significantly, the closer came the American Revolution, the more frequently he was invoked.

For example, in 1775, Alexander Hamilton recommended that anyone wanting to understand the thinking in favor of American independence should “apply yourself without delay to the study of the law of nature. I would recommend to your perusal . . . Locke.”²⁷

And James Otis – the mentor of both Samuel Adams and John Hancock – affirmed that:

The authority of Mr. Locke has . . . been preferred to all others.²⁸

Locke’s specific writing that most influenced the American philosophy of government was his Two Treatises of Government. In fact, signer of the Declaration Richard Henry Lee saw the Declaration of Independence as being “copied from Locke’s Treatise on Government”²⁹– and modern researchers agree, having authoritatively documented that not only was John Locke one of three most-cited political philosophers during the Founding Era³⁰ but that he was by far the single most frequently-cited source in the years from 1760-1776 (the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence).³¹

Among the many ideas articulated by Locke that subsequently appeared in the Declaration was the theory of social compact, which, according to Locke, was when:

Men. . . . join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against any that are not of it.³²

Of that theory, William Findley, a Revolutionary soldier and a U. S. Congressman, explained:

Men must first associate together before they can form rules for their civil government. When those rules are formed and put in operation, they have become a civil society, or organized government. For this purpose, some rights of individuals must have been given up to the society but repaid many fold by the protection of life, liberty, and property afforded by the strong arm of civil government. This progress to human happiness being agreeable to the will of God, Who loves and commands order, is the ordinance of God mentioned by the Apostle Paul and . . . the Apostle Peter.³³

Locke’s theory of social compact is seen in the Declaration’s phrase that governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Locke also taught that government must be built firmly upon the transcendent, unchanging principles of natural law that were merely a subset of God’s greater law:

[T]he Law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions must . . . be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God.³⁴

[L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.³⁵

For obedience is due in the first place to God, and afterwards to the laws.³⁶

The Declaration therefore acknowledges “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” thus not separating the two but rather affirming their interdependent relationship – the dual connection between reason and revelation which Locke so often asserted.

Locke also proclaimed that certain fundamental rights should be protected by society and government, including especially those of life, liberty, and property³⁷– three rights specifically listed as God-given inalienable rights in the Declaration. As Samuel Adams (the “Father of the American Revolution” and a signer of the Declaration) affirmed, man’s inalienable rights included “first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property”³⁸– a repeat of Locke’s list.

Locke had also asserted that:

[T]he first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the Legislative power. . . . [and no] edict of anybody else . . . [can] have the force and obligation of a law which has not its sanction [approval] from that Legislative which the public has chosen.³⁹

The Founders thus placed a heavy emphasis on preserving legislative powers above all others. In fact, of the 27 grievances set forth in the Declaration of Independence, 11 dealt with the abuse of legislative powers – no other topic in the Declaration received nearly as much attention. The Founders’ conviction that the Legislative Branch was above both the Executive and Judicial branches was also readily evident in the U. S. Constitution, with the Federalist Papers affirming that “the legislative authority necessarily predominates”⁴⁰ and “the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.”⁴¹

Locke also advocated the removal of a leader who failed to fulfill the basic functions of government so eloquently set forth in his Two Treatises;⁴² the Declaration thus declares that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government.”

In short, when one studies Locke’s writings and then reads the Declaration of Independence, they will agree with John Quincy Adams’ pronouncement that:

The Declaration of Independence [was] . . . founded upon one and the same theory of government . . . expounded in the writings of Locke.⁴³

But despite Locke’s substantial influence on America, today he is largely unknown; and his Two Treatises are no longer intimately studied in America history and government classes. Perhaps the reason for the modern dismissal of this classic work is because it was so thoroughly religious: Locke invoked the Bible in at least 1,349 references in the first treatise, and 157 times in the second⁴⁴– a fact not lost on the Founders. As John Adams openly acknowledged:

The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence. . . . were the general principles of Christianity. . . . Now I will avow that I then believed (and now believe) that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. . . . In favor of these general principles in philosophy, religion, and government, I [c]ould fill sheets of quotations from . . . [philosophers including] Locke – not to mention thousands of divines and philosophers of inferior fame.⁴⁵

Given the fact that previous generations so quickly recognized the Christian principles that permeated all of Locke’s diverse writings, it is not surprising that they considered him a theologian.⁴⁶ Ironically, however, many of today’s writers and so-called professors and scholars specifically call Locke a deist or a forerunner of Deism.⁴⁷ But since Locke included repeated references to God and the Scriptures throughout his writings, and since he wrote many works specifically in defense of religious topics, then why is he currently portrayed as being anti-religious? It is because in the past fifty-years, American education has become thoroughly infused with the dual historical malpractices of Deconstructionism and Academic Collectivism.

Deconstructionism is a philosophy that “tends to deemphasize or even efface [i.e., malign and smear] the subject” by posing “a continuous critique” to “lay low what was once high”⁴⁸ and “tear down the ancient certainties upon which Western Culture is founded.”⁴⁹ In other words, it is a steady flow of belittling and negative portrayals about the heroes, institutions, and values of Western civilization, especially if they reflect religious beliefs. The two regular means by which Deconstructionists accomplish this goal are (1) to make a negative exception appear to be the rule, and (2) deliberate omission.

These harmful practices of Deconstructionists are exacerbated by the malpractice of Academic Collectivism, whereby scholars quote each other and those from their group rather than original sources. Too many writers today simply repeat what other modern writers say, and this “peer-review” becomes the standard for historical truth rather than an examination of actual original documents and sources.

Reflecting these dual negative influences of Deconstructionism and Academic Collectivism in their treatment of John Locke, many of today’s “scholars” simply lift a few short excerpts from his hundreds of thousands of written words and then present those carefully selected extracts in such a way as to misconstrue his faith and make it seem that he was irreligious. Or more frequently, Locke’s works are simply omitted from academic studies, being replaced only with a professor’s often inaccurate characterization of Locke’s beliefs and writings.

Significantly, the charge that Locke is a deist and a freethinker is not new; it has been raised against him for over three centuries. It first originated when Locke advocated major reforms in the Church of England (such as the separation of the state from the church and the extension of religious toleration to other Christian denominations); Anglican apologists who stung from his biting criticism sought to malign him and minimize his influence; they thus accused him of irreligion and deism. As affirmed by early English theologian Richard Price:

[W]hen . . . Mr. Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding was first published in Britain, the persons readiest to attend to it and to receive it were those who have never been trained in colleges, and whose minds, therefore, had never been perverted by an instruction in the jargon of the schools. [But t]o the deep professors [i.e., clergy and scholars] of the times, it appeared (like the doctrine taught in his book, on the Reasonableness of Christianity) to be a dangerous novelty and heresy; and the University of Oxford in particular [which trained only Anglicans] condemned and reprobated the author.⁵⁰

The Founding Fathers were fully aware of the bigoted motives behind the attacks on Locke’s Christian beliefs, and they vigorously defended him from those false charges. For example, James Wilson (signer of the Declaration and Constitution) asserted:

I am equally far from believing that Mr. Locke was a friend to infidelity [a disbelief in the Bible and in Christianity⁵¹]. . . . The high reputation which he deservedly acquired for his enlightened attachment to the mild and tolerating doctrines of Christianity secured to him the esteem and confidence of those who were its friends. The same high and deserved reputation inspired others of very different views and characters . . . to diffuse a fascinating kind of lustre over their own tenets of a dark and sable hue. The consequence has been that the writings of Mr. Locke, one of the most able, most sincere, and most amiable assertors of Christianity and true philosophy, have been perverted to purposes which he would have deprecated and prevented [disapproved and opposed] had he discovered or foreseen them.⁵²

