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
1Letters of Delegates to Congress, ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington: Library of Congress, 1981), 7:311, n1. 2Letters of Delegates, ed. Smith (1981), VII:311, “Committee on Publishing a Bible to Sundry Philadelphia Printers,” July 7, 1777. 3Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907), VIII:734, September 11, 1777. 4Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), VIII:735, September 11, 1777. 5Reports 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. 6The 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. 7Journals of the Continental Congress (1912), XIX:91, January 26, 1781. 8Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572-573, September 12, 1782. 9Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572, September 12, 1782. 10Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:573, September 12, 1782. 11Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XIII:574, September 12, 1782; The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments (Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1782). 12Journals 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.
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. 9Lee 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 (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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
President Obama made headlines by comparing historic Christianity with modern radical Islam. Cautioning Christians, he warned:
And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . . . So this is not unique to one group or one religion. 1
The indignation over these remarks was prompt. Even HBO personality Bill Maher – an ardent secularist who has described himself as an atheist – affirmed the president’s error. He noted that to make such a criticism of Christianity requires going back to ancient centuries long ago, while the problem of radical Islam is a very real one right now.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal agreed, declaring: “The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today.”
He added:
It was nice of the President to give us a history lesson at the Prayer breakfast. Today, however, the issue right in front of his nose, in the here and now, is the terrorism of Radical Islam, the assassination of journalists, the beheading and burning alive of captives. We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today. 2
Pat Buchanan, national columnist and former presidential candidate, concurred:
He’s trying to give them all [i.e., radical Islamicists] equivalence to what happened in the 11th century to what’s happening today? It’s astonishing. . . . Can the president not see the reality of his own time that he’s got to retreat centuries to find what he thinks might be a moral equivalence? 3
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went even further. Referring to the president’s recent comment that global warming and climate change is the greatest threat facing America today, Huckabee quipped: “…I believe that most of us would think that a beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn.” 4
Historians and political philosophers from across the centuries have long affirmed what the president refuses to acknowledge: a people’s dominant religion (or lack thereof) always exerts a significant influence in shaping their government and behavior. For example, Baron Charles Montesquieu, the most-popular political philosopher of the Founding Era, 5 undertook a perusal of a thousand years of world history to assess the impact of religion (especially Islam and Christianity) upon government. He concluded:
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. . . . [Christian rulers] are more disposed to be directed by laws and more capable of perceiving that they cannot do whatever they please. While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their princes . . . less cruel. 6
Many others reached the same finding – including famous American diplomat and U. S. President John Quincy Adams, who noted:
[The] law of nations as practiced among Christian nations . . . is founded upon the principle that the state of nature between men and between nations is a state of peace. But there was a Mohometan law of nations which considered the state of nature as a state of war. 7
A half-century later, historian Charles Galloway confirmed:
The Koran puts a premium upon war, offering the highest rewards to those who slay the greatest number of infidels. Mohammed’s cardinal principle (that the end justifies the means) consecrated every form of deception and lying, and encouraged every sort of persecution and violence. . . . The citizen is the slave of the state; he has no rights to be respected. Mohammedanism is an absolute despotism. 8
Half-a-century after Galloway, England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill (who was also a noted historian) concurred:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries [followers]! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement and the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, … but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilization of modern Europe might fall as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. 9
Based on the obvious difference between the effects of Islam and Christianity upon a nation, Montesquieu concluded:
A moderate [non-violent, non-coercive] government is most agreeable to the Christian religion, and a despotic government to the Mahometan. . . . From the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought without any further examination to embrace the one and reject the other; for it is much easier to prove that religion ought to humanize the manners of men than that any particular religion is true. 10
Significantly, if one tabulates the loss of lives occasioned by so-called Christian governments over the 2,000 year history of Christianity (such as the Inquisition, and even the Crusades – which were largely Christian attempts to repel militant Muslim jihadist invasions made into Judeo-Christian regions 11), a very generous count of the total deaths that may be laid at the doorstep of Christianity is about five million. But the number of lives lost at the hands of secular, non-, and anti-Christian leaders and governments in just the 20th century alone is well over 100 million.
That includes the 1.5 million Christian Armenians massacred by Muslim Turks 12 on just one occasion beginning in 1915; the 62 million killed by the secular Soviet Communists; the 35 million by the secular Chinese Communists; the 1.7 million by the secular Vietnamese Communists; the 1 million in the Polish Ethnic Cleansing; the 1 million in Yugoslavia; the 1.7 million in North Korea 13, and other non- or anti-Christian regimes.
And the number of deaths perpetrated by such leaders is enormous, including the murder of 42.7 million by Joseph Stalin; Mao Tse-tung, 37.8 million; Adolf Hitler, 20.9 million; Vladimir Lenin, 4 million; Tojo Hideki, 4 million; Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge, 1 million; Yahya Khan, 1.5 million; 14 and so forth. Thus the number of lives lost at the hands of anti-Christians in just the past century is more than 20 times greater than those lost at the hands of Christians in the entire previous twenty centuries.
And since the President mentioned the Inquisition, in nearly four centuries of the brutal Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000 and 5,000 individuals were put to death 15 — an average of nine to fourteen deaths a year across that time. But last year alone (2014), Muslims executed 4,344 Christians, 16 thus killing as many in one year as Christians did in nearly four centuries. Additionally, when including just the publicized incidents, Muslims have killed some 11,334 innocents in terrorist attacks since 1980 17, with thousands if not tens-of-thousands more dead as a result of the non-reported killings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries as groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and Islamic State have attempted to take control in recent years.
And regarding the president’s specific allusion to Christianity and slavery, Jewish writer and national news editor Ben Shapiro correctly noted:
Christians obliterated slavery. Christians obliterated Jim Crow. Modern slavery is largely perpetrated by Muslims. Modern Jim Crow is certainly perpetrated by Muslims under Sharia law. 18
By the way, if the president’s defenders wish to invoke the American witch trials of 1692-1693 (which the president did not mention, but which American academics often do), then you can include 27 lost lives at the hands of Christians over that two-year span 19 (but you must also note that it was Christian ministers who took the lead in bringing those trials to a close 20). Yet 27 American lives lost over two years is hardly an equivalent comparison to the 3,000 American lives lost on just one day in September 2001 at the hands of Muslim terrorists.
