America, We Have a Problem – (Part 1 of 3)

Chris

Administrator
Staff member
America, We Have a Problem – (Part 1 of 3)
By Tim Moore

The letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 offer both timeless encouragement and a warning to churches and individual Christians. While two churches received only encouragement from the Lord Himself, the other five found themselves strongly rebuked.

Jesus’ words to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:5 are instructive to us still today. This beloved church, planted by the Apostle Paul, was the first to be called out by name in Revelation.

The Lord first lauded their deeds, toil, and perseverance. He also noted that they did not tolerate evil men. However, His grievance against that church was that they had abandoned their First Love. Without question, God is justifiably offended when those who know Him — and should know better — turn their backs on Him and violate the relationship into which He has called them. And that is not only true for individuals. When a nation or society that once respected and honored the Lord strays from Him, insult is added to injury, grieving the heart of God.

We tend to see with physical eyes, measuring a nation’s health by its economic vitality or its citizens’ life expectancy. Those indicators have merit, but just as God told Samuel not to look at outward appearance when anointing a king from among Jesse’s sons, “God still sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

God’s prophetic Word says that most human hearts will grow darker and colder in the last days — and that society itself will become increasingly evil. We refer to this category of End Times signs portending the Lord’s return as “Signs of Society.” And America is following the tragic trajectory of ancient Judah right now.

Set Apart and Blessed with Grace​

Too often, we are deluded into thinking that our nation is blessed because we deserve God’s blessing. With shouts of “USA! USA!” ringing in our ears, we figuratively thump our chests and tout the worthiness of our nation, forgetting that even our national hymn, “America the Beautiful,” repeats the line “God shed His grace on thee” six times. Few reflect today that Katharine Lee Bates’ poem was meant to inspire humility and thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Older Americans were raised to think ours is “the greatest nation on the earth” (if not the greatest nation ever). I would agree with that sentiment when it comes to the ordered liberty that marked the American experiment for its first 200 years or so — not because our “more perfect union” was indeed perfect. Instead, our nation longingly aspired toward perfection, respecting as Bates did the Source of our greatness:

God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!


Over the past century, few could dispute the unprecedented prosperity our society has enjoyed. But, sadly, that prosperity morphed into a sense of entitlement, self-importance, and self-sufficiency that has led America grievously astray.

Faith Of Our Fathers​

David Barton and other Christian scholars offer clear evidence of the Judeo-Christian foundations of our society. Men such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and yes, even Thomas Jefferson, could not have imagined crafting a nation without underpinning it on Christian faith.

Some would retort that those men were hypocrites when it came to following the law of God. I would agree. All of us are hypocrites to some degree, and the founders were guilty of some glaring oversights and inconsistencies. But that realization still cannot detract from the ideals they collectively agreed to pursue — or the system of government that they established to honor “Nature’s God” and the rights of His most elevated creature.

Over time, our nation endured tremendous growing pains. The most pronounced happened less than fourscore and seven years after the original establishment of the United States. Reflecting on the horrible tragedy of the Civil War and the scourge of slavery itself, Abraham Lincoln observed, “The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!…the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’” (Second Inaugural Address).

A Christian Nation?​

There is no doubt that America was founded on Christian principles. The Bible was once taught in every public school classroom alongside primers like the McGuffey Readers. Our laws and our collective morality were unapologetically shaped by the Word of God. But no more.

Some Christians still want to maintain that this is a Christian nation. I find this to be an offensive assertion. Would a Christian nation tolerate, let alone encourage:

– Unfettered sexual licentiousness
– Flagrant homosexuality and a willful appropriation of the rainbow (ordained by God) to convey enthusiasm toward sodomy and sin
– Confusion over basic creation truths like the biological distinction between men and women
– An epidemic of family-shattering divorce, though hated by God
– Rampant mind-numbing drug use — prescribed or “recreational”
– Millions of babies murdered in their mothers’ wombs.
– Professing churches denigrating Christ’s deity and His Word.
– National leaders flaunting their deceitfulness and sin that impoverishes future generations in violation of biblical principles.

I could go on and on, describing in heart-wrenching detail the transgressions against Heaven that are multiplying every day. Instead of focusing on the litany of transgressions, I’ll simply ask: Would God label our nation as a Christian nation, or would He be offended that such a people co-mingled the Name of His Son with their manifest perversions and celebration of wickedness?

It is not my point to prove here that America was founded as a Christian nation. The question that hangs over our heads today is: how did we get to where we are today?

In the second part of this expose on America’s fall from grace, we will answer the question as to how the nation got to such a sad state.

https://www.raptureforums.com/end-times/america-we-have-a-problem-part-1-of-3/
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
I don't think there is such a thing as a Christian nation--not if we define Christian as born-again gospel-believing. I think our foundations were culturally, loosely related to a cultural Christianity, but that is not Christianity. Our founders did not speak of belief in Jesus Christ, the Savior from sin.

I like the way this article explains it.

https://answersingenesis.org/culture/america/was-united-states-really-founded-christian-nation/

Was the United States Really Founded as a Christian Nation?​

by Dr. Gregg Frazer on July 1, 2015
Featured in Answers Magazine

To further their political agenda, many on the secular Left misrepresent the religious beliefs of America’s founders and their intent in framing the US Constitution. Very few of these men were deists, believing that nature is the only revelation from Godand that the Creator is an absentee God who is not present and active in this world. We could count the number of deists on one hand. Furthermore, the framers of the Constitution were not opposed to Christianity, and they did not intend to create a strictly secularist nation characterized by a wall of separation between religion and the public square.

Unfortunately, it is easy for evangelical Christians to fall into the same trap as the Left, letting our own political aims distort how we view the religious beliefs of the nation’s founders and their intent in framing the Constitution. Some of the founding fathers were Christians—certainly many more than were deists—but that does not mean that the key founders who wielded the most influence were orthodox Christians. Nor does it mean that the framers of the Constitution intended to create a Christian nation.

Who Are Our Founding Fathers?​

Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight men arguably had the most influence among the founding fathers. All were theistic rationalists.

One reason for confusion is the false premise that there are only two options: the founders were either Christians or deists. This convenient false dichotomy allows secularists to “prove” that the founders were deists by showing that they were not biblical, orthodox Christians. On the flipside, some advocates of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation think they can “prove” that the founders were Christians simply by showing that the founders were not deists.
In reality, however, there is a third option that I call “theistic rationalism.” Many people believe in one God and espouse the Bible’s code of behavior without being true believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We still see this problem today in Washington, D.C., as politicians promote “Judeo-Christian ethics”—and even follow them—but never repent of their sins and place their personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Theistic rationalism was a hybrid belief system that combined elements of Christianity, natural religion or deism, and rationalism. It held that these three would lead to the same place most of the time, but that when conflict among them could not be resolved or ignored, reason must be the final authority. In practice, theistic rationalists retained as much of Christianity and of deism as they could, but rejected whatever parts or beliefs of each of those systems they considered to be irrational.

Unlike deists, theistic rationalists believed in a present and active God; and since God was “there” and might act, it made sense to pray. Unlike orthodox Christians, however, they believed in only some written revelation from God and they determined it for themselves based on what seemed rational to them.

Unfortunately, they rejected as irrational most of what constitutes biblical Christianity. Theistic rationalists rejected justification by faith, the atoning work of Christ, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, original sin, the Virgin Birth, eternal punishment for sin, and the inspiration and authority of the Bible.1 The key founders honored and respected Jesus as a moral teacher, but not as God or Savior.

A few of them self-identified as “Christians,” but they meant something very different by that term than evangelical Christians do. For them, “Christianity” was simply a matter of being good and moral. The public language of the theistic rationalists was neutral and not offensive to Christian sensibilities, so the Christians among the founders were comfortable in supporting it.
Theistic rationalism was a hybrid belief system that combined elements of Christianity, deism, and rationalism.
Isolated quotes, when taken out of context, may appear to support the view that the founders were secularists or orthodox Christians. This is possible because the theistic rationalists constructed their belief system with ideas from both of the other systems. Consequently, at times theistic rationalists express deistic views, and at other times they reflect Christian influence. To see the founders as either secularists or orthodox Christians often requires extraordinary efforts to explain away or ignore inconvenient statements reflecting the opposite influence. An honest approach recognizes that both influences were present and important.

For this article’s purposes, the term Christian applies to those who actually hold Christian beliefs and have a relationship with Jesus Christ—not simply to those who pray or attend church.