Thomas Jefferson agreed. He had personally studied not only Locke’s governmental and legal writings but also his theological ones; and his summary of Locke’s views of Christianity clearly affirmed that Locke was not a deist. According to Jefferson:

Locke’s system of Christianity is this: Adam was created happy and immortal…. By sin he lost this so that he became subject to total death (like that of brutes [animals]) – to the crosses and unhappiness of this life. At the intercession, however, of the Son of God, this sentence was in part remitted…. And moreover to them who believed, their faith was to be counted for righteousness [Romans 4:3,5]. Not that faith without works was to save them; St. James, chapter 2 says expressly the contrary [James 2:14-26]…. So that a reformation of life (included under repentance) was essential, and defects in this would be made up by their faith; i. e., their faith should be counted for righteousness [Romans 4:3,5]…. The Gentiles; St. Paul says, Romans 2:13: “the Gentiles have the law written in their hearts,” [A]dding a faith in God and His attributes that on their repentance, He would pardon them; (1 John 1:9) they also would be justified (Romans 3:24). This then explains the text “there is no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved” [Acts 4:12], i. e., the defects in good works shall not be supplied by a faith in Mahomet, Fo [Buddha], or any other except Christ.⁵³

In short, Locke was not the deist thinker that today’s shallow and often lazy academics so frequently claim him to be; and although Locke is largely ignored today, his influence both on American religious and political thinking was substantial, directly shaping key beliefs upon which America was established and under which she continues to operate and prosper.

Americans need to revive a widespread awareness of John Locke and his specific ideas that helped produce American Exceptionalism so that we can better preserve and continue the blessings of prosperity, stability, and liberty that we have enjoyed for the past several centuries.

Endnotes

¹ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company 1833), I:299, n2.

² Story, Commentaries (1833), II:57, n2.

³ Story, Commentaries 1833), I:293, n2; I:299, n2; I:305-306.

⁴ Story, Commentaries (1833), III:727.

⁵ George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1858; first edition Boston: Charles Bowen, 1834), II:150.

⁶ Bancroft, History of the United States (1858; first edition 1834), II:144.

⁷ Richard Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1872), 165.

⁸ John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897), II:274.

⁹ John Fiske, Critical Period of American History: 1783-1789 (New York: Mifflin and Company, 1896), 225.

¹⁰ Richard Nixon, “Message to the Congress Transmitting the Report of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission,” The American Presidency Project, September 11, 1970.

¹¹ Gerald Ford, “Address at the Yale University Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation Dinner,” The American Presidency Project, April 25, 1975.

¹² Ronald Reagan, “Toasts of the President and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at a Dinner Honoring the Queen in San Francisco, California,” The American Presidency Project, March 3, 1983.

¹³ William Clinton, “Remarks at the State Dinner Honoring Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom,” The American Presidency Project, February 5, 1998.

¹⁴ George W. Bush, “Remarks at Whitehall Palace in London, United Kingdom,” The American Presidency Project, November 19, 2003.

¹⁵ John Locke, The Works of John Locke (London: Arthur Bettesworth, John Pemberton, and Edward Simon, 1722), III:1, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.”

¹⁶ Locke, Works (1722), III:1, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.”

¹⁷ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), I:53, to Jonathan Sewall on February 1760.

¹⁸ Benjamin Rush, The Selected Writings of Benjamin Rush, ed. Dagobert D. Runes (New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1947), 78, “Observations on the Government of Pennsylvania.”

¹⁹ Benjamin Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations (Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1793), II:17, “An Inquiry into the Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty.”

²⁰ Rush, Medical Inquiries (1794), I:332, “Duties of a Physician.”

²¹ Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan & Whittemore, 1836), II:131, “Sketch of an English School.”

²² Noah Webster, A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects (New York: Webster & Clark, 1843), 308, “Modes of Teaching the English Language.”

²³ James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), 1:6-7, “Of the Study of the Law in the United States.”

²⁴ James Monroe, The Writings of James Monroe, ed. Stanislaus Murray Hamilton (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898), I:325, “Some Observations on the Constitution, &c.”

²⁵ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Henry Augustine Washington (Washington, D. C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853), V:559, to Dr. Benjamin Rush on January 16, 1811.

²⁶ See, for example, REV. JARED ELIOT IN 1738 Jared Eliot, Give Caesar His Due. Or, Obligation that Subjects are Under to Their Civil Rulers (London: T. Green, 1738), 27, Evans # 4241. REV. ELISHA WILLIAMS IN 1744 Elisha Williams, The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants. A Seasonable Plea for the Liberty of Conscience, and the Right of Private Judgment, in Matters of Religion (Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Gaben, 1744), 4, Evans # 5520. Rev. JONATHAN EDWARDS IN 1754 Jonathan Edwards, A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of Will, which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame (Boston: S. Kneeland, 1754), 138-140, 143, 164, 171-172, 353-354. REV. WILLIAM PATTEN, 1766 William Patten, A Discourse Delivered at Hallifax in the County of Plymouth, July 24th, 1766 (Boston: D. Kneeland, 1766), 17-18n, Evans # 10440. REV. STEPHEN JOHNSON, 1766 Stephen Johnson, Some Important Observations, Occasioned by, and Adapted to, the Publick Fast, Ordered by Authority, December 18th, A. D. 1765. On Account of the Peculiar Circumstances of the Present Day (Newport: Samuel Hall, 1766), 22n-23n, Evans # 10364. REV. JOHN TUCKER, 1771 John Tucker, A Sermon Preached at Cambridge Before His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Governor; His Honor Andrew Oliver, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor; the Honorable His Majesty’s Council; and the Honorable House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New England, May 29th, 1771 (Boston: Richard Draper, 1771), 19, Evans # 12256. REV. SAMUEL STILLMAN, 1779 Samuel Stillman, A Sermon Preached before the Honourable Council and the Honourable House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England at Boston, May 26, 1779. Being the Anniversary for the Election of the Honorable Council (Boston: T. and J. Fleet, 1779), 22-25, and many others.

²⁷ Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), I:86, from “The Farmer Refuted,” February 23, 1775.

²⁸ James Otis, A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province on the Massachusetts-Bay: Most Particularly in the Last Session of the General Assembly (Boston: Edes & Gill, 1762), 20n.

²⁹ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:462, to James Madison on August 30, 1823.

³⁰ Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143.

³¹ Lutz, Origins 1988), 143.

³² John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: A. Bettesworth, 1728), II:206-207, Ch. VIII, §95.

³³ William Findley, Observations on “The Two Sons of Oil” (Pittsburgh: Patterson and Hopkins 1812), 35.

³⁴ Locke, Two Treatises (1728), II:233, Ch. XI, §135.

³⁵ Locke, Two Treatises (1728), II:234, Ch. XI, §135 n., quoting Hooker’s Eccl. Pol. 1. iii, sect. 9.

³⁶ John Locke, The Works of John Locke (London: T. Davison, 1824), V:22, “A Letter Concerning Toleration.”

³⁷ See, for example, Locke, Works (1824), V:10, “A Letter Concerning Toleration”; Locke, Two Treatises (1728), II:146, 188, 199, 232-233, passim; etc.

³⁸ Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), I:351, from “The Rights Of The Colonists, A List of Violations Of Rights and A Letter Of Correspondence, Adopted by the Town of Boston, November 20, 1772,” originally published in the Boston Record Commissioners’ Report, XVIII:94-108.