Sorry, Mr. President, but there is absolutely no moral equivalency with your comparison. You have failed to recognize the reality of history and its consistent lesson that the application and practice of the Bible and its teachings elevates a society and civilizes its institutions. By comparing modern Muslim terrorists with medieval Christians you have, once again, totally missed the mark.
Endnotes
1 “Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast,” The White House (February 5, 2015). 2 “Governor Jindal to President Obama,” Office of the Governor: State of Louisiana (February 6, 2015). 3 “Obama: Christians Did Bad Things ‘in the Name of Christ’,”NewsMax (February 5, 2015). 4 “Obama Says US Not in ‘Religious War’ Against Radical Islamists; Sen. Graham Asserts the Opposite,” The Christian Post (February 2, 2015). 5 Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143. 6 Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws (London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), II:147. 7 John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), 73. 8 Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville, TN: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), 39-41. 9 Sir Winston Churchill, The River War (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), II:248-250. 10 Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws (1752), II:147. 11 Paul Crawford, “Four Myths about the Crusades,” First Principles(April 21, 2011). See also, Bill Warner, “Jihad vs. Crusades,” Center for the Study of Political Islam (August 20, 2014). 12 “Frequently Asked Questions,” Armenian Genocide Institute (accessed February 12, 2015). 13 R. J. Rummel, Death By Government (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 4. 14 Rummel, Death By Government (1994), 8. 15 Llorente, Juan Antonio, The history of the inquisition of Spain, from the time of its establishment to the reign of Ferdinand VII (London, Printed for G. B. Whittaker, 1826), 14; Charles T. Gorham, The Spanish Inquisition (London : Watts & Co., 1916), 115; “Spanish Inquisition,” New World Encyclopedia (February 14, 2009). 16 “Persecution: Christian Deaths at Hands of Muslims Doubled in 2014, Study Warns It Will Only Get Worse,” The Gospel Herald Society (January 9, 2015). 17 “List of Islamic terrorist attacks,” Wikipedia, (February 4, 2015). 18 “Obama Rips Bible, Praises Koran,” Breitbart (February 6, 2015). 19 Of the 27, 14 women and 5 men were tried, found guilty and hanged; another man was tortured to death by crushing because he refused to cooperate with the court by not answering their questions. To persuade him to talk they took him to a field and put a board on him with rocks, they increased the number of rocks until he would cooperate but he continued to refuse and was crushed to death. He was therefore never convicted but is considered the 20th victim as he was on trial for being a wizard. And 7 individuals died in prison awaiting trial; one was a baby in prison with her mother, who was awaiting trial as a witch. “The Salem Witch Trials of 1692,” Salem Witch Museum, January 13, 2011 (accessed February 13,2015) per the museum’s Department of Education. 20Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson (New York: Charles Scribber’s Sons, 1929), s.v. “Increase Mather” and “Thomas Brattle.” See also Charles Wentworth Upham, Salem Witchcraft (New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co., 1959), 2:304-305; Mark Gribben, “Salem Witch Trials: Reason Returns,” Court TV: Crime Library (accessed on February 28, 2013); David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991), 350, 354 fn25; Jonathan Kirsch, The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 245.
In a July 8th debate, Congressional candidate Bob Barr accused his opponent, Barry Loudermilk, of a most serious offense. Barr claimed that Loudermilk had accepted the endorsement of a man who’s been “roundly and uniformly criticized, with facts, for taking positions that are anti-Semitic.” That same evening, Barr sent out a tweet calling Loudermilk’s endorser an “anti- Israel anti-Semitic radical.”
In most cases, such accusations should set off alarm bells in the Jewish community. But not so this time. Barr’s charges are not only false, they’re entirely backwards. This alleged hater of Israel and the Jews, David Barton, is actually one of Israel’s most important allies in America today.
The Republican Party continues to be dominated by two overlapping voting blocs: Christian conservatives and tea party conservatives. Among these groups, there are few leaders who are as influential and respected as Barton. Thus as some national figures have endeavored to turn these conservative voters against Israel, Israel’s supporters have turned to Barton for help. It is no exaggeration to say that Barton has played a pivotal role in ensuring that conservatives continue to be among the most pro-Israel voters in America.
My appreciation for David Barton comes not only from what I’ve read about him, but from long hours working with him on behalf of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. Barton has invited me to his conferences to teach rising conservative leaders about the importance of supporting Israel. And when I’ve needed help organizing leadership missions to Israel, Barton has not only provided me with valuable contacts; he’s volunteered to join me in leading the trips.
I have traveled across Israel multiple times with David Barton. I have seen his joy at the sites of Israel’s triumphs. I’ve seen his resolve in discussions of Israel’s challenges. I’ve seen his tears at Yad Vashem. This man’s support for Israel and the Jewish people is not merely academic, it is visceral. No matter how bad things get for Israel or Jews around the world, I know that David Barton will continue to stand by our side. I wish I could say the same for other prominent leaders I’ve known.
Despite his years of hard work on behalf of Israel, Barton stands accused of anti-Semitism because back in 1991, he spoke at two events – one hosted by Scriptures for America and the other by Kingdom Covenant College – which were allegedly organized by individuals affiliated with the “Christian Identity Movement.” The Anti-Defamation League has accused the Christian Identity Movement of racism and anti-Semitism.
Barton speaks to hundreds of groups across the country every year. He had no knowledge that some involved in these two events were accused of beliefs which he so deeply abhors. Thus his appearance at these events was, at worst, a vetting failure. We should remember, however, that in the pre-Internet days of 1991 such vetting was far more difficult to do, especially with reference to a movement that is typically described as “loosely affiliated” and “shadowy.”
Such guilt by association simply doesn’t work when the nexus is so tenuous. This is exactly why earlier this month Barton won a defamation lawsuit against two Texas politicians who made a claim almost identical to Barr’s. Even Right Wing Watch – a devoted critic of Barton’s Constitutional analysis – has had the decency to note that “We have listened to literally thousands of hours of Barton’s programs and presentations and he can be justifiably criticized for a lot of things, but being anti-Semitic … should not be among them.”