The Intent of America’s Founders​

In contrast to the secularist view, the founders did not favor or create a wall of separation disallowing or removing any religious influence in government or society. On the contrary, they believed that morality was absolutely indispensable to a free society—and that religion was the best source of morality. Consequently, they stressed the necessity of “religion and morality” in the public square—not just in private life.
It is critically important for the question at hand to note that they did not specify Christianity as being necessary, but simply “religion.” Some of them quoted from the Bible, but usually because it was the most familiar and widely read religious book in the colonies. In their experience, all religions taught morality and good citizenship, so any and all religions met the need. This is why they allowed freedom of religion.
In practice, theistic rationalists retained as much of Christianity and of deism as they could, but rejected whatever parts or beliefs of each of those systems they considered to be irrational.
In creating a “wall of separation,” later justices on the US Supreme Court, as they often do, substituted their own preference for the actual text of the Constitution. Evangelicals are right to criticize the Court’s imposition of a standard that the founders did not put in the Constitution and would not support; but we are wrong if we substitute another such standard that we prefer.

It is equally invalid to claim that the founders intended to create a specifically Christiannation. There is no record of any United States founding father indicating that the intent was to create or establish a Christian nation. If there were such a statement, every Christian in the United States today would know it, as it would be emblazoned above the entrance to almost every Christian school, inscribed on the cover of countless books in Christian bookstores, and included in countless email promotions.
No framer said that was his intent. The colonial American culture was nominally Christian, but the Constitution does not even mention God, much less Christ (unless one sheepishly counts that century’s standard dating method, “the year of our Lord”)—a curious omission for a document supposedly based on biblical principles and written as the foundation of a Christian nation.

There are no specifically biblical or Christian principles in the Constitution. The more than 400 pages of notes from the Constitutional Convention contain no instances of any constitutional principles being explicitly based on the Bible—much less the whole. Nor are there any expressly biblical teachings mentioned in The Federalist Papers, 85 essays written at the time to explain the Constitution and its principles to an audience very open to religious authority.
Some parts of the Constitution are consistent with, or not in opposition to, biblical principles. But there is no evidence that the framers took the principles from the Bible, and most of the supposedly “biblical” or “Christian” principles claimed by Christian America advocates are not uniquely biblical or Christian. The framers cited other sources for these principles, in particular “experience” and “history”—not the Bible.

Similarly, there is no specifically Christian or biblical language in the Declaration of Independence. Of the four references to God, the only biblical term in the Declaration is the general term Creator—a term used by deists, Jews, Christians, and secularists alike in 1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration artfully to allow people to read their own view of God into the document and, thereby, to make it acceptable to all. It worked: secularists today point to its invocation of “Nature’s God” as proof that it is deistical, and Christians point to “Creator” as proof that it is Christian.

How Was the United States a Christian Nation?​

Most people who colonized America in the 1600s identified with some version of Christianity. Doctrines differed significantly among denominations across the thirteen colonies, but they shared a generally Christian moral and cultural framework. The Bible was by far the most familiar book and a common cultural reference point.

Roughly 100 years passed between the establishment of the thirteen colonies and the founding of the United States republic. During that time, materialism took a toll on orthodoxy. Humanistic, antibiblical philosophies infiltrated the most prominent seminaries; and consequently, rational religion replaced the Bible as the ultimate authority in many churches. But the loosely Christian moral consensus—the Golden Rule and basically biblical ethics—remained intact.

After the American Revolution, the new state constitutions promoted a nominal brand of Christianity as a sort of cultural and ethical anchor to help the colonies through their divorce from the cultural influence of Great Britain. A generic form of Christianity became a stabilizing and civilizing force as the new nation entered uncharted waters. After a decade of moral stability under the state constitutions and Articles of Confederation, the new nation’s leaders produced a Constitution that reflected little if any discernable Christian influence.

Evolutionary ideas in the mid-1800s further eroded respect for the Bible’s trustworthiness regarding issues such as history and science. But the broad “Christian” moral consensus of the 1700s arguably persisted on a fairly widespread basis into the 1900s. Then the great societal turmoil of the 1960s brought to an end this last vestige of the Bible’s morally positive influence. “Progressive” and anti-Christian attitudes first gained national acceptance and then were transmitted to generations of children through public schools. Since the 1960s, the Bible’s confining notion of “shame” has been replaced by a narcissistic celebration of doing one’s “own thing.”

The generally Christian moral framework of the previous 200 years has now been rejected as an overly restrictive relic of a bygone age. In an atmosphere hostile to even nominal Christianity, the public square no longer welcomes any appeal to God’s Word or the now-defunct “moral consensus” related to that Word.

Evaluating Some of the Evidence​

I have published an extensive and comprehensive study of what the key founders actually said they believed. It reveals that all eight key founders were neither born-again Christians nor deists, but theistic rationalists. These “key founders” are those most responsible for the content of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin) and those most influential in the writing and implementation of the Constitution (James Madison, George Washington, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton). Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight theistic rationalists arguably had more influence than any of the Christians, with the possible exception of Roger Sherman.

John Adams maintained that the Bible cannot supersede philosophy or reason. So he called the deity of Christ and His atonement for men’s sins “absurdity.” He said that focusing on grace and faith rather than good works was “Antichristianity.” Adams so completely rejected the concept of the Trinity that he said he would not believe it even if God Himself told him it was true. Adams claimed that belief in the Incarnation and in God suffering on a cross “has been the source of almost all the corruptions of Christianity.” In a private letter, he asked Thomas Jefferson rhetorically, “Where is to be found theology more orthodox . . . than in the introduction to the [Hindu] Shastra?”
In 20,000 pages of his writings, there is no record of George Washington claiming to be a Christian. Washington prayed and attended church regularly when in the public eye, but there is no reference to Jesus in his handwriting, and he once replaced “God” with “the Great Spirit above” in a speech to Indians written by a clerk. The so-called Washington Prayer Journal is the source of Christian-sounding quotes attributed by some to George Washington. But it is not in his handwriting, and there is no reliable evidence that it belonged to him. No experts on Washington’s papers accept it as his.
Washington steadfastly refused to take communion and referred to Christians in the third person. Ministers of churches he attended testified that he died “without one expression of distinctive belief, or Christian hope” and that they could not bring to mind “any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation.”1

Christian America advocates focus on Plymouth (150 years before the founding of the United States!) as if it were the definitive colony and fully representative of “America.” The Puritans founded Massachusetts—they did not found the United States of America. Massachusetts was not the first colony; it was not the largest colony. Catholics and Quakers founded colonies, as did Puritan dissenters. Seven colonies were not founded for any particular religious reason. Furthermore, the vision of the original Puritans was gone by 1700. By the mid-1700s, the descendants of the original Puritans in Massachusetts were heavily engaged in the slave trade, rum production, and smuggling.

Christian America advocates regularly appeal to a 1983 study done by Donald Lutz in support of their claim for the Bible’s influence on the Constitution. They trumpet the fact that the study indicates that the Bible was the most widely cited source in the founding era. However, they neglect to mention that the study specifies that “reprinted sermons accounted for almost three-fourths of the biblical citations” and that “the Bible’s prominence disappears” during the founders’ debate on the Constitution—the very document for which they claim its influence.

Those who contend for the Christian America thesis emphasize the denominational affiliation of certain men. If denominational affiliation equals Christian faith, then most of those in early American government were Christians—but then so are most of the members of Congress today, along with the last six presidents. So, why should we be upset about the religious condition of America today?

Identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him. The belief that America was originally Christian leads many believers to confuse cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and to lose the ability to distinguish between the truly biblical and mere American tradition. They place their confidence in political processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God, and they misdirect the resources of the church toward correcting the political system.

Final Questions​

As followers of Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, born-again Christians have a duty above all others to “speak the truth” in every matter. If we are careless about the facts, or impose our own agenda on history, why should anyone listen to us when we talk about the gospel?

Before making claims about the religion of America’s founders, believers should ask themselves two simple questions. If America’s founders were really intending to create a Christian nation, wouldn’t the governing document say so? Wouldn’t someone have made that intention crystal clear—somewhere, in a public or private document?
If we can’t quote the founders in their own words, then it’s wrong to claim we know what was in their minds.


Dr. Gregg Frazer has coordinated the political studies program at the Master’s College since 1988. He is the author of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution and has spoken on religion and the American founding at numerous conferences.
 

ItIsFinished!

Blood bought child of the King of kings.
I don't think there is such a thing as a Christian nation--not if we define Christian as born-again gospel-believing. I think our foundations were culturally, loosely related to a cultural Christianity, but that is not Christianity. Our founders did not speak of belief in Jesus Christ, the Savior from sin.