³⁹ Locke, Two Treatises (1728), II:231,Ch. XI, §134.

⁴⁰ Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, The Federalist, or the New Constitution Written in 1788 (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 281, Federalist #51 by Alexander Hamilton.

⁴¹ Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, The Federalist (1818), 420, Federalist #78 by Alexander Hamilton.

⁴² Locke, Two Treatises (1728), II:271, Ch. XVI, § 192.

⁴³ John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution. A Discourse Delivered at the Request of the New York Historical Society, in the City of New York, on Tuesday, the 30th of April, 1839; Being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States, on Thursday, the 30th of April, 1789 (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), 40.

⁴⁴ Locke, Two Treatises (1728), passim.

⁴⁵ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), X:45-46, to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.

⁴⁶ See, for example, Richard Watson, Theological Institutes: Or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1857), I:5, where Watson includes John Locke as a theologian.

⁴⁷ See, for example, Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, ed. John Bowker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 151; Franklin L. Baumer, Religion and the Use of Skepticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Company), 57-59; James A. Herrick, The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680-1750 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 15; Kerry S. Walters, Rational Infidels: The American Deists (Durango, CO: Longwood Academic, 1992), 24, 210; Kerry S. Walters, The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 6-7; John W. Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 25, 115.

⁴⁸ Jack M. Balkin, “Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction – Part II,” Yale University, 1998.

⁴⁹ Kyle-Anne Shiver, “Deconstructing Obama,” AmericanThinker.com, July 28, 2008.

⁵⁰ Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution and the Means of Making it a Benefit to the World (Boston: True and Weston, 1818), 24.

⁵¹ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. “infidel.”

⁵² James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), I:67-68, “Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation.”

⁵³ Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), II:253-254, “Notes on Religion,” October, 1776.

The Importance of Voting and Christian Involvement in the Political Arena

John Adams

We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands; we have a check upon two branches of the legislature . . . the power I mean of electing at stated periods [each] branch. . . . It becomes necessary to every [citizen] then, to be in some degree a statesman, and to examine and judge for himself of the tendency of political principles and measures. Let us examine, then, with a sober, a manly . . . and a Christian spirit; let us neglect all party [loyalty] and advert to facts; let us believe no man to be infallible or impeccable in government any more than in religion; take no man’s word against evidence, nor implicitly adopt the sentiments of others who may be deceived themselves, or may be interested in deceiving us.¹

Samuel Adams

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.²

Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of unexceptionable characters. The public cannot be too curious concerning the character of public men.³

Matthias Burnett

Consider well the important trust . . . which God . . . [has] put into your hands. . . . To God and posterity you are accountable for [your rights and your rulers]. . . . Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you. . . . [L]ook well to the characters and qualifications of those you elect and raise to office and places of trust. . . . Think not that your interests will be safe in the hands of the weak and ignorant; or faithfully managed by the impious, the dissolute and the immoral. Think not that men who acknowledge not the providence of God nor regard His laws will be uncorrupt in office, firm in defense of the righteous cause against the oppressor, or resolutly oppose the torrent of iniquity. . . . Watch over your liberties and privileges – civil and religious – with a careful eye.⁴

Frederick Douglass

I have one great political idea. . . . That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to; nevertheless, it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. The best expression of it, I have found in the Bible. It is in substance, “Righteousness exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. This constitutes my politics – the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. . . . I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind, that it may speedily be recognized and practiced upon by our people.⁵

Charles Finney

[T]he time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them. . . . Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently. . . . Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it – and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they [Christians] take [in politics].⁶

James Garfield

Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . [I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.⁷

Francis Grimke

If the time ever comes when we shall go to pieces, it will . . . be . . . from inward corruption – from the disregard of right principles . . . from losing sight of the fact that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. . . .[T]he secession of the Southern States in 1860 was a small matter with the secession of the Union itself from the great principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, in the Golden Rule, in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the Mount. Unless we hold, and hold firmly to these great fundamental principles of righteousness…our Union…will be “only a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”⁸

Alexander Hamilton

A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law.⁹

John Jay

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.¹⁰

The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.¹¹

Thomas Jefferson

The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people.¹²

[T]he rational and peacable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.¹³

[S]hould things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.¹⁴

William Paterson

When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.¹⁵

William Penn

Governments, 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. . . . But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. . . .[T]hough
good laws do well, good men do better; for good laws may want [lack] good men and be abolished or invaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws nor suffer [allow] ill ones.¹⁶

Daniel Webster

Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own.¹⁷

Noah Webster

In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character. . . . When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor, he betrays the interest of his country.¹⁸

When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, “just men who will rule in the fear of God.” The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be sqandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.¹⁹

John Witherspoon

Those who wish well to the State ought to choose to places of trust men of inward principle, justified by exemplary conversation. . . .[And t]he people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches.²⁰

Endnotes

¹ John Adams as ‘U’ to the Boston Gazette, August 29, 1763, The Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1977), 1:81.
² Samuel Adams in the Boston Gazette, April 16, 1781, The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), IV:256.
³ Samuel Adams to James Warren, November 4, 1775, Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Cushing (1907), III:236-237.
⁴ Matthias Burnett, An Election Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Anniversary Election, May 12, 1803 (Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1803), 27-28.
⁵ Frederick Douglass speech delivered at Ithaca, New York, October 14th, 1852, The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John Blassingame (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 2:397.
⁶ Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1868), 281-282.
⁷ James A. Garfield, “A Century of Congress,” July, 1877, The Works of James Abram Garfield, ed. Burke Hinsdale (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883), II:486, 489.
⁸ Rev. Francis J. Grimke, from “Equality of Right for All Citizens, Black and White, Alike,” March 7, 1909, published in Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, ed. Alice Moore Dunbar (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000), 246-247.
⁹ Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York, Columbia University Press, 1962), III:544-545.
¹⁰ John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1890), IV:365.
¹¹ John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1890), I:161.
¹² Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), 10:235.
¹³ Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), 12:136.
¹⁴ Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), 10:245.
¹⁵ Supreme Court Justice William Paterson reminding his fellow justices of Proverbs 29:2. United States Oracle (Portsmouth, NH), May 24, 1800.
¹⁶ William Penn quoted from: Thomas Clarkson, Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn (London: Richard Taylor and Co., 1813), I:303.
¹⁷ Daniel Webster Remarks at a Receiption to the Ladies of Richmond, Virginia, October 5, 1840, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1853), II:108.
¹⁸ Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education to which is subjoined a Brief History of the United States (New Haven: S. Converse, 1823), 18, 19.
¹⁹ Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), 336-337.
²⁰ John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), IV:266, 277.

How Does Jeremiah 17:9 Relate to the Constitutional Separation of Powers?

In their public presentations, our WallBuilders speakers frequently provide historical examples of how specific Bible verses impacted particular aspects of American culture. For example, the story of Matthew Maury and his geographical discoveries involves Psalm 8 and Ecclesiastes 1:6; James Kent (“A Father of American Jurisprudence”) cites 1 Samuel 7:15-16 with the formation of circuit courts; Isaiah 33:22 is associated with the three branches of government; and other such examples. ¹

Many audience members, intrigued by how specific Bible verses directly shaped American practices, look up the Bible references that we routinely mention and are immediately impressed with their specificity and obvious applicability. But almost universally when they check John Adams’ mention of Jeremiah 17:9² as the basis of the constitutional separation of powers, they are perplexed and often conclude that our speaker must have used the wrong reference. It doesn’t seem that Jeremiah 17:9 relates to constitutional separation of powers, but it actually does. Allow us to explain, but first let’s lay some groundwork.