Of course if anyone should be wary of guilt by association, it’s Bob Barr. In 1998 – when there was an internet for easy vetting — Barr himself spoke to a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens. The ADL has accused the CCC of having a “racist agenda.” When the Anti-Defamation league criticized Barr for this appearance, Barr apologized and claimed that he was unaware of these allegations.
While Bob Barr is spreading distortion, David Barton has been teaching truths. Barton has taught me things about the Jewish contributions to America and the American Revolution that I had never known. In fact, Barton was the one who introduced me to one of my favorite quotes from an American Founder.
On July 4, 1788 a parade was held in Philadelphia to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution. Founding father Benjamin Rush attended the parade, and he reported that a diverse group of clergy played a prominent role in its lead. In particular, Rush noted that:
Pains were taken to connect ministers of the most dissimilar religious principles together…. The rabbi of the Jews locked in the arms of two ministers of the Gospel was a most delightful sight. There could not have been a more happy emblem.
This vision of America which David Barton taught me is one to which he has dedicated his life. It is a vision which all Americans should hold sacred. As he flails for traction, Bob Barr should be careful to do no violence to so lofty an ideal.
Some of the first acts of the Obama presidential administration make it clear that there has been a dramatic change in the way that traditional religious faith is going to be handled at the White House. For example, when the White House website went public immediately following President Obama’s inauguration, it dropped the previously prominent section on the faith-based office.
A second visible change was related to hiring protections for faith-based activities and organizations. On February 5, 2009, President Obama announced that he would no longer extend the same unqualified level of hiring protections observed by the previous administration but instead would extend those traditional religious protections to faith-based organizations only on a “case-by-case” basis.1
Significantly, hiring protections allow religious organizations to hire those employees who hold the same religious convictions as the organization. As a result, groups such as Catholic Relief Services can hire just Catholics; and the same is true with Protestant, Jewish, and other religious groups. With hiring protections, religious groups cannot be forced to hire those who disagree with their beliefs and values – for example, Evangelical organizations cannot be required to hire homosexuals, pro-life groups don’t have to hire pro-choice advocates, etc.
Hiring protections are inherent within the First Amendment’s guarantee for religious liberty and right of association, and were additionally statutorily established in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Congress subsequently strengthened those protections, declaring that any “religious corporation, association, education institution, or society” could consider the applicants’ religious faith during the hiring process.2 The Supreme Court upheld hiring protections in 1987,3 and Congress has included those protections in numerous federal laws.4 But when Democrats regained Congress in 2007, on a party-line vote they began removing hiring protections for faith-based organizations.5
The current concern about the weakening of traditional faith-based hiring protections was heightened when the White House announced President Obama’s commitment to “pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.”6 This act fully repeals faith-based hiring protections related to Biblical standards of morality and behavior, thus directly attacking the theological autonomy of churches, synagogues, and every other type of religious organization by not allowing them to choose whether or not they want to hire homosexuals onto their ministry staffs.
The administration’s third attack on religion occurred in the President’s stimulus bill, which included a provision specifically denying stimulus funds to renovate higher educational facilities “(i) used for sectarian instruction or religious worship; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”7 As Republican Senator Jim DeMint (SC) explained, “any university or college that takes any of the money in this bill to renovate an auditorium, a dorm, or student center could not hold a National Prayer Breakfast.”8 Sen. DeMint therefore introduced an amendment to “allow the free exercise of religion at institutions of higher education that receive funding,”9 but his amendment was defeated along a party-line vote.
The fourth attack on tradition religious faith appeared in President Obama’s 2010 proposed budget, which included a seven-percent cut in the deduction for charitable giving. Experts calculate that this will result in a drop of $6 billion in contributions to charitable organizations, including to religious groups.10
The fifth attack was the White House’s announcement that it will repeal conscience protection for health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions or other health activities that violate their consciences.11
In order to fully understand the far-reaching ramifications of this announcement, it will be helpful to review the history of conscience protection in the United States.
— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —
Today’s liberals and secularists attempt to relegate the effects of America’s Judeo-Christian heritage exclusively to the realm of a personal theological choice, ignoring the fact that Judeo-Christian teachings also encompass a philosophy of living that is directly proportional to the degree of civil liberty enjoyed in a society. Early statesman Dewitt Clinton (1769-1828) correctly recognized that Biblical faith applies not just “to our destiny in the world to come” but also “in reference to its influence on this world,” and therefore must always “be contemplated in [these] two important aspects.”12
While today’s post-modern critics refuse to acknowledge the dual aspects of Judeo-Christian faith, America’s Framers wisely recognized and heartily endorsed the influence of those teachings on the civil arena – especially on the formation of America’s unique republican (i.e., elective ) form of government:
The Bible. . . . [i]s the most republican book in the world.13JOHN ADAMS, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, U. S. PRESIDENT
I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism. . . . It is only necessary for republicanism to ally itself to the Christian religion to overturn all the corrupted political . . . institutions in the world.14BENJAMIN RUSH, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, RATIFIER OF THE U. S. CONSTITUTION
[T]he genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion. . . . and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.15NOAH WEBSTER, REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER, LEGISLATOR, JUDGE
They . . . who are decrying the Christian religion . . . are undermining . . . the best security for the duration of free governments.16CHARLES CARROLL, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS
[T]o the free and universal reading of the Bible . . . men were much indebted for right views of civil liberty.17DANIEL WEBSTER, “DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION”
Scores of other Framers, statesmen, and courts made similarly succinct declarations about how the Judeo-Christian Scriptures not only shaped republicanism18 but also many other unique aspects of our civil culture.
For example, when Benjamin Franklin founded America’s first hospital, he chose the Bible’s story of the Good Samaritan for its logo, with the passage from Luke 10:35 beneath: “Take care of him and I will repay thee.” Significantly, it was Jesus Who not only taught that it was proper to help the hurt (Luke 10:25-37) but He also taught that it was proper to feed the hungry, befriend the stranger, clothe the needy, visit the bedridden, and support the imprisoned (Matthew 25:34-40) – and to do so for strangers (Luke 10:27-37) as well as for enemies (Matthew 9:35-39). His teachings provide the true standard for charitable relief and civil benevolence.