I like the way this article explains it.

https://answersingenesis.org/culture/america/was-united-states-really-founded-christian-nation/

Was the United States Really Founded as a Christian Nation?​

by Dr. Gregg Frazer on July 1, 2015
Featured in Answers Magazine

To further their political agenda, many on the secular Left misrepresent the religious beliefs of America’s founders and their intent in framing the US Constitution. Very few of these men were deists, believing that nature is the only revelation from Godand that the Creator is an absentee God who is not present and active in this world. We could count the number of deists on one hand. Furthermore, the framers of the Constitution were not opposed to Christianity, and they did not intend to create a strictly secularist nation characterized by a wall of separation between religion and the public square.

Unfortunately, it is easy for evangelical Christians to fall into the same trap as the Left, letting our own political aims distort how we view the religious beliefs of the nation’s founders and their intent in framing the Constitution. Some of the founding fathers were Christians—certainly many more than were deists—but that does not mean that the key founders who wielded the most influence were orthodox Christians. Nor does it mean that the framers of the Constitution intended to create a Christian nation.

Who Are Our Founding Fathers?​

Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight men arguably had the most influence among the founding fathers. All were theistic rationalists.

One reason for confusion is the false premise that there are only two options: the founders were either Christians or deists. This convenient false dichotomy allows secularists to “prove” that the founders were deists by showing that they were not biblical, orthodox Christians. On the flipside, some advocates of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation think they can “prove” that the founders were Christians simply by showing that the founders were not deists.
In reality, however, there is a third option that I call “theistic rationalism.” Many people believe in one God and espouse the Bible’s code of behavior without being true believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We still see this problem today in Washington, D.C., as politicians promote “Judeo-Christian ethics”—and even follow them—but never repent of their sins and place their personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Theistic rationalism was a hybrid belief system that combined elements of Christianity, natural religion or deism, and rationalism. It held that these three would lead to the same place most of the time, but that when conflict among them could not be resolved or ignored, reason must be the final authority. In practice, theistic rationalists retained as much of Christianity and of deism as they could, but rejected whatever parts or beliefs of each of those systems they considered to be irrational.

Unlike deists, theistic rationalists believed in a present and active God; and since God was “there” and might act, it made sense to pray. Unlike orthodox Christians, however, they believed in only some written revelation from God and they determined it for themselves based on what seemed rational to them.

Unfortunately, they rejected as irrational most of what constitutes biblical Christianity. Theistic rationalists rejected justification by faith, the atoning work of Christ, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, original sin, the Virgin Birth, eternal punishment for sin, and the inspiration and authority of the Bible.1 The key founders honored and respected Jesus as a moral teacher, but not as God or Savior.

A few of them self-identified as “Christians,” but they meant something very different by that term than evangelical Christians do. For them, “Christianity” was simply a matter of being good and moral. The public language of the theistic rationalists was neutral and not offensive to Christian sensibilities, so the Christians among the founders were comfortable in supporting it.

Isolated quotes, when taken out of context, may appear to support the view that the founders were secularists or orthodox Christians. This is possible because the theistic rationalists constructed their belief system with ideas from both of the other systems. Consequently, at times theistic rationalists express deistic views, and at other times they reflect Christian influence. To see the founders as either secularists or orthodox Christians often requires extraordinary efforts to explain away or ignore inconvenient statements reflecting the opposite influence. An honest approach recognizes that both influences were present and important.

For this article’s purposes, the term Christian applies to those who actually hold Christian beliefs and have a relationship with Jesus Christ—not simply to those who pray or attend church.

The Intent of America’s Founders​

In contrast to the secularist view, the founders did not favor or create a wall of separation disallowing or removing any religious influence in government or society. On the contrary, they believed that morality was absolutely indispensable to a free society—and that religion was the best source of morality. Consequently, they stressed the necessity of “religion and morality” in the public square—not just in private life.
It is critically important for the question at hand to note that they did not specify Christianity as being necessary, but simply “religion.” Some of them quoted from the Bible, but usually because it was the most familiar and widely read religious book in the colonies. In their experience, all religions taught morality and good citizenship, so any and all religions met the need. This is why they allowed freedom of religion.

In creating a “wall of separation,” later justices on the US Supreme Court, as they often do, substituted their own preference for the actual text of the Constitution. Evangelicals are right to criticize the Court’s imposition of a standard that the founders did not put in the Constitution and would not support; but we are wrong if we substitute another such standard that we prefer.

It is equally invalid to claim that the founders intended to create a specifically Christiannation. There is no record of any United States founding father indicating that the intent was to create or establish a Christian nation. If there were such a statement, every Christian in the United States today would know it, as it would be emblazoned above the entrance to almost every Christian school, inscribed on the cover of countless books in Christian bookstores, and included in countless email promotions.
No framer said that was his intent. The colonial American culture was nominally Christian, but the Constitution does not even mention God, much less Christ (unless one sheepishly counts that century’s standard dating method, “the year of our Lord”)—a curious omission for a document supposedly based on biblical principles and written as the foundation of a Christian nation.

There are no specifically biblical or Christian principles in the Constitution. The more than 400 pages of notes from the Constitutional Convention contain no instances of any constitutional principles being explicitly based on the Bible—much less the whole. Nor are there any expressly biblical teachings mentioned in The Federalist Papers, 85 essays written at the time to explain the Constitution and its principles to an audience very open to religious authority.
Some parts of the Constitution are consistent with, or not in opposition to, biblical principles. But there is no evidence that the framers took the principles from the Bible, and most of the supposedly “biblical” or “Christian” principles claimed by Christian America advocates are not uniquely biblical or Christian. The framers cited other sources for these principles, in particular “experience” and “history”—not the Bible.

Similarly, there is no specifically Christian or biblical language in the Declaration of Independence. Of the four references to God, the only biblical term in the Declaration is the general term Creator—a term used by deists, Jews, Christians, and secularists alike in 1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration artfully to allow people to read their own view of God into the document and, thereby, to make it acceptable to all. It worked: secularists today point to its invocation of “Nature’s God” as proof that it is deistical, and Christians point to “Creator” as proof that it is Christian.

How Was the United States a Christian Nation?​

Most people who colonized America in the 1600s identified with some version of Christianity. Doctrines differed significantly among denominations across the thirteen colonies, but they shared a generally Christian moral and cultural framework. The Bible was by far the most familiar book and a common cultural reference point.

Roughly 100 years passed between the establishment of the thirteen colonies and the founding of the United States republic. During that time, materialism took a toll on orthodoxy. Humanistic, antibiblical philosophies infiltrated the most prominent seminaries; and consequently, rational religion replaced the Bible as the ultimate authority in many churches. But the loosely Christian moral consensus—the Golden Rule and basically biblical ethics—remained intact.

After the American Revolution, the new state constitutions promoted a nominal brand of Christianity as a sort of cultural and ethical anchor to help the colonies through their divorce from the cultural influence of Great Britain. A generic form of Christianity became a stabilizing and civilizing force as the new nation entered uncharted waters. After a decade of moral stability under the state constitutions and Articles of Confederation, the new nation’s leaders produced a Constitution that reflected little if any discernable Christian influence.

Evolutionary ideas in the mid-1800s further eroded respect for the Bible’s trustworthiness regarding issues such as history and science. But the broad “Christian” moral consensus of the 1700s arguably persisted on a fairly widespread basis into the 1900s. Then the great societal turmoil of the 1960s brought to an end this last vestige of the Bible’s morally positive influence. “Progressive” and anti-Christian attitudes first gained national acceptance and then were transmitted to generations of children through public schools. Since the 1960s, the Bible’s confining notion of “shame” has been replaced by a narcissistic celebration of doing one’s “own thing.”

The generally Christian moral framework of the previous 200 years has now been rejected as an overly restrictive relic of a bygone age. In an atmosphere hostile to even nominal Christianity, the public square no longer welcomes any appeal to God’s Word or the now-defunct “moral consensus” related to that Word.

Evaluating Some of the Evidence​

I have published an extensive and comprehensive study of what the key founders actually said they believed. It reveals that all eight key founders were neither born-again Christians nor deists, but theistic rationalists. These “key founders” are those most responsible for the content of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin) and those most influential in the writing and implementation of the Constitution (James Madison, George Washington, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton). Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight theistic rationalists arguably had more influence than any of the Christians, with the possible exception of Roger Sherman.