When Progressives grasped the reins of common education in the early 1900s, they introduced profound systemic changes, including age-graded education (previously, students were grouped according to knowledge level rather than age level), compulsory education (school attendance had been generally voluntary), extended school years (school was often three months a year, but Progressives made it most of the year), and twelve years of government education (prior to the Progressives, virtually no one went past eight-grade learning levels, after which they would enter college or some trade or profession). ³

These changes were not because previous educational practices had been unsuccessful, for it had been just the opposite. In fact, few college graduates today can master the eighth-grade exit exam given in the early 1900s by most states, ⁴ when school only lasted for a few months a year and for only eight years.

Perhaps the most significant transformation imposed by Progressives was that students were no longer taught how to think, but rather how to learn. Instead of being trained to reason sequentially and study and confirm independent sources, students were now required to listen to what the teacher said and then repeat it back. Thus, true/false, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank tests were introduced, ⁵ for they did not require a mastery of subject-matter knowledge but rather only a mastery of whatever the teacher had said.

By this change, the teacher became the small end of the funnel of knowledge – everything flowed through the teacher to the student. To invoke an old proverb, no longer did the student learn how to fish, but rather the teacher now gave them the fish. Because students were no longer trained in critical thinking, widespread indoctrination became the result – whatever the teacher believed was what was communicated to students, which they also came to believe. The warning by Jesus in Luke 6:40 had become reality: “Every student, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.”

Progressivism, liberalism, secularism, relativism, socialism, and other isms were now freely communicated to students by academia, and these beliefs have now thoroughly permeated the culture as those students become adults and filled various professions.

One teaching common among Progressives (and now widely believed even by many Christians) is that man is innately good but sometimes does bad things.⁶ But the Bible teaches just the opposite – that man is innately bad but sometimes does good things; and that is only when man’s wicked heart is remade by God.

Under the Progressive belief, if man shoots someone, the problem is with the gun; since man is instinctively good, it can’t be his fault that something bad happened, so we need to regulate the gun, not the man. Or if someone gets drunk and abuses his spouse, it is because man has a medical disease beyond his control – it’s not his fault, for he is inherently good. Or if someone fathers a dozen children out of wedlock, it is because he was not given enough condoms in school. In short, under Progressivism, if man does something bad, there was some outside cause for it, for man is inherently good.

But the Bible says just the opposite. Notice a few verses on this:

Mark 7:21-23 – For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within. (Matthew 5:19)
Genesis 6:5 & 8:21 – The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Romans 3:9 – It is written: “None is righteous, no, not one.” (c.f. Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3)
Ecclesiastes 9:3 – The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts.
Galatians 5:19-21 – Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.
Psalm 5:9 – For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

According to the Bible, man will only begin to do what is good when God changes his heart (see, for example Romans 6:6,16-17,19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, etc.). Without a life changed by God, mankind is naturally inclined to do what is wrong.

The Founders firmly held this Biblical view. They therefore constructed government fully expecting the worst – expecting that the people leading all three branches would become corrupt. Fifty-five hundred years of recorded history prior to the Founding Fathers had demonstrated that as the pattern of every human government that had ever existed. Understanding this, the Founders made specific plans to help limit the inherent corruption of man and they sought ways to prevent all three branches from becoming wicked at the same time. They wanted a fail-safe so that if one did, then perhaps the other branches could restrain it or drag it back to its limited function. The result was the various clauses providing and enforcing Separation of Powers.

The following excerpt is from the Founders’ Bible and it explains how the truth inherent in Jeremiah 17:9 helped produce the constitutional separation of powers.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The Constitutional Separation of Powers

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

The separation of powers and reciprocal checks and balances incorporated throughout the Constitution has been heralded as one of the most important features of American government, enabling it not only to survive but to thrive for over two centuries. History was filled with examples showing that when government power was centralized in one body or leader, that government always became a danger to the rights of individuals and brought that nation to ruin. But the Founding Fathers had not only the examples of history to guide them but especially the teachings of the Bible.

A well-known verse addressing this subject was Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” This verse encapsulated what Calvinistic ministers and theologians termed the “depravity of man” or “total depravity” ⁷ (that the natural heart of man easily embraced moral and civil degradation), and it was a frequent topic for sermons in the Founding Era. The Founding Fathers understood the import of this verse and openly cited it – as when John Adams reminded Americans:

Let me conclude by advising all men to look into their own hearts, which they will find to be ‘deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ [Jeremiah 17:9].⁸

The Biblically illiterate believe in the innate goodness of man – that man will naturally do what is right, but experience regularly affirms the opposite: without a heart regenerated by the power of God, man will routinely do what is wrong. Adams specifically rejected any notion of the innate goodness of man, especially when it came to government:

To expect self-denial from men when they have a majority in their favor, and consequently power to gratify themselves, is to disbelieve all history and universal experience – it is to disbelieve revelation and the Word of God, which informs us ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ [Jeremiah 17:9]. . . . There is no man so blind as not to see that to talk of founding a government upon a supposition that nations and great bodies of men left to themselves will practice a course of self-denial is either to babble like a newborn infant or to deceive like an unprincipled impostor.⁹

And even those who had experienced a regenerated heart through the power of God in Christ and who did not embrace Calvinism nevertheless knew enough about the truth of this verse and the tendencies of the heart to not even fully trust themselves to be above its corrupting influence. As John Quincy Adams explained:

I believe myself sincere; but the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked [Jeremiah 17:9]. I do not believe the total depravity of man, but I am deeply conscious of the frailty of my own nature.¹⁰

Understanding this principle from Jeremiah 17 – a principle that was accepted by all sides of the theological spectrum – the Founders knew that government would be much safer if all power did not repose in the same authority. Making practical application of this Biblical truth, they therefore divided and checked power between branches so that if one leader or branch went wicked, the other two might still check and stop it. As George Washington explained:

A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power by dividing and distributing it into different depositories . . . has been evinced [demonstrated] by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes.¹¹

This remarkable feature of American government – the separation of powers and reciprocal checks and balances – can be attributed to the Founders’ understanding of Jeremiah 17:9.

Endnotes

¹ For more information, see The Founders’ Bible (Shiloh Road Publishers, 2012).

² John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 443, “On Private Revenge III,” published in the Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763; John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (London: John Stockdale, 1794), Vol. III, p. 289, “Letter VI. The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, examined.”

³ For more information, see “A Short History of United States’ Education 1900 to 2006,” historyliteracy.org (accessed on September 7, 2016); “10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding,” The Catholic World Report, July 3, 2012; “A campus shared by the College, the Academy and the Charity School,” Penn University Archives & Records Center (accessed on September 7, 2016); “John Dewey,” Biography (accessed on September 7, 2016).

⁴ See some examples of 8th grade exit exams in: B. A. Hathaway, 1001 Test Examples in Arithmetic with Answers (Cleveland, OH: Burrows Brothers Company, 1890); Warp’s Review Books (Minden, NE: Warp Publishing Company, 1928), on various subjects; Colorado State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book (Lincoln, NE: Lincoln Supply Co., 1927).

⁵ See, for example, Colorado State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book (Nebraska: 1927), pp. 4, 10, 12, questions from a 1927 Agriculture, Arithmetic, and Civics test; “true-false test,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 7, 2016); “multiple-choice,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 7, 2016).

⁶ See an example of this philosophy in Theodore Roosevelt, “Who is a Progressive?” Teaching American History, April 1912.