Scriptural teachings were so important to society at large that America’s most famous public school textbooks taught students Biblical teachings such as the Good Samaritan;19 and even today, states continue to pass “Good Samaritan” statutes to protect willing volunteers (i.e., Good Samaritans) from legal liability for good-faith assistance efforts. Incontrovertibly, Biblical teaching such as the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule (“Do unto others and you would have them do unto you” Matthew 7:12), and many others have elevated the culture; and even though these specific teachings are exclusive to Christianity, their primary application is to civil society.
The Framers thus properly recognized Christian teachings as the basis of America’s great civil benevolence – its unprecedented willingness to help others:
Christian benevolence makes it our indispensable duty to lay ourselves out to serve our fellow-creatures to the utmost of our power.20JOHN ADAMS
[T]he doctrines promulgated by Jesus and His apostles [include] lessons of peace, of benevolence, of meekness, of brotherly love, [and] of charity.21JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, U. S. PRESIDENT
Let the religious element in man’s nature be neglected . . . and he becomes the creature of selfish passion. . . . [T]he cultivation of the religious sentiment . . . incites to general benevolence.22 DANIEL WEBSTER
Christianity . . . introduce[ed] a better and more enlightened sense of right and justice. . . . It taught the duty of benevolence to strangers.23JAMES KENT, “FATHER OF AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE”
The Christian philosophy, in its tenderness for human infirmities, strongly inculcates principles of . . . benevolence.24RICHARD HENRY LEE, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION, FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Significantly, nations that are primarily secular in their orientation (or those predominated by non-Judeo-Christian religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, Jainism, Taoism, Sikhism, Bahá’í, Diasporic, Juche, etc.) rarely become involved in benevolent endeavors, and certainly are not aggressive in organizing humanitarian relief. In fact, when the massive tsunami devastated Muslim Indonesia in 2004, other Muslim nations did little to assist a nation of their own faith, yet America – even though considered by Indonesia’s dominant religion to be the “Great Satan” – was quickly on the scene, providing assistance in money, supplies, labor, and technology.
The benevolence that characterizes America – the compassion and humanitarianism that we have inculcated into our culture – is the unique product of the Bible; and non- and even anti-religious Americans have been trained in Biblical benevolence as characteristic of our culture (even if they do not recognize the source of that principle!).
The Ten Commandments provide another example of Biblical teachings that are also primarily societal. As our early leaders noted:
If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.25JOHN ADAMS
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code . . . laws essential to the existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.26JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
The fact that Biblical teachings provided so many positive effects on society has been understood by American leaders for over two centuries. For example, President Harry S. Truman acknowledged:
The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.27
President Teddy Roosevelt agreed:
The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life.28
In short, the Judeo-Christian system is the basis of many of our cherished civil traits – including our current affection for and commitment to protecting the RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.
According to America’s first dictionary, “CONSCIENCE” is:
Internal judgment of right and wrong; the principle within us that decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our own actions and instantly approves or condemns them. Conscience is first occupied in ascertaining our duty before we proceed to action, then in judging of our actions when performed. Conscience is called by some writers the moral sense.29
That dictionary then gave a Biblical example to illustrate the meaning of the word:
Being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one. John 8.30
Significantly, Christ and His Apostles made the rights of conscience a repeated subject of emphasis, with thirty references to that topic in the New Testament alone. The warning is even issued that if an individual “wounds a weak conscience of another, you have sinned” (1 Corinthians 8:12). Christians were therefore instructed to respect the differing rights of conscience (v. 13). (See also I Corinthians 10:27-29.) Christianity set forth clear protection for the rights of conscience.
However, in the twelve centuries that comprised the Dark Ages, the church sadly abandoned those doctrines; but beginning in the fifteenth century, Biblical leaders began to re-embrace those original teachings. As a result, Menno Simons in Friesland (central Europe),31 Jacobus Arminius in Netherlands,32 John Calvin in France,33 and others, advocated a return to protection for the rights of conscience. Subsequent writers, including Christian philosophers such as John Locke and Charles Montesquieu, also encouraged protection for the rights of conscience that had been reintroduced by Christian leaders.34
Those renewed Biblical teachings on protecting the rights of conscience were eventually carried to America, where they took root and grew to maturity at a rapid rate, having been planted in virgin soil completely uncontaminated by the apostasy of the previous twelve centuries. Hence, Christianity – especially as imported to America – became the world’s single greatest historical force in securing non-coercion and the rights of conscience.
For example, in 1640 when the Rev. Roger Williams established Providence, he penned its governing document declaring:
We agree, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of conscience.35
Similar protections also became part of subsequent early American documents, including the 1649 Maryland “Toleration Act,”36 the 1663 charter for Rhode Island,37 the 1664 Charter for Jersey,38 the 1665 Charter for Carolina,39 and the 1669 Constitutions of Carolina.40 Christian minister William Penn incorporated the same protections into the governing documents he authored, including in 1676 for West Jersey,41 in 1682 for Pennsylvania,42 and in 1701 for Delaware.43 There are many additional examples.
Historically speaking, it was the followers of Biblical Christianity who vigorously pursued and first achieved the protection for the rights of conscience that subsequently became a central characteristic of the American civil fabric. Even Roscoe Pound (1870-1964; a professor at four different law schools and the Dean of the law schools at Harvard and the University of Nebraska) acknowledged that it was the Biblical-minded Puritans who first brought these rights to the forefront of civil protection;44 and in the words of an 1824 court:
[B]efore [the American colonial] period, the principle of liberty of conscience appeared in the laws of no people, the axiom of no government, the institutes of no society, and scarcely in the temper of any man.45
So thoroughly was American thinking inculcated with protecting conscience that when America separated from Great Britain in 1776, the original state constitutions immediately secured the rights of conscience so long expounded by Christian leaders. (See, for example, the constitutions of Virginia, 1776;46 Delaware, 1776;47 North Carolina, 1776;48 Pennsylvania, 1776;49 New Jersey, 1776;50 Vermont, 1777;51 New York, 1777;52 South Carolina, 1778;53 Massachusetts, 1780;54> New Hampshire, 1784;55 etc.)