John Adams maintained that the Bible cannot supersede philosophy or reason. So he called the deity of Christ and His atonement for men’s sins “absurdity.” He said that focusing on grace and faith rather than good works was “Antichristianity.” Adams so completely rejected the concept of the Trinity that he said he would not believe it even if God Himself told him it was true. Adams claimed that belief in the Incarnation and in God suffering on a cross “has been the source of almost all the corruptions of Christianity.” In a private letter, he asked Thomas Jefferson rhetorically, “Where is to be found theology more orthodox . . . than in the introduction to the [Hindu] Shastra?”
In 20,000 pages of his writings, there is no record of George Washington claiming to be a Christian. Washington prayed and attended church regularly when in the public eye, but there is no reference to Jesus in his handwriting, and he once replaced “God” with “the Great Spirit above” in a speech to Indians written by a clerk. The so-called Washington Prayer Journal is the source of Christian-sounding quotes attributed by some to George Washington. But it is not in his handwriting, and there is no reliable evidence that it belonged to him. No experts on Washington’s papers accept it as his.
Washington steadfastly refused to take communion and referred to Christians in the third person. Ministers of churches he attended testified that he died “without one expression of distinctive belief, or Christian hope” and that they could not bring to mind “any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation.”1

Christian America advocates focus on Plymouth (150 years before the founding of the United States!) as if it were the definitive colony and fully representative of “America.” The Puritans founded Massachusetts—they did not found the United States of America. Massachusetts was not the first colony; it was not the largest colony. Catholics and Quakers founded colonies, as did Puritan dissenters. Seven colonies were not founded for any particular religious reason. Furthermore, the vision of the original Puritans was gone by 1700. By the mid-1700s, the descendants of the original Puritans in Massachusetts were heavily engaged in the slave trade, rum production, and smuggling.

Christian America advocates regularly appeal to a 1983 study done by Donald Lutz in support of their claim for the Bible’s influence on the Constitution. They trumpet the fact that the study indicates that the Bible was the most widely cited source in the founding era. However, they neglect to mention that the study specifies that “reprinted sermons accounted for almost three-fourths of the biblical citations” and that “the Bible’s prominence disappears” during the founders’ debate on the Constitution—the very document for which they claim its influence.

Those who contend for the Christian America thesis emphasize the denominational affiliation of certain men. If denominational affiliation equals Christian faith, then most of those in early American government were Christians—but then so are most of the members of Congress today, along with the last six presidents. So, why should we be upset about the religious condition of America today?

Identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him. The belief that America was originally Christian leads many believers to confuse cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and to lose the ability to distinguish between the truly biblical and mere American tradition. They place their confidence in political processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God, and they misdirect the resources of the church toward correcting the political system.

Final Questions​

As followers of Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, born-again Christians have a duty above all others to “speak the truth” in every matter. If we are careless about the facts, or impose our own agenda on history, why should anyone listen to us when we talk about the gospel?

Before making claims about the religion of America’s founders, believers should ask themselves two simple questions. If America’s founders were really intending to create a Christian nation, wouldn’t the governing document say so? Wouldn’t someone have made that intention crystal clear—somewhere, in a public or private document?
If we can’t quote the founders in their own words, then it’s wrong to claim we know what was in their minds.


Dr. Gregg Frazer has coordinated the political studies program at the Master’s College since 1988. He is the author of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution and has spoken on religion and the American founding at numerous conferences.
Good information.
I'm quite aware and have been for some time to the information you provided .
Having said that , I also believe I understand the intent of the OP article and what he was trying to convey leading into the other two following articles.
But, yes , a Christian nation based upon The Scriptures ? Not so much.
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
I don't think there is such a thing as a Christian nation--not if we define Christian as born-again gospel-believing. I think our foundations were culturally, loosely related to a cultural Christianity, but that is not Christianity. Our founders did not speak of belief in Jesus Christ, the Savior from sin.

I like the way this article explains it.

https://answersingenesis.org/culture/america/was-united-states-really-founded-christian-nation/

Was the United States Really Founded as a Christian Nation?​

by Dr. Gregg Frazer on July 1, 2015
Featured in Answers Magazine

To further their political agenda, many on the secular Left misrepresent the religious beliefs of America’s founders and their intent in framing the US Constitution. Very few of these men were deists, believing that nature is the only revelation from Godand that the Creator is an absentee God who is not present and active in this world. We could count the number of deists on one hand. Furthermore, the framers of the Constitution were not opposed to Christianity, and they did not intend to create a strictly secularist nation characterized by a wall of separation between religion and the public square.

Unfortunately, it is easy for evangelical Christians to fall into the same trap as the Left, letting our own political aims distort how we view the religious beliefs of the nation’s founders and their intent in framing the Constitution. Some of the founding fathers were Christians—certainly many more than were deists—but that does not mean that the key founders who wielded the most influence were orthodox Christians. Nor does it mean that the framers of the Constitution intended to create a Christian nation.

Who Are Our Founding Fathers?​

Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight men arguably had the most influence among the founding fathers. All were theistic rationalists.

One reason for confusion is the false premise that there are only two options: the founders were either Christians or deists. This convenient false dichotomy allows secularists to “prove” that the founders were deists by showing that they were not biblical, orthodox Christians. On the flipside, some advocates of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation think they can “prove” that the founders were Christians simply by showing that the founders were not deists.
In reality, however, there is a third option that I call “theistic rationalism.” Many people believe in one God and espouse the Bible’s code of behavior without being true believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We still see this problem today in Washington, D.C., as politicians promote “Judeo-Christian ethics”—and even follow them—but never repent of their sins and place their personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Theistic rationalism was a hybrid belief system that combined elements of Christianity, natural religion or deism, and rationalism. It held that these three would lead to the same place most of the time, but that when conflict among them could not be resolved or ignored, reason must be the final authority. In practice, theistic rationalists retained as much of Christianity and of deism as they could, but rejected whatever parts or beliefs of each of those systems they considered to be irrational.

Unlike deists, theistic rationalists believed in a present and active God; and since God was “there” and might act, it made sense to pray. Unlike orthodox Christians, however, they believed in only some written revelation from God and they determined it for themselves based on what seemed rational to them.

Unfortunately, they rejected as irrational most of what constitutes biblical Christianity. Theistic rationalists rejected justification by faith, the atoning work of Christ, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, original sin, the Virgin Birth, eternal punishment for sin, and the inspiration and authority of the Bible.1 The key founders honored and respected Jesus as a moral teacher, but not as God or Savior.

A few of them self-identified as “Christians,” but they meant something very different by that term than evangelical Christians do. For them, “Christianity” was simply a matter of being good and moral. The public language of the theistic rationalists was neutral and not offensive to Christian sensibilities, so the Christians among the founders were comfortable in supporting it.

Isolated quotes, when taken out of context, may appear to support the view that the founders were secularists or orthodox Christians. This is possible because the theistic rationalists constructed their belief system with ideas from both of the other systems. Consequently, at times theistic rationalists express deistic views, and at other times they reflect Christian influence. To see the founders as either secularists or orthodox Christians often requires extraordinary efforts to explain away or ignore inconvenient statements reflecting the opposite influence. An honest approach recognizes that both influences were present and important.

For this article’s purposes, the term Christian applies to those who actually hold Christian beliefs and have a relationship with Jesus Christ—not simply to those who pray or attend church.

The Intent of America’s Founders​

In contrast to the secularist view, the founders did not favor or create a wall of separation disallowing or removing any religious influence in government or society. On the contrary, they believed that morality was absolutely indispensable to a free society—and that religion was the best source of morality. Consequently, they stressed the necessity of “religion and morality” in the public square—not just in private life.
It is critically important for the question at hand to note that they did not specify Christianity as being necessary, but simply “religion.” Some of them quoted from the Bible, but usually because it was the most familiar and widely read religious book in the colonies. In their experience, all religions taught morality and good citizenship, so any and all religions met the need. This is why they allowed freedom of religion.

In creating a “wall of separation,” later justices on the US Supreme Court, as they often do, substituted their own preference for the actual text of the Constitution. Evangelicals are right to criticize the Court’s imposition of a standard that the founders did not put in the Constitution and would not support; but we are wrong if we substitute another such standard that we prefer.

It is equally invalid to claim that the founders intended to create a specifically Christiannation. There is no record of any United States founding father indicating that the intent was to create or establish a Christian nation. If there were such a statement, every Christian in the United States today would know it, as it would be emblazoned above the entrance to almost every Christian school, inscribed on the cover of countless books in Christian bookstores, and included in countless email promotions.
No framer said that was his intent. The colonial American culture was nominally Christian, but the Constitution does not even mention God, much less Christ (unless one sheepishly counts that century’s standard dating method, “the year of our Lord”)—a curious omission for a document supposedly based on biblical principles and written as the foundation of a Christian nation.

There are no specifically biblical or Christian principles in the Constitution. The more than 400 pages of notes from the Constitutional Convention contain no instances of any constitutional principles being explicitly based on the Bible—much less the whole. Nor are there any expressly biblical teachings mentioned in The Federalist Papers, 85 essays written at the time to explain the Constitution and its principles to an audience very open to religious authority.
Some parts of the Constitution are consistent with, or not in opposition to, biblical principles. But there is no evidence that the framers took the principles from the Bible, and most of the supposedly “biblical” or “Christian” principles claimed by Christian America advocates are not uniquely biblical or Christian. The framers cited other sources for these principles, in particular “experience” and “history”—not the Bible.