⁷ See, for example, “total depravity,” Merriam-Webster (accessed on September 6, 2016); Herman Hanko, The Five Points of Calvinism (1976), “Chapter 1: Total Depravity.”

⁸ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 443, “On Private Revenge III,” published in the Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763.

⁹ John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (London: John Stockdale, 1794), Vol. III, p. 289, “Letter VI. The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, examined.”

¹⁰ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co, 1876), Vol. XI, p. 270, November 16, 1842.

¹¹ George Washington, 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 (Baltimore: Christopher Jackson, 1796), p. 22.

How to Respond to “Separation of Church and State”

We’ve all heard the phrase “separation of Church and State.” It is one of the best-known but least understood phrases in America today. It expresses the belief that there should be a wall of separation between one’s personal faith and any display of that faith in public. In America we advocate freedom of religion, yet if a teacher places a Bible on her desk,¹ if a student bows his head to pray in school,² or cheerleaders display Bible verses on their posters,³ they are accused of violating separation of church and state – of “subjecting” those around them to their faith.

As Christians, we must know how to respond. Do we know the history behind the phrase? Do we know our rights? Do we know our Founding Fathers’ intentions with the phrase?

Here are some simple ways we can respond so that we do not fall prey to the silencing of freedom of religion in the public square.

1. Where does the phrase “Separation of Church and State” originate?⁴

The concept of separation of Church and state actually originates in the Bible, where God created three institutions. In Genesis, God established the institution of family by creating male and female and placing them together in a lifelong union. Next came the institution of civil government to address our relationship with our fellow man. The final institution addressed our relationship with God, and was the creation of the temple, or the Church.

When God’s people left Egypt, God had them establish their own nation. At that time, God placed Moses over government and civil affairs and Aaron over spiritual ones, thus separating those two roles and jurisdictions. Neither excluded God from its operation, but each was to be headed and run by a different individual and not the same person. Later in the Bible when King Uzziah tried to combine the two institutions and serve as both a King and a Priest, God sovereignly weighed in and made clear that He did not want the same individual running both institutions together.

But in 391 AD, Emperor Theodosius combined both Church and State, and for the next twelve centuries, the State was in charge of the Church. The government decided what the official Church doctrines would be, and it punished violators who disagreed with those positions, not allowing them to practice their faith. There was a state-established Church, with the Church becoming an official arm of the State and with it being run by church officials appointed by the government. In the 1500s during the Reformation, those who followed the Bible began to call for a return to a Biblical separation of Church and State so that the government would no longer control or prohibit religious activities.

The early colonists who came to America brought this view with them, and in America they made sure that the government, or the State, could not control or limit religious beliefs or activities. This was their understanding of the separation of Church and State.

The phrase “separation of Church and State” cannot be found in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. In fact, it is not found in any of our nation’s founding documents. Related to government, the phrase first appeared in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1801.⁵

Thomas Jefferson had worked very hard to separate the Anglican Church from the government in his home state of Virginia so that all other denominations could practice their faith without government penalty or persecution. Jefferson contributed to ending government-run religion in his state, so when he became president of the United States, the Baptists and those from other denominations were his strong supporters because he had fought for their freedom of religion – for their right to be free from state control in matters of faith.

The Danbury Baptists wrote Thomas Jefferson expressing their concern that the government might try to regulate their religious expression. In response, Jefferson wrote his now famous letter, using the phrase “Separation of Church and State” to reassure the Danbury Baptists that the First Amendment prohibited the government from trying to control religious expression. In short, the First Amendment was intended to keep government out of regulating religion, but it did not keep religion out of government or the public square.

2. What Does the Constitution Actually Say?

Today, people believe that “separation of Church and State” is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. But in the First Amendment the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law…”

First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The famous separation phrase appears nowhere in that Amendment, or in the Constitution.

So we must ask the question: How does a student praying over his lunch mean the same thing as Congress making a law? The answer: it doesn’t. The First Amendment meant Congress is limited from setting up a national denomination and Congress is limited from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment does not limit faith or the people, only the government.

The First Amendment was created by America’s Founders because of their desire to avoid something like the government-run Church of England. In fact, it was not just the government of England they longed to be different from, but they were also striving to be different from the way that churches and government had operated across most of Europe for the previous thousand years, for most nations at that time had state-established and state-controlled churches.

The Pilgrims, Puritans, and others who settled America wanted to return to God’s original plan of separating the church from government control. That long-standing American desire and practice of freedom of religion was specifically written in the First Amendment.

Here is one of the Bibles (dated 1590) that the Pilgrims and Puritan brought to America with them.⁶

how-to-respond-to-separation-of-church-and-state

The notes in this Bible actually discuss having a separation between government and the church. The Pilgrims therefore set up a system where they would have separate elections for both state leaders and church leaders so that the leaders would be different, rather than the same, as was the practice in England.

3. Faith has been part of American public Society for over 180 years.

Students had been praying over their lunches for over 180 years under the Constitution with no problem, as well as doing other religious activities that were always constitutional.

In fact, we actually have several original sermons from a church that Thomas Jefferson helped facilitate. It was a church that met inside the U.S. Capitol,⁷ where services were held in the House Chamber every Sunday. Both as Vice President and as President of the United States, Jefferson faithfully attended those church services inside the US Capitol and saw no constitutional problem with them, for Congress was not controlling religion for the entire nation but rather was only allowing religious expressions to occur, which was their constitutional role.

how-to-respond-to-separation-of-church-and-state-2

These are sermons preached at the Church that met inside the U.S. Capitol. The first one is on “The Public Worship of God,” and the second is on “The Imperishable and Saving Words of Christ.” Both sermons were preached in the Chamber of the U. S. House of Representatives.

how-to-respond-to-separation-of-church-and-state-3

It has only been in recent years that faith has been excluded from public schools, governmental venues, and the public square. Did we just invent separation of church and state? No, the phrase has existed since centuries before Jefferson, but today its meaning has been taken out of context and twisted to mean something entirely different.

This first happened in 1947 when the Supreme Court quoted only one phrase from Jefferson’s short 1801 letter to the Danbury Baptists. The Court claimed that there was to be “a wall of separation between Church and State” and that religious activities could no longer occur in the public square.⁸ They took the intent and clear purpose of Jefferson’s letter completely out of context. They did not show his short letter of only three paragraphs and 233 words which contained all the context and explanation but rather lifted a 8-word phrase out of it and remained silent on the rest.

Next time you hear someone claim religion has no place in public because of the “wall of separation,” I hope you’ll remember a few of the key pieces of history that many today have forgotten.

Endnotes

¹ See, for example Roberts v. Madigan, 702 F. Supp. 1505 (D. Colo. 1989), aff’d, 921 F.2d 1047 (10th Cir. 1990).

² See, for example, Broadus v. Saratoga Springs City School District, 02-cv-0136 (N.D.N.Y. 2002).

³ See, for example, Kountze Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Matthews, No. 09-13- 00251 (Tex. App.— Beaumont 2014).

⁴ See an article on the history of the phrase “Separation of Church and State” here.

⁵ See the text of the Danbury Baptists 1801 letter to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson’s 1802 reply here.

⁶ A Geneva Bible from the WallBuilders library, belonging to the Arthur Upton family.

⁷ See David Barton’s article “Church in the U.S. Capitol” for more information.

⁸ Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).

Biblical Christianity: The Origin of the Rights of Conscience

Overview

Significantly, 1 Timothy 1:5 declares that the goal of the entirety of everything taught in the Scriptures is threefold:

The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Significantly, the three are inseparable, and without a good conscience, there will not be either a sincere faith or a pure heart. It is therefore not surprising that developing, maintaining, and living according to a good conscience is referenced more than thirty times in the New Testament (cf. Acts 24:16, 1 Timothy 1:19, 3:9, 1 Peter 3:16, 21, Romans 13:5, 2 Corinthians 4:2, etc.).