America’s Framers openly praised those protections. For example, Governor William Livingston (a devout Christian and a signer of the U. S. Constitution) declared:
Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation.56
John Jay (an author of the Federalist Papers, original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, and President of the American Bible Society) likewise rejoiced that:
Security under our constitution is given to the rights of conscience.57
Thomas Jefferson (a signer of the Declaration and a U. S. President) repeatedly praised America’s protections for the rights of conscience:
No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience.58
[O]ur rulers can have no authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted.59
A right to take the side which every man’s conscience approves . . . is too precious a right – and too favorable to the preservation of liberty – not to be protected.60
It is inconsistent with the spirit of our laws and Constitution to force tender consciences.61
James Madison (a signer of the Constitution, a framer of the Bill of Rights, and a U. S. President) similarly affirmed:
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . [and] conscience is the most sacred of all property.62
Clearly, the right of conscience was a precious right under our Constitution. Today, the safeguards for the rights of conscience originally pioneered by Christian leaders now appear in forty-seven state constitutions and have been extended to cover many diverse areas of life. Consequently:
pacifists and conscientious objectors are not forced to fight in wars;63
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not required to say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools;64
the Amish are not required to complete the standard compulsory twelve years of education;65
Christian Scientists are not forced to have their children vaccinated or undergo medical procedures often required by state laws;66
Muslim and Jewish men are not required to shave their beards in jobs that otherwise require employees to be clean-shaven;67
Seventh-Day Adventists cannot be penalized for refusing to work at their jobs on Saturday;68
and there are many additional examples.
America has a centuries-long and cherished tradition of protection for the rights of conscience, but President Obama has announced that he will rescind regulations protecting those rights for medical workers.
Significantly, immediately after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade abortion-on-demand decision, Congress promptly passed medical conscience protection to prohibit discrimination against doctors and nurses who for conscience sake declined to participate in abortions; the law even ordered that federal funds be withheld from medical institutions not providing conscience protection.69 (Those federal requirements were included in a series of acts from the 1970s through 2008.70)
While medical conscience protections originally centered on abortion,71 they were soon expanded to include other controversial medical areas, including sterilization,72 contraception,73 and executions.74 More recent areas of medical conscience concern include issues related to artificial insemination of lesbian couples, “surrogate” motherhood, cloning, embryonic stem-cell procedures, and euthanasia.
In fact, many doctors and pharmacists are completely unwilling to prescribe abortifacient drugs or to dispense the life-ending drugs associated with Washington State’s law authorizing euthanasia.
Even though conscience protections for medial personnel are deeply-rooted in federal law, a recent review found that federal funds were improperly being given to medical facilities and programs that did not provide conscience protection for workers – a violation of federal law. Therefore, Mike Leavitt, the former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, instituted new regulations to “cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally, or religiously objectionable.”75
As the Department of Health and Human Services explained: “Over the past three decades, Congress enacted several statutes to safeguard the freedom of health care providers to practice according to their conscience. The new regulation will increase awareness of and compliance with these laws.”76 Under those regulations, some 584,000 health-care organizations must provide written certification that they are in compliance with current federal laws on conscious protection or else lose federal funding (or even return funding they have already received).
The response of pro-abortion advocates to enforcing the existing conscience protection regulations was immediate:
In the U. S. Senate in 2008, Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y) filed S. 2077 to invalidate the conscience protection regulations.
In 2009, the ACLU and pro-abortion groups filed a lawsuit against the regulations.78
President Obama announced that he would rescind the conscience protections.79
It is regrettable not only that the President should actively encourage non-enforcement of existing federal laws but that he should also seek to coerce healthcare workers to participate in performing abortions or other medical practices that violate their moral, ethical, or religious convictions.
The response of many physicians to the President’s announcement was clear and unambiguous. For example, U. S. Senator Tom Coburn (a practicing ob/gyn physician who is strongly pro-life) announced:
“I think a lot of us will go to jail.” . . . Coburn meant that doctors, himself included, are willing to defy the law before agreeing to perform medical procedures that violate their conscience.80
Regrettably, with the repeal of medical conscience protection regulations, many healthcare professionals may be forced to choose between their conscience and their career. Yet, why stop here? Why not force Jehovah’s Witnesses to say the Pledge of Allegiance or forfeit access to public education? Or why not require pacifists to go to war or lose government benefits such as Social Security or Medicaid? Every one of these coercive scenarios should be reprehensible to citizens – and so, too, should be the repeal of conscience protection for healthcare workers.
Protection for the rights of conscience and non-coercion is just one more reason that Biblical Judeo-Christianity is so beneficial to a culture, and why religious influence must be preserved in America today and secularism must be resisted. History – both ancient and modern – demonstrates that neither secular, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, nor any other non-Judeo-Christian nation offers the societal benefits enjoyed in Judeo-Christian America.
3Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987).
4 President Clinton signed four such laws, including the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the 1998 Community Services Block Grant Act. In the 108th Congress, hiring protections for faith-based organizations were included in Head Start and the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). Congress also reaffirmed hiring protections for private schools that participate in the D.C. voucher program enacted in the Fiscal 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Act. See, for example, “Public Law 104-193, 104th Congress,” GPO.gov, August 22, 1996 (at: https://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ193.104); “Community Services Block Grant Act,” National Community Action Foundation (accessed on March 12, 2009).