Similarly, there is no specifically Christian or biblical language in the Declaration of Independence. Of the four references to God, the only biblical term in the Declaration is the general term Creator—a term used by deists, Jews, Christians, and secularists alike in 1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration artfully to allow people to read their own view of God into the document and, thereby, to make it acceptable to all. It worked: secularists today point to its invocation of “Nature’s God” as proof that it is deistical, and Christians point to “Creator” as proof that it is Christian.

How Was the United States a Christian Nation?​

Most people who colonized America in the 1600s identified with some version of Christianity. Doctrines differed significantly among denominations across the thirteen colonies, but they shared a generally Christian moral and cultural framework. The Bible was by far the most familiar book and a common cultural reference point.

Roughly 100 years passed between the establishment of the thirteen colonies and the founding of the United States republic. During that time, materialism took a toll on orthodoxy. Humanistic, antibiblical philosophies infiltrated the most prominent seminaries; and consequently, rational religion replaced the Bible as the ultimate authority in many churches. But the loosely Christian moral consensus—the Golden Rule and basically biblical ethics—remained intact.

After the American Revolution, the new state constitutions promoted a nominal brand of Christianity as a sort of cultural and ethical anchor to help the colonies through their divorce from the cultural influence of Great Britain. A generic form of Christianity became a stabilizing and civilizing force as the new nation entered uncharted waters. After a decade of moral stability under the state constitutions and Articles of Confederation, the new nation’s leaders produced a Constitution that reflected little if any discernable Christian influence.

Evolutionary ideas in the mid-1800s further eroded respect for the Bible’s trustworthiness regarding issues such as history and science. But the broad “Christian” moral consensus of the 1700s arguably persisted on a fairly widespread basis into the 1900s. Then the great societal turmoil of the 1960s brought to an end this last vestige of the Bible’s morally positive influence. “Progressive” and anti-Christian attitudes first gained national acceptance and then were transmitted to generations of children through public schools. Since the 1960s, the Bible’s confining notion of “shame” has been replaced by a narcissistic celebration of doing one’s “own thing.”

The generally Christian moral framework of the previous 200 years has now been rejected as an overly restrictive relic of a bygone age. In an atmosphere hostile to even nominal Christianity, the public square no longer welcomes any appeal to God’s Word or the now-defunct “moral consensus” related to that Word.

Evaluating Some of the Evidence​

I have published an extensive and comprehensive study of what the key founders actually said they believed. It reveals that all eight key founders were neither born-again Christians nor deists, but theistic rationalists. These “key founders” are those most responsible for the content of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin) and those most influential in the writing and implementation of the Constitution (James Madison, George Washington, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton). Although there were Christians among the founding fathers, these eight theistic rationalists arguably had more influence than any of the Christians, with the possible exception of Roger Sherman.

John Adams maintained that the Bible cannot supersede philosophy or reason. So he called the deity of Christ and His atonement for men’s sins “absurdity.” He said that focusing on grace and faith rather than good works was “Antichristianity.” Adams so completely rejected the concept of the Trinity that he said he would not believe it even if God Himself told him it was true. Adams claimed that belief in the Incarnation and in God suffering on a cross “has been the source of almost all the corruptions of Christianity.” In a private letter, he asked Thomas Jefferson rhetorically, “Where is to be found theology more orthodox . . . than in the introduction to the [Hindu] Shastra?”
In 20,000 pages of his writings, there is no record of George Washington claiming to be a Christian. Washington prayed and attended church regularly when in the public eye, but there is no reference to Jesus in his handwriting, and he once replaced “God” with “the Great Spirit above” in a speech to Indians written by a clerk. The so-called Washington Prayer Journal is the source of Christian-sounding quotes attributed by some to George Washington. But it is not in his handwriting, and there is no reliable evidence that it belonged to him. No experts on Washington’s papers accept it as his.
Washington steadfastly refused to take communion and referred to Christians in the third person. Ministers of churches he attended testified that he died “without one expression of distinctive belief, or Christian hope” and that they could not bring to mind “any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation.”1

Christian America advocates focus on Plymouth (150 years before the founding of the United States!) as if it were the definitive colony and fully representative of “America.” The Puritans founded Massachusetts—they did not found the United States of America. Massachusetts was not the first colony; it was not the largest colony. Catholics and Quakers founded colonies, as did Puritan dissenters. Seven colonies were not founded for any particular religious reason. Furthermore, the vision of the original Puritans was gone by 1700. By the mid-1700s, the descendants of the original Puritans in Massachusetts were heavily engaged in the slave trade, rum production, and smuggling.

Christian America advocates regularly appeal to a 1983 study done by Donald Lutz in support of their claim for the Bible’s influence on the Constitution. They trumpet the fact that the study indicates that the Bible was the most widely cited source in the founding era. However, they neglect to mention that the study specifies that “reprinted sermons accounted for almost three-fourths of the biblical citations” and that “the Bible’s prominence disappears” during the founders’ debate on the Constitution—the very document for which they claim its influence.

Those who contend for the Christian America thesis emphasize the denominational affiliation of certain men. If denominational affiliation equals Christian faith, then most of those in early American government were Christians—but then so are most of the members of Congress today, along with the last six presidents. So, why should we be upset about the religious condition of America today?

Identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him. The belief that America was originally Christian leads many believers to confuse cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and to lose the ability to distinguish between the truly biblical and mere American tradition. They place their confidence in political processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God, and they misdirect the resources of the church toward correcting the political system.

Final Questions​

As followers of Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, born-again Christians have a duty above all others to “speak the truth” in every matter. If we are careless about the facts, or impose our own agenda on history, why should anyone listen to us when we talk about the gospel?

Before making claims about the religion of America’s founders, believers should ask themselves two simple questions. If America’s founders were really intending to create a Christian nation, wouldn’t the governing document say so? Wouldn’t someone have made that intention crystal clear—somewhere, in a public or private document?
If we can’t quote the founders in their own words, then it’s wrong to claim we know what was in their minds.


Dr. Gregg Frazer has coordinated the political studies program at the Master’s College since 1988. He is the author of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution and has spoken on religion and the American founding at numerous conferences.
So the more I think about this, after years of reading about and wondering about this topic, I have to even wonder if America could even fall from grace, since the Christianity of America was by and large a cultural Christianity. Could that kind of Christianity even result in God's grace? Or is what we see as grace merely reaping the benefits of founding a nation upon liberty and morality? God's grace is about Jesus and salvation, not a moral worldview. I think Americans over the years have loosely redefined Christianity and grace to not line up with Scripture. God doesn't bless a Christless moral worldview, but it does bring natural blessings.
 

kathymendel

Well-Known Member
One of the major problems in our country today - and it's been a long time coming - is that American Christians cling to the fact that we are a Christian nation. We are not............we have citizens of many faiths, and we have many citizens of no faith. But, as Christians we feel that there should be Christian-like laws to govern everyone. We cannot force people to live like Christians if they are not. Legislation does not have the
power to change hearts and actions. Only Jesus can do that on an individual basis.

Yes, our country began as a nation offering a freedom to the people who came............freedom to worship as they chose, not being dictated to,
and many of them chose not to worship at all.........or to worship something other than the one true God. It isn't a matter of a "Christian Nation" - it is a matter of a nation with Christian hearts. And, Christian hearts are in the minority..............so, we can't expect laws to be made to govern the whole of the people. We are to live as examples to all the others...........much like the Israelites in the wilderness. We cannot eliminate sin, and we cannot eliminate corrupt governments. That will come in the Millenium when Jesus will be ruling the nations.

We have always put our nation on a pedestal, believing we are the be all and end all in relation to the other nations of the world.
What arrogance!! In every country there are some Christians, and in every one of those countries, those Christians are the minority.
That is never going to change, because God has said..........narrow is the way to salvation and wide is the way to perdition. The majority of people who have ever lived, and who live today, will not end up in heaven. It's time to realize that nationalism is a very temporary, worldly
thing, and we should never put it above our Great God and Creator, and His Son, and the Holy Spirit. jmho
 

Chris

Administrator
Staff member
By Dr. Gregg Frazer

Is this the same guy that teaches at John MacArthur's seminary that teaches Calvinism? :scratch

I don't agree with his article. I think this is a much better article.

America’s Christian Heritage
Is America based on Christian principles?
By Dr. David R. Reagan

The American constitutional system was the first government devised by Man that was based upon biblical principles.