In fact, 1 Corinthians 8:4-12 flatly states that if a Christian views something as a matter of conscience – if the inner voice that God has placed within him or her tells them that something is sin to them – they are not to violate their conscience; and if anyone makes them do so, then they “sin against Christ.” (This message is repeated in Romans 1:1-23, 1 Corinthians 10:28-32, and elsewhere.) Few subjects in the Bible are stressed as strongly as that of maintaining a pure conscience – of preserving the conviction that one will answer directly to God for what his religious faith requires him to do, or refrain from doing.

Strikingly, only nations who respect Biblical teachings and traditions offer protection for the rights of religious conscience. Secular and non-Biblical nations, and those with state-established churches (such as those that predominated in England and Europe at the time of the American Founding), do not allow rights of conscience but instead demand conformity, which often requires governmental punishment coercion concerning religious beliefs, which violates the Scriptures.

Christ Himself established religious non-coercion as the standard. His approach was so voluntary that He even directed His disciples that when they presented the Gospel to others, if someone was interested, then they could stay and share the message with them; but if someone did not want to hear, then they were to leave the area and not force the issue (Luke 10:8-12). There was absolutely no coercion. It was also this way with Paul and the other Apostles: in every case; hearers then chose whether or not to follow Christianity; there was never any penalty, pressure, or force levied against them.

As John Quincy Adams noted, Jesus Christ “came to teach and not to compel. His law was a Law of Liberty. He left the human mind and human action free.”¹ Two generations later, legal writer Stephen Cowell (1800-1872) similarly avowed:

Nonconformity, dissent, free inquiry, individual conviction, mental independence, are forever consecrated by the religion of the New Testament as the breath of its own life – the conditions of its own existence on the earth. The book is a direct transfer of human allegiance in things spiritual from the civil and ecclesiastical powers to the judgment and conscience of the individual.²

And several generations after that, President Franklin D. Roosevelt continued to affirm the same truth, noting: “We want to do it the voluntary way – and most human beings in all the world want to do it the voluntary way. We do not want to have the way imposed. . . . That would not follow in the footsteps of Christ.”³

From the beginning, America faithfully observed these principles, refusing to apply government coercion or conformity to the religious beliefs and practices of individuals. But today, this is dramatically and rapidly changing, with government routinely requiring people of faith to violate their religious conscience, particularly on social issues such as those surrounding aspects of sexuality, whether the taking of unborn human life, contraception, or requiring participation in homosexual nuptials, affirmation of transgenderism, and other major sexual elements of the LGBT agenda.

The American Experience on Religious Conscience

Colonial Era

Many of the early colonists who came to America were familiar with the Bible teachings on conscience and brought them to America, where they took root and grew to maturity at a rapid rate, having been planted in virgin soil completely uncontaminated by the religious apostasy and routine violations of the rights of conscience that had characterized the previous millennia. Hence, Christianity as practiced in America became the world’s single greatest historical force in securing non-coercion, religious toleration, and the rights of conscience.

For example, in 1640, the Rev. Roger Williams established Providence (the city that became the center of the Rhode Island colony), declaring:

We agree, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of conscience.⁴

Similar language and protections were also included in subsequent American documents, including the 1649 Maryland “Toleration Act,”⁵ the 1663 charter for Rhode Island,⁶ the 1664 Charter for Jersey,⁷ the 1665 Charter for Carolina,⁸ the 1669 Constitutions of Carolina,⁹ the 1676 charter for West Jersey,¹⁰ the 1701 charter for Delaware,¹¹ the 1682 frame of government for Pennsylvania,¹² and many others. As John Quincy Adams affirmed, “The transcendent and overruling principle of the first settlers of New England was conscience.”¹³

Revolutionary Era

In 1775 (a year before our official separation from Great Britain), Commander-in-Chief George Washington addressed Continental soldiers and from the beginning charged them:

While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men and to Him only in this case they are answerable.¹⁴

With America’s official break from Great Britain in 1776, the states created their very first state constitutions and specifically secured the religious toleration, non-coercion, and the rights of conscience. For example, the 1776 constitution of Virginia declared:

[R]eligion . . . can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.¹⁵

The 1776 Constitution of New Jersey similarly protected the rights of conscience,¹⁶ causing Governor William Livingston (a signer of the U. S. Constitution) to happily proclaim:

Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. . . . In contrast with this spiritual tyranny, how beautiful appears our catholic [expansive] constitution in disclaiming all jurisdiction over the souls of men, and securing (by a never-to-be-repealed section) the voluntary, unchecked, moral suasion of every individual – and his own self-directed intercourse with the Father of Spirits!¹⁷

When New York’s first constitution (1777) likewise protected the rights of conscience,⁸¹ Governor John Jay (an author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court) similarly rejoiced that:

Adequate security [under our constitution] is also given to the rights of conscience and private judgment. They are by nature subject to no control but that of Deity, and in that free situation they are now left. Every man is permitted to consider, to adore, and to worship his Creator in the manner most agreeable to his conscience.¹⁹

Similar clauses securing the rights of religious conscience also appeared in many other early state constitutions, including that of Delaware (1776),²⁰ North Carolina (1776),²¹ Pennsylvania (1776),²² Vermont (1777),²³ South Carolina (1778),²⁴ Massachusetts (1780),²⁵ New Hampshire (1784),²⁶ etc. Today, the safeguards for the rights of conscience explicitly appear in forty-five state constitutions, and by inference in the other five.²⁷

Federal Era

In 1788 following the ratification of the federal Constitution, six states submitted proposals for a Bill of Rights,²⁸ with several specifically recommending national language that “all men have an equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”²⁹ Although the word “conscience” did not ultimately appear in the final language of the religion clauses of the First Amendment, those who framed that Amendment believed that by preventing the government from establishing a national religion and by guaranteeing to the people their “free exercise of religion,” that the rights of conscience had been fully secured³⁰ – a fact affirmed by President Thomas Jefferson when he penned his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists assuring them that the First Amendment was an “expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience.”³¹ Subsequent constitutional commentaries reiterated that the First Amendment did indeed protect the rights of conscience.³²

Founding Fathers

In addition to the several Founders already mentioned, here are a few more unequivocal declarations regarding the constitutional duty of official to protect and defend the rights of religious conscience:

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . Conscience is the most sacred of all property.³³ JAMES MADISON

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.³⁴ It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others, or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.³⁵ Our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted – we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.³⁶ THOMAS JEFFERSON

[T]he consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. . . . For what business, in the name of common sense, has the magistrate (distinctly and singly appointed for our political and temporal happiness) with our religion, which is to secure our happiness spiritual and eternal? . . . [T]he state [does not] have any concern in the matter. For in what manner doth it affect society . . . in what outward form we think it best to pay our adoration to God?³⁷ WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION

Modern Era

As a result of the conscience protections long provided in American history and law, government exemptions are routinely granted to those whose religious faith requires them to participate in, or refrain from activities that violate their religious conscience. For example:

Pacifists and conscientious objectors are not forced to fight in wars;³⁸
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not required to say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools;³⁹
The Amish are not required to complete the standard compulsory twelve years of education;⁴⁰
Christian Scientists are not forced to have their children vaccinated or undergo medical procedures often required by state laws;⁴¹
Muslim and Jewish men are not required to shave their beards in jobs that otherwise require employees to be clean-shaven;⁴²
Seventh-Day Adventists cannot be penalized for refusing to work at their jobs on Saturday;⁴³

and there are additional examples.