5 See, for example, “Conference Report on H.R. 1429 – Improving Head Start Act of 2007,” which notes “Representative Fortuno [Republican] sought to add hiring protections to the Head Start Reauthorization by offering an amendment in Committee, but the amendment failed along a party line vote. Rep. Fortuno also submitted his amendment to Rules when H.R. 1429 was brought to the House floor for a vote, but the [Democrat] Rules Committee did not allow his amendment. During debate on H.R. 1429, the Republican Motion to Recommit offered would have allowed faith-based organizations that receive Head Start funding to be able to hire individuals based upon religious affiliation or belief. The MTR explicitly prohibited federal funds from being used for worship, instruction or proselytization. The MTR would have also prohibited the federal government from requiring a faith-based organization to alter its form of internal governance or remove religious art, icons, scripture, or other symbols. While the House debated the issue of faith-based hiring protections, the Senate bill did not include language to allow faith-based organizations to be providers. This conference report codifies the provision which allows faith-based organizations to be providers, however, it does not contain language that would provide hiring protections to such organizations. Simply, this conference report would mean that faith-based organizations that run Head Start programs would have to hire any person who has the appropriate credentials, even if he or she does not agree with the faith or adhere to the mission of the employing organization.” See this at Republican Study Committee, November 14, 2007.
6 The White House, “The Agenda; Civil Rights; Combat Employment Discrimination” (at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/).
7. “H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” Thomas, February 17, 2009 (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app09.html), “Title XIV: State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Sec. 14004. Uses of Funds by Institutions of Higher Education.”
11 See, for example, David Stout, “Obama Set to Undo ‘Conscience’ Rule for Health Workers,” New York Times, February 27, 2009.
12 William W. Campbell, The Life and Writings of DeWitt Clinton (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1849), p. 305, in an address delivered to the American Bible Society, May 8, 1823.
13 John Adams and Benjamin Rush, The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush 1805-1813, John A. Schutz, editor (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1966) p. 82, letter from John Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 2, 1807.
14 Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), Vol. II, pp. 820-821, letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 22, 1800.
15 Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6, 300.
16 Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475, letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry, November 4, 1800.
17 Daniel Webster, Address Delivered at Bunker Hill, June 17, 1843, on the Completion of the Monument (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1843), p. 17.
18 See, for example, John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 636, letter to Benjamin Rush, August 28, 1811; John Hancock, Independent Chronicle (Boston newspaper), November 2, 1780, last page; Abram English Brown, John Hancock, His Book (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1898), p. 269, “Inaugural Address: 1780;” Updegraph v. Commonwealth; 11 Serg. & R. 393, 406 (Sup.Ct. Penn. 1824); Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1799), p. 9; Jacob Rush, Charges and Extracts of Charges on Moral and Religious Subjects (Philadelphia Geo Forman, 1804), p. 58, “A Charge on Patriotism,” April, 1799; K. Alan Snyder, Defining Noah Webster: Mind and Morals in the Early Republic (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 253, letter to James Madison, October 16, 1829; Noah Webster, A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects (New York: Webster and Clark, 1843), p. 292, “Reply to a Letter of David McClure on the Subject of the Proper Course of Study in the Girard College, Philadelphia,” October 25, 1836; John Witherspoon, The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon (Philadelphia: William W. Woodard, 1802), Vol. III, pp. 41-42, 46, “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men,” May 17, 1776; and many, many others.
19 William H. McGuffey, McGuffey First Reader (Cincinnati: Truman and Smith, 1836-1853), Lesson XX, p. 47.
20 John Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1875), p. 118, letter to Abigail Adams, October 29, 1775.
21 John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (Newburyport: Morss and Brewster, 1837), p. 61.
22 Daniel Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853), Vol. II, p. 615, “The Addition to the Capitol,” July 4, 1851.
23 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law (New York: O. Halsted, 1826), Vol. I, p. 10.
24 Richard Henry Lee, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, James Curtis Ballagh, editor (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914), Vol. II, p. 343, letter to Samuel Adams, March 14, 1785.
25 John Adams, A Defense of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), Vol. III, p. 217, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined,” Letter VI.
26 John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Aubrun, NY: Derby, Miller & Co, 1848), p. 61.
27 Harry S. Truman, “Address Before the Attorney General’s conference on Law Enforcement Problems,” February 15, 1950, American Presidency Project (at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13707).
28 Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals, The Strenuous Life, Realizable Ideals (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), pp. 498-499.
29 Noah Webster, Dictionary (1828), s. v. “conscience.”
30 Noah Webster, Dictionary (1828), s. v. “conscience.”
32 “The Works of James Arminius: Vol. 2, Disputation LVI on the Power of the Church in Enacting Laws,” Christian Classics Ethereal Library (at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works2.txt) (accessed on March 12, 2009).
33 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), Book 3: Chapter 19, §14, p. 140, Book IV, Chapter 10, Sec. 5, pp. 416-417 (at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.txt).
36 William MacDonald, Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of American History 1606-1775 (New York: MacMillan Company, 1899), p. 104-106, “Maryland Toleration Act,” April, 1649.
37The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws, Francis Newton Thorpe, editor (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), Vol. VI, p. 3211, “Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations-1663.”
44 Roscoe Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1921), p. 42.
45Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, 11 S. & R. 394 (Sup. Ct. Pa. 1824).
46The 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, 1845), p. 180, Virginia, June 12, 1776, Art. XVI, “Bill of Rights.”
47Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 91, Delaware, September 10, 1776, Art. 2, “A Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules of the Delaware State.”
48Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 132, North Carolina, December 18, 1776, Art. 19, “A Declaration of Rights.”
49Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 77, Pennsylvania, September 28, 1776, Ch. 1, Art. 2, “A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Pennsylvania.”
50Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 73, New Jersey, July 2, 1776, Art. XVIII, “Constitution of New Jersey.”
51The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws, Francis Newton Thorpe, editor (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), Vol. VI, p. 3740, Vermont, July 8, 1777, Ch. 1, Art. III, “A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont.”
52The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 67, New York, April 20, 1777, Art. 38, “Constitution of New York.”
53 Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), pp. 152-154, South Carolina, March 19, 1778, Art. 38, “Constitution of the State of South Carolina.”
54Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), p. 6, Massachusetts, March 2, 1780, Part 1, Art. II, “A Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
55Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman & Bowen, 1785), pp. 3-4, New Hampshire, June, 1784, Part 1, Art. 1, No. 5, “The Bill of Rights.”
56 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) pp. 162-163.
57 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), p. 152.