Its cornerstone was a belief in the evil nature of Man, which produced a conviction that no person can be trusted with power. This belief that Man’s nature is corrupted and irreparable (apart from the power of the Holy Spirit) represented a radical departure from history. Until that time, most of Mankind had always been ruled by kings who were considered to have a divine right to rule and who usually ended up ruling like they thought they were gods.

A Biblical Example

I am reminded of the children of Israel when they arrived in the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. The Lord God Almighty served as their king. He protected them and blessed them with freedom and prosperity. When they took their eyes off Him and rebelled, He would allow foreign nations to conquer them. When they repented, He would raise up leaders, called judges, who would deliver them from foreign domination.

This unique form of supernatural rule continued for 400 years until the people rose up in rebellion during the judgeship of Samuel and demanded an earthly king so that they would be “like all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:5, 20). Samuel tried to warn them that an earthly king would abuse his power and make their lives miserable by sending their sons into war, exploiting their daughters, confiscating their fields, and imposing heavy taxation (1 Samuel 8:10-18). But they would not listen, and they got what they asked for — a long history of abusive kings.

A Unique Form of Government

The American colonists rebelled against such a king, and they had no intention of replacing the British monarch with an American one. What is amazing is that they did not proceed to establish an oligarchical form of government since most of the leaders of the American Revolution were wealthy aristocrats.

But the vast majority of them were also devout Christians, and they were fully aware of the biblical teaching about the fallen nature of Man (Jeremiah 17:5,7,9):

5) Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind…
7) “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…
9) “The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick…”


Accordingly, our Founding Fathers did not trust anyone with power — not even themselves. They therefore proceeded to construct a government that would limit the use of power.

Equally important was their conviction that the Word of God constitutes a higher law to which all men and governments are subject and that the fundamental rights of Mankind are derived from that law and not from government. Thus, in the nation’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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.”

To put it another way, the Founding Fathers of our nation expressly rejected the traditional philosophy of Humanism and its concept that Man is basically good and capable of perfection and that therefore those who are highly educated have a natural right to rule over those less fortunate. They also rejected the radical form of Humanism that came to prevail in the French Revolution and which produced a reign of terror — namely, a belief in the essential goodness of the common man.

Again, because of their world view, our Founding Fathers trusted no one. They refused to establish a monarchy or an oligarchy. But they also distrusted the common man, and so they refused to establish a democracy because they feared it would quickly evolve into mobocracy.

A Representative Republic

They therefore carefully constructed a representative republic with an ingenious set of checks and balances. For example, in the original government established by our constitution, there was only one national official directly elected by the people — the local Congressman who was elected to serve for two years in the House of Representatives. Senators were not directly elected. They were appointed by state legislatures, and this continued to be the case until the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913 which requires the selection of Senators by direct popular vote.

Likewise, the President was not originally selected by direct election. Instead, he was selected by electors who, in turn, were appointed by the state legislatures. Over a period of time, the state legislatures began to allow voters to select the electors. But as late as 1824, more than a quarter of the state legislatures were still appointing electors.

Today, all electors are selected by popular vote. Even so, the system of selecting the President continues to be indirect since voters are voting directly for electors and it is the electors who directly select the President. Thus, in the election of 2000, George W. Bush was selected as President by the Electoral College (271-266) even though his opponent, Al Gore, garnered more popular votes (543,895 more than Bush).

Our Founding Fathers also divided the powers of government between the federal government and the state governments, defining what was given to the central government, prescribing what was denied to state governments, and stating that all other powers were retained by the States (10th Amendment). Within the federal government, power was further divided between three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial. And the basic rights of the people to be protected from all governmental intrusion were spelled out in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments approved in 1791 and considered to be a part of the original Constitution since their proposal was essential to the ratification of the Constitution).

The Philosophical Foundation

The philosophical concept undergirding all the actions of our Founding Fathers was the belief that Christian morality was absolutely essential for both the preservation of liberty and the stability of law. They emphasized this crucial point in their writings over and over again:

Samuel Adams (1722-1803) — Governor of Massachusetts, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and organizer of the Boston Tea Party:

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.1

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness.2


Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) — Signer of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician, and first Surgeon General:

The only foundation for… a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.3

Patrick Henry (1736-1799) — First governor of Virginia and member of the Continental Congress:

The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor… and this alone, that renders us invincible.4

George Washington (1732-1799) — Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, overseer of the Constitutional Convention, and first President of the United States:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… in vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…5

John Adams (1735-1826) — Member of the Continental Congress, one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, and second President of the United States:

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.6

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) — Governor of Virginia, first Secretary of State, principle author of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the United States:

No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.7

James Madison (1751-1836) — Political philosopher, considered the “Father of the Constitution” and the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” member of the House of Representatives, and fourth President of the United States:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.8

A Continuing Concept

This concept of the inalienable interdependence of constitutional order and Christian virtue was not just characteristic of our Founding Fathers. It has continued to be emphasized throughout our history:

Noah Webster (1758-1843) — Considered the “Father of American Education” and publisher of The American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828:

In my view, the Christian Religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed… no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian Religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.9

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) — American diplomat, member of the House and Senate, and sixth President of the United States. On the occasion of the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he declared:

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.10

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) — United States Senator from Massachusetts and Secretary of State:

No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.11

To preserve the government we must also preserve morals. Morality rests on religion; if you destroy the foundation, the superstructure must fall. When the public mind becomes vitiated and corrupt, laws are a nullity and constitutions are waste paper.12


William McGuffey (1800-1873) — American educator and author of the McGuffey’s Reader, first published in 1836:

The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the great moral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.13

The New York State Legislature — In 1838 the New York State Legislature declared:

This is a Christian nation. Ninety-nine hundredths, if not a larger proportion, of our whole population, believe in the general doctrines of the Christian religion. Our government depends… on that virtue that has its foundation in the morality of the Christian religion.14

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) — Victorious commander of American forces in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, military governor of Florida, and seventh President of the United States. Speaking of the Bible, he said:

That Book, sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.15

Supreme Court of the United States — Case of the United States v. Church of the Holy Trinity (1892):

No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation…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… We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity.16

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) — Governor of Massachusetts, Vice President of the United States, and 30th President of the United States:

The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.17

The United States Supreme Court — Case of United States v. McIntosh (1931):

We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.18

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) — Governor of New York and 32nd President of the United States:

We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity. 19

Peter Marshall (1902-1949) — Scottish-American preacher, pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and Chaplain of the United States Senate, in a prayer offered before the Senate in 1947:

May it be ever understood that our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else… We were born that way, as the only nation on earth that came into being for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.20

Earl Warren (1891-1974) — Governor of California and 14th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, in a Time magazine interview in February of 1954:

I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses… Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia… or to the Charter of New England… or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay… or to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut… the same objective is present… a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it… I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.21

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) — Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and 34th President of the United States:

Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism.22

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) — Governor of California and 40th President of the United States:

America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are “One Nation Under God,” then we will be a Nation gone under.23

Foreign Recognition

The French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), visited the United States in the early 1830’s. In 1835 he published the first of a two volume study of this nation, titled, Democracy in America. He revealed that the intertwining of Christianity with government was very surprising to him:

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.24


De Tocqueville’s traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont (1802-1866) was similarly impressed with the Christian foundation of American government. He wrote:

Religion in America is not only a moral institution but also a political institution. All of the American constitutions [national and state] exhort the citizens to practice religious worship as a safeguard both to good morals and to public liberties. In the United States, the law is never atheistic…25

Contemporary Recognition

University of Houston political science professors Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman in 1983 published a monumental study that took them 10 years to bring together. They surveyed over 15,000 documents written by our Founding Fathers between 1760-1805 and discovered that the Bible was, by far, the most cited source, comprising 34 percent of all quotations. In fact, the Bible was quoted four times more than any other source.26

Significantly, the next most commonly cited sources were Barron Montesquieu (1689-1755), William Blackstone (1723- 1780), and John Locke (1632-1704). All of these men were strong adherents of natural law philosophy and encouraged the incorporation of biblical law into civil law.

Lutz and Hyneman affirmed that the Pilgrims, the Puritans and the constitutional framers all insisted on cementing the connection between law and morals by infusing biblical precepts into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

In 1982 Newsweek magazine published an article entitled, “How the Bible Made America.” It concluded, “historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.”27

Even contemporary American Jewish leaders have asserted their belief that our nation is one that is based on Christian principles, and they have expressed their appreciation for the fact that this foundation has produced religious liberty for them.