Conclusion

Clearly, protection for the inalienable rights of religious conscience is deeply embedded into the fabric of American governmental policy. But as currently demonstrated in countless nations around the world, and now in America, when secularism or any other non-Biblical philosophy becomes dominant in its culture, a loss of legal protections for religious rights is usually one of the first casualties of the change.

Today in America, to seek to provide protection for the traditional rights of religious conscience is now regularly denounced as discriminatory.⁴⁴ The LGBT movement, and those in government aligned with it, disdain the rights of religious conscience and instead use the power, penalties, and full force of the law to coerce all others to embrace and participate in affirming their views, including Christian bakers,⁴⁵ florists,⁴⁶ photographers,⁴⁷ churches,⁴⁸ homeowners,⁴⁹ pastors,⁵⁰ clerks,⁵¹ business owners,⁵² officials,⁵³ religious schools,⁵⁴ military personnel,⁵⁵ sportscasters,⁵⁶ and others.⁵⁷

Our Framers recognized that if religious liberties and our civil liberties were inseparable – that if our religious liberties were diminished, our civil liberties would soon follow. As Joseph Story (a “Father of American Jurisprudence,” placed on the Supreme Court by President James Madison) pointed out:

There is not a truth to be gathered from history more certain or more momentous than this: that civil liberty cannot long be separated from religious liberty without danger, and ultimately without destruction to both. Wherever religious liberty exists, it will, first or last, bring in and establish political liberty.⁵⁸

Signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon concurred:

There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost and religious liberty preserved entire. . . . God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.⁵⁹

And Jedidiah Morse (a pastor, educator, and historian of the American Revolution, appointed by the federal government to document the condition of Indian affairs) agreed:

All efforts made to destroy the foundations of our Holy Religion ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation . . . in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom.⁶⁰

Secularism produces an antipathy toward religion and religious rights, when ultimately diminish our civil rights. In fact, after President Obama announced that America no longer should be viewed as a Christian nation,⁶¹ he then announced that he was rescinding the traditional religious rights of conscience for those working in the medical profession.⁶² Historically, governmental protection for religious rights is the only sure indicator of protection for other non-religious civil rights.

Endnotes

¹ John Quincy Adams, A Discourse on Education Delivered at Braintree, Thursday, October 24th, 1839 (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1840), 18.

² Stephen Colwell, Politics for American Christians: A Word upon our Example as a Nation, our Labour, our Trade, Elections, Education, and Congressional Legislation (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1852), 82, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, for 1844 (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1844), 752, “The Politics of the New Testament,” December 1844.

³ “Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Christmas Greeting to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1940.

⁴ The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws, ed. Francis Newton Thorpe (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), VI:3205-3207, “Plantation Agreement at Providence – August 27-September 6, 1640.”

⁵ William MacDonald, Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of American History 1606-1775 (New York: MacMillan Company, 1899), 104-106, “Maryland Toleration Act,” April 1649.

⁶ <a href=”https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015001567794;view=1up;seq=27″ target=”“blank”” rel=”noopener”>Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), VI:3211, “Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations-1663.”

⁷ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2537, “The Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New Jersey, 1664.”

⁸ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2771, “Charter of Carolina – 1665.”

⁹ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2785, “The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina – 1669.”

¹⁰ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2549, “The Charter or Fundamental Laws of West New Jersey, Agreed Upon – 1676.”

¹¹ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), I:558, “Charter of Delaware – 1701.”

¹² Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:3063, “Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, May 5, 1682.”

¹³ John Quincy Adams, A Discourse on Education Delivered at Braintree, Thursday, October 24th, 1839 (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1840), 28.

¹⁴ George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931), 3:492, to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775.

¹⁵ The American’s Guide: Comprising the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitutions of the Several States Composing the Union (Philadelphia: Hogan & Thompson, 1835), 180, 1776 Constitution: Bill of Rights, No. 16.

¹⁶ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2597, “Constitution of New Jersey – 1776.”

¹⁷ William Livingston, The Papers of William Livingston, ed. Carl E. Prince (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1980), 2:235, 237, article under the name “Cato,” originally published in the New Jersey Gazette on February 18, 1778.

¹⁸ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2636-2637, “Constitution of New York – 1777.”

¹⁹ William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), I:82, John Jay’s charge to the grand jury during the first term of the New York state Supreme Court.

²⁰ Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (New York: E. Oswald, 1786), 129.

²¹ Constitutions (1786), 185.

²² Constitutions (1786), 109.

²³ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), VI:3740.

²⁴ Constitutions (1786), 215.

²⁵ Constitutions (1786), 11-12.

²⁶ Constitutions (1786), 4.

²⁷ Forty-five state constitutions contain explicit language specifically singling out the rights of conscience. Five other states – Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, and South Carolina – use similar language to the U.S. Constitution (“make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). As is seen in the subsequent section, the Founding Fathers believed that this language provided specific protection for the rights of conscience.

²⁸ Those states initially included Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina; two years later in 1790, Rhode Island submitted its proposals. See Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington: 1836), I:322-333.

²⁹ Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 1:600-610. New Hampshire recommended an amendment stating that “Congress shall make no law touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.”

³⁰ The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, ed. Joseph Gales (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), I:757-796, August 15, 1789 to August 21, 1789.

³¹ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H. A. Washington (Washington D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1854), VIII:113, “Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson, A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut,” January 1, 1802.

³² See, for example, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), I:701, § 990-991:

The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are given by God, and cannot be encroached upon by human authority, without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural, as well as revealed religion. The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus sought to cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and the power of subverting the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age.

St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia (Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small: 1803), I:489, “Appendix: Note G. Of the Right of Conscience; and Of the Freedom of Speech and Of The Press”:

Liberty of conscience in matters of religion consists in the absolute and unrestrained exercise of our religious opinion, and duties, in that mode which our own reason and conviction dictate, without the control or intervention of any human power or authority whatsoever. This liberty though made a part of our constitution, and interwoven in the nature of man by his Creator, so far as the arts of fraud and terrors of violence have been capable of abridging it, hath been the subject of coercion by human laws in all ages and in all countries as far as the annals of mankind extend.

James Wilson, Thomas McKean [Wilson and McKean both signed the Declaration of Independence, and Wilson was a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court], Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America (London: 1791), II:61:

In the third place we are told, that there is no security for the rights of conscience. I ask the honorable gentleman, what part of this system puts it in the power of Congress to attack those rights? When there is no power to attack, it is idle to prepare the means of defense.

And others.

³³ James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102, “Property,” originally published in The National Gazette on March 29, 1792.

³⁴ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H. A. Washington (New York: Biker, Thorne, & Co., 1854), VIII:147, to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, CT on February 4, 1809.

³⁵ Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Charlottesville: F. Carr, an Co., 1829), III:507, to Benjamin Rush on April 21, 1803.

³⁶ Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), 265, “Query XVII: The different religions received into that state?”

³⁷ William Livingston, Papers, ed. Prince (1980), 2:235, 237, article under the name “Cato,” originally published in the New Jersey Gazette on February 18, 1778; Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America: Or, An Attempt to Collect and Preserve Some of the Speeches, Orations, & Proceedings (Baltimore: William Ogden Niles, 1822), 306-307, “Remarks on liberty of conscience, ascribed to his excellency William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, 1778”; B. F. Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), 162-163, from William Livingston.

³⁸ United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965).