58 Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XVI, p. 332, letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, CT, February 4, 1809.
59 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVII, p. 213.
60 Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Julian P. Boyd, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), Vol. VIII, p. 260, letter to Katherine Sprowle Douglas, July 5, 1785.
61 Thomas Jefferson, Papers (1951), Vol. IV, p. 404, “Proclamation Concerning Paroles,” January 19, 1781.
62 James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), Vol. VI, p. 102, “Property,” from the National Gazette, March 29, 1792.
70 See, Federal Register: December 19, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 245), Rules and Regulations, Pages 78071-78101, from the Federal Register Online via GPO Access, DOCID:fr19de08-20, Page 78071, Part VI, Department of Health and Human Services. A series of acts from 1970-2004 were passed on this issue, including the Public Health Service Act of 1996, and the Weldon Act of 2004. See also “Testimony Re: Abortion Non-Discrimination Act: The Committee on Energy and Commerce,” The Protection of Conscience Project, July 11, 2002.
71 See, for example, 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(b) (prohibiting public discrimination against individuals and entities that object to performing abortions on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions); 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c) (prohibiting entities from discriminating against physicians and health care personnel who object to performing abortions on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions); 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(e) (prohibiting entities from discriminating against applicants who object to participating in abortions on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions); 42 U.S.C. § 238n (prohibiting discrimination against individuals and entities that refuse to perform abortions or train in their performance); 20 U.S.C. § 1688 (ensuring that federal sex discrimination standards do not require educational institutions to provide or pay for abortions or abortion benefits).
72 See, for example, 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(b) (prohibiting public discrimination against individuals and entities that object to performing sterilizations on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions); 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c) (prohibiting entities from discriminating against physicians and health care personnel who object to performing sterilizations on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions); 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(e) (prohibiting entities from discriminating against applicants who object to participating in sterilizations on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions).
73 See, for example, Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-67, § 641, 115 Stat. 514, 554-5 (prohibiting health plans participating in the federal employee health benefits program from discriminating against individuals who, for religious or moral reasons, refuse to prescribe or otherwise provide for contraceptives, and protecting the right of health plans that have religious objections to contraceptives to participate in the program).
74 See, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 3597(b) (providing that no state correctional employee or federal prosecutor shall be required, as a condition of employment or contractual obligation, to participate in any federal death penalty case or execution if contrary to his or her moral or religious convictions).
76 “News Release: HHS Issues Final Regulation to Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, December 18, 2008.
77 “S. 20: To Prohibit the Implementation or Enforcement of Certain Regulations,” Thomas, November 20, 2008. See also “Senators Clinton and Murray Introduce Legislation to Stop New HHS Rule that Would Undermine Women’s Health Care,” United States Senate, November 20, 2008.
78 “ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Conscience Protection Rules,” Catholic News Agency, January 17, 2009.
An article appeared in Fredericksburg.com, complaining about a Fourth of July ad run by Hobby Lobby that included several quotes reflecting the religious heritage of America. The Fredericksburg article claimed that three of the historical declarations made in the ad were inaccurate, but historical documentation demonstrates that it is the critics and not Hobby Lobby who were errant in their claims.
A. Complaint in Article:
As referenced in the ad, John Jay did write a letter in which he declared it “the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” This reminds us that, along with their visionary striving for human rights, many of the Founders were tainted with the prejudices of their times. Fortunately, they got it right in Article VI of the Constitution: “[N]o religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Otherwise, presumably with the blessing of Hobby Lobby’s owners, we’d have told Rep. Eric Cantor and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, “Sorry, you need not apply.”1
Answer:
Founding Father John Jay (author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court) did indeed declare:
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.2
The claim that choosing a leader on the basis of his faith is a direct violation of Article VI in the Constitution is flat wrong. The Founders made clear that the Article VI prohibition was an explicit limitation only on the powers of the federal government, not on those of citizens. As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story affirmed: “it [Article VI] was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.”3 The Founders believed that an investigation of the religious views of a candidate was appropriate if undertaken by the voters, but not by the federal government.
Justice Theophilus Parsons, a ratifier of the federal Constitution, succinctly explained:
It has been objected that the Constitution provides no religious test by oath and [that] we may have in power unprincipled men, atheists, and pagans. No man can wish more ardently than I do that all our public offices may be filled by men who fear God and hate wickedness [Exodus 18:21], but it must remain with the electors to give the government this security. . . . [T]he only evidence we can have of the sincerity and excellency of a man’s religion is a good life, and I trust that such evidence will be required of every candidate by every elector.4
Signer of the Constitution Richard Dobbs Spaight agreed:
I do not suppose an infidel or any such person will ever be chosen to any office unless the people themselves be of the same opinion.5
Therefore, while the federal government is explicitly prohibited from investigating anyone’s religious views, it is completely constitutional for voters to do so. As one court explained in 1837:
The distinction is a sound one between a religion preferred by law, and a religion preferred by the people without the coercion of law – between a legal establishment (which the present Constitution expressly forbids) . . . and a religious creed freely chosen by the people for themselves.6
Article VI limits only the power of the federal government, not the power of the people.
[Personal note from David Barton: Perhaps a more accurate modern translation for the intent of Jay’s statement would be that it is the duty of Christians to select and prefer for office those who hold a Biblical viewpoint. Quite frankly, many Jews, such as Rabbis Daniel Lapin and Aryeh Spero, are much more Biblically aligned in their values and principles than many so-called Christians; and I would personally work hard to elect them to office over many professing Christians. In fact, one hundred percent of the time I would vote for traditional-Biblical-value Jew Eric Cantor over anti-traditional-Biblical-value Christian Barack Obama, and I think John Jay would have done the same. But that being said, the choice is still every individual’s to make; the people have the constitutional right, unaffected by Article VI, to use whatever test they wish in the selection of their leaders, including a personal religious test – as many Muslims, Jews, and atheists also do every time they vote.]
B. Complaint in Article:
The Hobby Lobby ad grossly distorts the sense of the court’s ruling in Vidal v. Girard’s Executors (1844) by strategically altering a key word. Here’s how the ad quotes the decision: “Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, be read and taught as a divine revelation in [schools]?” This, the ad explains, was from a “Unanimous Decision Commending and Encouraging the Use of the Bible in Government-Run Schools.” Far from it. The ad misquotes, substituting “schools” for the true wording in the decision, which was “the college”–specifically, Girard College. The real story: Multimillionaire Stephen Girard bequeathed property to the city of Philadelphia, intending to set up a school for poor orphans. His will stipulated:
“I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises. [M]y desire is that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instill into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that, on their entrance into active life, they may, from inclination and habit, evince benevolence towards their fellow creatures and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer.”
Clearly, Girard opposed using his charitable school to promote any specific religious faith. Girard’s heirs contested the will on grounds that Philadelphia couldn’t legally take this property in trust. That’s the issue the court was deciding, and it ruled for Girard and his will. The opinion discusses religious training not in order to rule in its favor in “schools” but to show that Girard’s will couldn’t be shown to have “impugned or repudiated” Christianity in endowing his “college.” Supreme Court decisions are full of such explanatory comments. The ones cited in the Hobby Lobby ad aren’t “Declaring America a Christian Nation” any more than Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made Nazi-style eugenics into official public policy with his infamous conclusion “Three generations of imbeciles are enough” in Buck v. Bell (1927).7
Answer:
First, the word “college” is indeed used in the original Court ruling; and Girard “college” still exists today, training children from grades one through twelve. So Girard “college” is actually not a “college” in the modern sense that the word is used today, but by today’s standards it is rather a pre-secondary “school” – an elementary, junior high, and high school, but it is not a college as understood today. Therefore, the use of the word “[school]” in place of the word “college” accurately reflects the object of the Court’s declaration and correctly portrays its intent.
Secondly, the Court did rule – definitively and unanimously so – in favor of religious instruction in this government-administered school run by the City of Philadelphia. As the Court announced:
It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider what would be the legal effect of a devise in Pennsylvania for the establishment of a school or college for the propagation of Judaism, or Deism, or any other form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country.8
This is a forthright declaration by the Court strongly endorsing that some form of religious education (i.e., what the Court described as “Divine revelation”) must indeed be taught at the school, and that some “form of infidelity” (i.e., lack of religious instruction) was not to be part of this government-administered education.
C. Complaint in Article
In Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S. (1892), the issue to be decided wasn’t the religious affiliation of the U.S.; it was whether a U.S. church had the right to hire a pastor from outside the country, in spite of a federal law barring any employer from recruiting foreign workers. Its remarks about the prevalence of Christianity were to show that Congress did not intend that its labor law be used to prevent a congregation from choosing its own pastor.9
Answer:
In the 1892 U. S. Supreme Court decision Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States is found this succinct statement:
[N]o purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national because this is a religious people. . . . [T]his is a Christian nation.”10
Critics assert that this forthright declaration is historically irrelevant because it is not part of the Court’s actual ruling on the employment issue. However, a quick review of the short sixteen-page ruling in this case unequivocally refutes this assertion.
At issue in the case was an 1885 federal immigration law declaring:
[I]t shall be unlawful for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever to . . . in any way assist or encourage the importation . . . of any alien or . . . foreigners into the United States . . . under contract or agreement . . . to perform labor or service of any kind.11
This law appeared to be a straightforward ban on hiring foreign labor. So when the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York employed a clergyman from England as its pastor, the U. S. Attorney’s office brought suit against the church. The Supreme Court examined the issue and then rendered a unanimous ruling.
In the first eight pages of the ruling, the Court established that the law’s sole purpose had been to halt the influx of almost slave-like Chinese foreign labor being exploited to construct the western railroads, not limit the hiring of foreigners in general. Therefore, while the church’s hiring of the minister had violated the literal wording of the law, the law clearly had not been designed to affect the hiring of a pastor. The Court therefore held that it would be an absurd application of the law to prosecute the church for hiring a minister of its choice, and then explained that if the intent of the law had been to prevent the church from hiring a minister, then the law would have been unconstitutional.
To show why any law restricting the church would have been unconstitutional, in the final eight pages of its ruling the Court systematically reviewed scores of historical precedents to show that America was indeed a Christian nation; and since it was a Christian nation, then any law that would hinder the spread or propagation of Christianity would be unconstitutional.12 After citing those precedents, including several previous judicial holdings declaring America to be a Christian nation,13 the Court then concluded:
There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings – declarations of private persons: they are organic [legal, governmental] utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people. . . . These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.14
According to the Court, the employment issue was closed because America was a Christian nation, so the Christian nation declaration was central to the Court’s ruling on the employment/hiring issue.
Endnotes
1 “July 4 ad exaggerated our Christian heritage: William W. Ziegler’s op-ed column on Hobby Lobby and their Christian ad,” fredericksburg.com, July 22, 2012. 2 John Jay to John Murray, Jr., October 12, 1816, William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), II:376, . 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), III:731, §1873. 4 Theophilus Parsons, Memoir of Theophilus Parsons (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1859), 97-98. See also Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts, January 23, 1788, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot (Washington: Jonathan Elliot, 1836), II:107-108. 5 Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina, July 30, 1788, Debates in the Several State Conventions, ed. Elliot (1836), IV:208. 6State v. Chandler, 2 Harr. 553, 2 Del. 553, 1837 WL 154 (Del.Gen.Sess. 1837). 7 “July 4 ad exaggerated our Christian heritage: William W. Ziegler’s op-ed column on Hobby Lobby and their Christian ad,” fredericksburg.com, July 22, 2012. 8Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 43 U. S. 127, 198 (1844). 9 “July 4 ad exaggerated our Christian heritage: William W. Ziegler’s op-ed column on Hobby Lobby and their Christian ad,” fredericksburg.com, July 22, 2012. 10Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 465, 470-471 (1892). 11Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 458 (1892). 12Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 465-470 (1892). 13Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 470-471 (1982). 14Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 470-471 (1892).
* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
American liberty is being eroded, and our Biblical foundation is under constant attack. Here at WallBuilders, we provide education, training, and resources to equip people to know and defend the truth to protect our freedom.