³⁹ West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

⁴⁰ Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

⁴¹ See, for example, “Parents claim religion to avoid vaccines for kids,” NBCNews, October 17, 2007; “Vaccination Exemptions,” College of Physicians of Philadelphia (accessed on May 9, 2016).

⁴² Potter v. District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 01-1189 (D.D.C. Sept. 28, 2007).

⁴³ Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Commission of Florida, 480 U.S. 136 (1987); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 409 (1963).

⁴⁴ See, for example, Adam Serwer, “Arizona passes law allowing discrimination,” MSNBC, February 21, 2014; Paresh Dave, “Miss. governor signs religious freedom bill; civil rights groups dismayed,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2014; Chris Johnson, “Georgia Senate passes religious discrimination bill,” Washington Blade, March 5, 2015; Tony Cook, “Gov. Mike Pence signs ‘religious freedom’ bill in private,” IndyStar, April 2, 2015; Monica Davey, “Indiana and Arkansas Revise Rights Bills, Seeking to Remove Divisive Parts,” The New York Times, April 2, 2015; Timothy Holbrook, “Georgia, North Carolina bills are about LGBT discrimination. Period,” CNN, March 28, 2016; Marina Fang, “Tennessee Legislature Resurrects Discriminatory Transgender Bathroom Bill,” Huffington Post, April 6, 2016.

⁴⁵ See, for example, Ken Klukowski, “Baker Faces Prison for Refusing to Bake Same-Sex Wedding Cake,” Breitbart, December 12, 2013; Chris Enloe, “‘Sweet Cakes’ Owners’ Bank Accounts Seized as Damages for Refusing to Bake Wedding Cake for Lesbian Couple,” The Blaze, December 29, 2015.

⁴⁶ See, for example, Danny Burk, “A florist loses religious freedom, and much more,” CNN, February 20, 2015.

⁴⁷ See, for example, Ken Klukowski, “New Mexico Court: Christian Photographer Cannot Refuse Gay-Marriage Ceremony,” Breitbart, August 22, 2013; Kristine Marsh, “Gays Force San Francisco Wedding Photographers to Close Shop,” MRC NewsBusters, November 21, 2014; Samuel Smith, “Christian Videographer Faces Legal Action After Refusing to Work Lesbian Wedding, Says It’s Against Her Biblical Beliefs,” Christian Post, March 18, 2015.

⁴⁸ See, for example, Molly Montag, “Group asks IRS to investigate Cornerstone Church,” Sioux City Journal, October 1, 2010; “Southern Baptists draw distance from harsh anti-gay rhetoric, yet hold to convictions,” Baptist Press, May 24, 2012.

⁴⁹ See, for example, Andrea Peyser, “Couple fined for refusing to host same-sex wedding on their farm,” New York Post, November 10, 2014.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Todd Starnes, “Fired for preaching: Georgia dumps doctor over church sermons,” Fox News, April 20, 2016; Natalie Jennings, “Louie Giglio pulls out of inauguration over anti-gay comments,” The Washington Post, January 10, 2013.

⁵¹ See, for example, Allan Smith, “Anti-gay-marriage Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses,” Business Insider, September 3, 2015; Jim Douglas, “Hood County is focal point of same-sex debate,” WFAA, July 1, 2015.

⁵² See, for example, Katie Zezima, “Couple Sues a Vermont Inn for Rejecting Gay Wedding,” The New York Times, July 19, 2011; Billy Hallowell, “Lesbian Couple Wins Discrimination Lawsuit Against Religious Bed and Breakfast Owner Who Denied Them a Room,” The Blaze, April 16, 2013; Justin Moyer, “Kentucky T-shirt printer that wouldn’t make gay pride shirts vindicated by court,” The Washington Post, April 28, 2015; Charlie Butts, “Iowa couple fined for refusing gay wedding: ‘We are still here’,” OneNewsNow, June 3, 2015.

⁵³ See, for example, Kathleen Gilbert, “San Diego firefighters victorious in suit against forced participation in gay pride parade,” Life Site News, January 28, 2011; Eryn Sun, “Court Affirms CDC’s Firing of Counselor Over Same-Sex Advice,” Christian Post, February 8, 2012; Ryan T. Anderson, “Atlanta Fire Chief Fired for Expressing Christian Beliefs,” The Daily Signal, January 8, 2015; “Utah officer who objected to role in gay pride parade says he was unfairly labeled a bigot,” Fox News, February 25, 2015; Randy Ludlow, “Ohio judges who perform weddings must marry same-sex couples,” The Columbus Dispatch, August 11, 2015.

⁵⁴ See, for example, “Evangelical College Gay Rights Stand Causes Uproar,” NewsMax, November 2, 2014; “Gay Teacher Files Sex Discrimination Claim Against Georgia School,” NPR, July 9, 2014; “Lesbian teacher who was fired for becoming pregnant sues Catholic school for discrimination,” Daily Mail, August 22, 2014.

⁵⁵ See, for example, Todd Starnes, “Fox Exclusive: Airman Faces Punishment for her Religious Beliefs,” Fox News, August 6, 2013; Kirsten Anderson, “Air Force Sergeant claims he was fired for refusing to endorse gay ‘marriage’: faces court martial,” Life Site News, September 10, 2013; “Navy Threatens To End 19-Year Career Of Decorated Chaplain Who Served Navy SEAL Teams, According To Liberty Institute,” PR Newswire, March 9, 2015.

⁵⁶ See, for example, Melissa Barnhart, “Fox Sports Southwest Charged With Discrimination for Firing Craig James Over Homosexuality Remarks,” Christian Post, March 7, 2014; Ahiza Garcia, “‘I’m not transphobic,’ says ex-ESPN analyst Curt Schilling,” CNN Money, April 22, 2016.

⁵⁷ See, for example, “Missouri school sued by student who refused to support gay adoptions,” USA Today, November 2, 2006; Paul Strand, “University Employee Punished over Marriage Petition,” CBN News, October 18, 2012; Billy Hallowell, “Christian Product Engineer Claims Ford Motor Fired Him for Voicing His Bible-Based Opposition to the Company’s Promotion of ‘Pro-Homosexual Ideas’ — Now He’s Fighting Back,” The Blaze, January 28, 2015.

⁵⁸ Joseph Story, A Discourse Pronounced at the Request of the Essex Historical Society, on the 18th of September, 1828, in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Salem, in the State of Massachusetts (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1828), 46.

⁵⁹ John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men. A Sermon, Preached at Princeton, on the 17th of May, 1776. Being the General Fast appointed by the Congress through the United Colonies (Philadelphia: 1777), 27-28, 38.

⁶⁰ Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America. Delivered at Charlestown. April 25, 1799, The Day of the National Fast (MA: Printed by Samuel Etheridge, 1799), 9.

⁶¹ Aaron Klein, “Obama: America is ‘no longer Christian’,” WorldNetDaily, June 22, 2008. See also David Brody, The Brody File, “Exclusive: Barack Obama E-mails the Brody File,” CBN News, July 29, 2007; “Obama says U.S., Turkey can be model for world,” CNN, April 6, 2009.

⁶² See, for example, Rob Stein, “Obama Plans to Roll Back ‘Conscience’ Rule Protecting Health Workers Who Object to Some Types of Care,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2009; Saundra Young, “White House set to reverse health care conscience clause,” CNN, February 27, 2009; Rob Stein, “Obama administration replaces controversial ‘conscience’ regulation for health-care workers,” The Washington Post, February 18, 2011.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

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1. Where does the phrase “Separation of Church and State” originate?4

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