Consider, for example, the viewpoint of Jeff Jacoby, a Jewish columnist at the Boston Globe:

This is a Christian country — it was founded by Christians and built on broad Christian principles. Threatening? Far from it. It is in precisely this Christian country that Jews have known the most peaceful, prosperous, and successful existence in their long history.28

Dennis Prager, a Jewish columnist and popular radio talk show host, has warned:

If America abandons its Judeo-Christian values basis and the central role of the Jewish and Christian Bibles (its Founders’ guiding text), we are all in big trouble, including, most especially, America’s non-Christians. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe.29

Don Feder, a Jewish columnist and long time writer for the Boston Herald, expressed a similar viewpoint:

Clearly this nation was established by Christians… As a Jew, I’m entirely comfortable with the concept of a Christian America.30

The choice isn’t Christian America or nothing, but Christian America or a neo-pagan, hedonistic, rights without-responsibilities, anti-family, culture-of-death America. As an American Jew… feel very much at home here.31


Michael Medved, a Jewish radio talk show host and columnist, agrees that America is indeed a Christian nation:

The framers may not have mentioned Christianity in the Constitution but they clearly intended that charter of liberty to govern a society of fervent faith, freely encouraged by government for the benefit of all. Their noble and unprecedented experiment never involved a religion-free or faithless state but did indeed presuppose America’s unequivocal identity as a Christian nation.32

President Obama’s Viewpoint

President Barack Obama has repeatedly asserted that the United States is “no longer a Christian nation,” but he has never defined what he means by this statement. What about it? Are we still a Christian nation, or have we abandoned the faith our nation was based upon?33

There is certainly a sense in which the President is correct. Although the vast majority (85%) of Americans identify themselves as Christians, only about 9% at most would claim to be born-again, Evangelical Christians. This means that most Americans are simply professing Christians, or cultural Christians.

But this sad fact does not negate the historical evidence that our Founding Fathers established this nation on Christian principles and that those principles still serve as the basis of our constitutional structure and our laws.

The problem, of course, is that those with Obama’s viewpoint are determined to cut America loose from its Judeo-Christian foundation. They have a classic European-style Humanist worldview that despises Christianity and Capitalism, and the result is that freedom is endangered.

We are speeding toward a secular, pagan society devoid of values that contribute to virtue and civility. If this transition continues unabated, our system of government will not be able to survive, for it is based upon the assumption of a citizenry that is endowed with biblical truths.

We need to pray for our nation as never before. We need to pray that the schemes of the secularists will be frustrated, confused, and defeated. And we need to pray for a national spiritual revival.

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first…” (Revelation 2:5)
https://christinprophecy.org/articles/americas-christian-heritage/
 

Wally

Choose Your Words Carefully...
Perhaps it was best said, We were a nation of Christians, having a common value system based in Biblical faith.

Now that value system is so corrupted to call our nation Christian is more a form of blasphemy.
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
Is this the same guy that teaches at John MacArthur's seminary that teaches Calvinism? :scratch

I don't agree with his article. I think this is a much better article.

America’s Christian Heritage
Is America based on Christian principles?
By Dr. David R. Reagan

The American constitutional system was the first government devised by Man that was based upon biblical principles.

Its cornerstone was a belief in the evil nature of Man, which produced a conviction that no person can be trusted with power. This belief that Man’s nature is corrupted and irreparable (apart from the power of the Holy Spirit) represented a radical departure from history. Until that time, most of Mankind had always been ruled by kings who were considered to have a divine right to rule and who usually ended up ruling like they thought they were gods.

A Biblical Example

I am reminded of the children of Israel when they arrived in the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. The Lord God Almighty served as their king. He protected them and blessed them with freedom and prosperity. When they took their eyes off Him and rebelled, He would allow foreign nations to conquer them. When they repented, He would raise up leaders, called judges, who would deliver them from foreign domination.

This unique form of supernatural rule continued for 400 years until the people rose up in rebellion during the judgeship of Samuel and demanded an earthly king so that they would be “like all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:5, 20). Samuel tried to warn them that an earthly king would abuse his power and make their lives miserable by sending their sons into war, exploiting their daughters, confiscating their fields, and imposing heavy taxation (1 Samuel 8:10-18). But they would not listen, and they got what they asked for — a long history of abusive kings.

A Unique Form of Government

The American colonists rebelled against such a king, and they had no intention of replacing the British monarch with an American one. What is amazing is that they did not proceed to establish an oligarchical form of government since most of the leaders of the American Revolution were wealthy aristocrats.

But the vast majority of them were also devout Christians, and they were fully aware of the biblical teaching about the fallen nature of Man (Jeremiah 17:5,7,9):

5) Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind…
7) “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…
9) “The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick…”


Accordingly, our Founding Fathers did not trust anyone with power — not even themselves. They therefore proceeded to construct a government that would limit the use of power.

Equally important was their conviction that the Word of God constitutes a higher law to which all men and governments are subject and that the fundamental rights of Mankind are derived from that law and not from government. Thus, in the nation’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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.”

To put it another way, the Founding Fathers of our nation expressly rejected the traditional philosophy of Humanism and its concept that Man is basically good and capable of perfection and that therefore those who are highly educated have a natural right to rule over those less fortunate. They also rejected the radical form of Humanism that came to prevail in the French Revolution and which produced a reign of terror — namely, a belief in the essential goodness of the common man.

Again, because of their world view, our Founding Fathers trusted no one. They refused to establish a monarchy or an oligarchy. But they also distrusted the common man, and so they refused to establish a democracy because they feared it would quickly evolve into mobocracy.

A Representative Republic

They therefore carefully constructed a representative republic with an ingenious set of checks and balances. For example, in the original government established by our constitution, there was only one national official directly elected by the people — the local Congressman who was elected to serve for two years in the House of Representatives. Senators were not directly elected. They were appointed by state legislatures, and this continued to be the case until the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913 which requires the selection of Senators by direct popular vote.

Likewise, the President was not originally selected by direct election. Instead, he was selected by electors who, in turn, were appointed by the state legislatures. Over a period of time, the state legislatures began to allow voters to select the electors. But as late as 1824, more than a quarter of the state legislatures were still appointing electors.

Today, all electors are selected by popular vote. Even so, the system of selecting the President continues to be indirect since voters are voting directly for electors and it is the electors who directly select the President. Thus, in the election of 2000, George W. Bush was selected as President by the Electoral College (271-266) even though his opponent, Al Gore, garnered more popular votes (543,895 more than Bush).

Our Founding Fathers also divided the powers of government between the federal government and the state governments, defining what was given to the central government, prescribing what was denied to state governments, and stating that all other powers were retained by the States (10th Amendment). Within the federal government, power was further divided between three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial. And the basic rights of the people to be protected from all governmental intrusion were spelled out in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments approved in 1791 and considered to be a part of the original Constitution since their proposal was essential to the ratification of the Constitution).

The Philosophical Foundation

The philosophical concept undergirding all the actions of our Founding Fathers was the belief that Christian morality was absolutely essential for both the preservation of liberty and the stability of law. They emphasized this crucial point in their writings over and over again:

Samuel Adams (1722-1803) — Governor of Massachusetts, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and organizer of the Boston Tea Party:

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.1

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness.2


Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) — Signer of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician, and first Surgeon General:

The only foundation for… a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.3

Patrick Henry (1736-1799) — First governor of Virginia and member of the Continental Congress:

The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor… and this alone, that renders us invincible.4

George Washington (1732-1799) — Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, overseer of the Constitutional Convention, and first President of the United States:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… in vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…5

John Adams (1735-1826) — Member of the Continental Congress, one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, and second President of the United States:

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.6

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) — Governor of Virginia, first Secretary of State, principle author of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the United States:

No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.7

James Madison (1751-1836) — Political philosopher, considered the “Father of the Constitution” and the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” member of the House of Representatives, and fourth President of the United States:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.8

A Continuing Concept

This concept of the inalienable interdependence of constitutional order and Christian virtue was not just characteristic of our Founding Fathers. It has continued to be emphasized throughout our history:

Noah Webster (1758-1843) — Considered the “Father of American Education” and publisher of The American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828:

In my view, the Christian Religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed… no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian Religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.9

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) — American diplomat, member of the House and Senate, and sixth President of the United States. On the occasion of the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he declared:

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.10

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) — United States Senator from Massachusetts and Secretary of State:

No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.11

To preserve the government we must also preserve morals. Morality rests on religion; if you destroy the foundation, the superstructure must fall. When the public mind becomes vitiated and corrupt, laws are a nullity and constitutions are waste paper.12


William McGuffey (1800-1873) — American educator and author of the McGuffey’s Reader, first published in 1836:

The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the great moral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.13

The New York State Legislature — In 1838 the New York State Legislature declared:

This is a Christian nation. Ninety-nine hundredths, if not a larger proportion, of our whole population, believe in the general doctrines of the Christian religion. Our government depends… on that virtue that has its foundation in the morality of the Christian religion.14

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) — Victorious commander of American forces in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, military governor of Florida, and seventh President of the United States. Speaking of the Bible, he said:

That Book, sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.15

Supreme Court of the United States — Case of the United States v. Church of the Holy Trinity (1892):

No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation…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… We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity.16

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) — Governor of Massachusetts, Vice President of the United States, and 30th President of the United States:

The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.17

The United States Supreme Court — Case of United States v. McIntosh (1931):

We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.18

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) — Governor of New York and 32nd President of the United States:

We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity. 19

Peter Marshall (1902-1949) — Scottish-American preacher, pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and Chaplain of the United States Senate, in a prayer offered before the Senate in 1947:

May it be ever understood that our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else… We were born that way, as the only nation on earth that came into being for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.20

Earl Warren (1891-1974) — Governor of California and 14th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, in a Time magazine interview in February of 1954:

I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses… Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia… or to the Charter of New England… or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay… or to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut… the same objective is present… a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it… I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.21

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) — Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and 34th President of the United States:

Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism.22

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) — Governor of California and 40th President of the United States:

America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are “One Nation Under God,” then we will be a Nation gone under.23

Foreign Recognition

The French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), visited the United States in the early 1830’s. In 1835 he published the first of a two volume study of this nation, titled, Democracy in America. He revealed that the intertwining of Christianity with government was very surprising to him:

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.24


De Tocqueville’s traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont (1802-1866) was similarly impressed with the Christian foundation of American government. He wrote:

Religion in America is not only a moral institution but also a political institution. All of the American constitutions [national and state] exhort the citizens to practice religious worship as a safeguard both to good morals and to public liberties. In the United States, the law is never atheistic…25

Contemporary Recognition

University of Houston political science professors Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman in 1983 published a monumental study that took them 10 years to bring together. They surveyed over 15,000 documents written by our Founding Fathers between 1760-1805 and discovered that the Bible was, by far, the most cited source, comprising 34 percent of all quotations. In fact, the Bible was quoted four times more than any other source.26

Significantly, the next most commonly cited sources were Barron Montesquieu (1689-1755), William Blackstone (1723- 1780), and John Locke (1632-1704). All of these men were strong adherents of natural law philosophy and encouraged the incorporation of biblical law into civil law.

Lutz and Hyneman affirmed that the Pilgrims, the Puritans and the constitutional framers all insisted on cementing the connection between law and morals by infusing biblical precepts into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

In 1982 Newsweek magazine published an article entitled, “How the Bible Made America.” It concluded, “historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.”27

Even contemporary American Jewish leaders have asserted their belief that our nation is one that is based on Christian principles, and they have expressed their appreciation for the fact that this foundation has produced religious liberty for them.

Consider, for example, the viewpoint of Jeff Jacoby, a Jewish columnist at the Boston Globe:

This is a Christian country — it was founded by Christians and built on broad Christian principles. Threatening? Far from it. It is in precisely this Christian country that Jews have known the most peaceful, prosperous, and successful existence in their long history.28

Dennis Prager, a Jewish columnist and popular radio talk show host, has warned:

If America abandons its Judeo-Christian values basis and the central role of the Jewish and Christian Bibles (its Founders’ guiding text), we are all in big trouble, including, most especially, America’s non-Christians. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe.29

Don Feder, a Jewish columnist and long time writer for the Boston Herald, expressed a similar viewpoint:

Clearly this nation was established by Christians… As a Jew, I’m entirely comfortable with the concept of a Christian America.30

The choice isn’t Christian America or nothing, but Christian America or a neo-pagan, hedonistic, rights without-responsibilities, anti-family, culture-of-death America. As an American Jew… feel very much at home here.31


Michael Medved, a Jewish radio talk show host and columnist, agrees that America is indeed a Christian nation:

The framers may not have mentioned Christianity in the Constitution but they clearly intended that charter of liberty to govern a society of fervent faith, freely encouraged by government for the benefit of all. Their noble and unprecedented experiment never involved a religion-free or faithless state but did indeed presuppose America’s unequivocal identity as a Christian nation.32

President Obama’s Viewpoint

President Barack Obama has repeatedly asserted that the United States is “no longer a Christian nation,” but he has never defined what he means by this statement. What about it? Are we still a Christian nation, or have we abandoned the faith our nation was based upon?33

There is certainly a sense in which the President is correct. Although the vast majority (85%) of Americans identify themselves as Christians, only about 9% at most would claim to be born-again, Evangelical Christians. This means that most Americans are simply professing Christians, or cultural Christians.

But this sad fact does not negate the historical evidence that our Founding Fathers established this nation on Christian principles and that those principles still serve as the basis of our constitutional structure and our laws.

The problem, of course, is that those with Obama’s viewpoint are determined to cut America loose from its Judeo-Christian foundation. They have a classic European-style Humanist worldview that despises Christianity and Capitalism, and the result is that freedom is endangered.

We are speeding toward a secular, pagan society devoid of values that contribute to virtue and civility. If this transition continues unabated, our system of government will not be able to survive, for it is based upon the assumption of a citizenry that is endowed with biblical truths.

We need to pray for our nation as never before. We need to pray that the schemes of the secularists will be frustrated, confused, and defeated. And we need to pray for a national spiritual revival.

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first…” (Revelation 2:5)
https://christinprophecy.org/articles/americas-christian-heritage/
This article points out, as do many others, that our nation was founded on Christian principles. But does that make it a Christian nation as is often claimed? If it is Christian, where is the emphasis on Jesus Christ and personal faith? If an individual lives his life by Christian principles but does not claim the name of Jesus, is he a Christian? He may live an upstanding moral life and will reap those benefits, but he is not a Christian.

"Although the vast majority (85%) of Americans identify themselves as Christians, only about 9% at most would claim to be born-again, Evangelical Christians." I think we would all agree that this is generally the case. I have no reason to believe it was not the case back then.

And yes, that author is Calvinist and associated with MacArthur, and I did reread it in that light . But I did not see that as an issue with what he said, nor do we necessarily throw out everything every Calvinist says, because they may speak truth on various issues.
 

Andy C

Well-Known Member
But I did not see that as an issue with what he said, nor do we necessarily throw out everything every Calvinist says, because they may speak truth on various issues.
If someone cant understand why calvinism is wrong, me personally, I would not bother reading anything else from them. The Gospel is not complicated, yet calvinists cant see through the fog of their own eyes just how lacking their discernment is.
 

Chris

Administrator
Staff member
This article points out, as do many others, that our nation was founded on Christian principles. But does that make it a Christian nation as is often claimed? If it is Christian, where is the emphasis on Jesus Christ and personal faith? If an individual lives his life by Christian principles but does not claim the name of Jesus, is he a Christian? He may live an upstanding moral life and will reap those benefits, but he is not a Christian.

I think it was back then when the country was started. Today, not so much.

"Although the vast majority (85%) of Americans identify themselves as Christians, only about 9% at most would claim to be born-again, Evangelical Christians." I think we would all agree that this is generally the case. I have no reason to believe it was not the case back then.

I don't know about that. I'm going to leave that to God to decide. I believe there will be far more people going in the rapture than the pessimists who issue low numbers for the rapture. I believe that the "one moment in time" decision that many made in genuine faith, but got caught up in the worldly things will get raptured. They will have little in the way of rewards in Heaven, but they will still be saved because of what they believe, rather than how they acted. We might all be surprised at how many or may be even how little who made it when the rapture happens. I'm not going to play the "high or low" number percentages game. No one knows for sure. Only God does. So, I will leave it to Him.

And yes, that author is Calvinist and associated with MacArthur, and I did reread it in that light . But I did not see that as an issue with what he said, nor do we necessarily throw out everything every Calvinist says, because they may speak truth on various issues.

That bolded part there to me is an error. The "wolves" in the pulpit speak just enough truth to snare people into their false teachings. A little bit of truth mixed with a little bit of lies, has been the recipe the devil has been using since the beginning. Don't fall for it Jan.

I don't want Calvinists or their teachings promoted on the forums. We will not pick and choose which teaching of Calvinists to keep or discard on RF. If someone is a Calvinist, I DO NOT want them promoted on the forums.

Even if they write a good article, I do not want it on here because people may be persuaded to read more of their teachings and writings. THAT is when people get snared into their false teachings. So, my belief is if someone has glaring teaching errors like Calvinism, I don't want it anywhere near RF.

There are too many other good teachers that we can use that are not caught up in Calvinism or another false teachings. We need to use them, not the ones teaching errors. JMHO.
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
If someone cant understand why calvinism is wrong, me personally, I would not bother reading anything else from them. The Gospel is not complicated, yet calvinists cant see through the fog of their own eyes just how lacking their discernment is.
Normally I don't either. I didn't realize it was by a Calvinist until I had already read it and agreed with it. When I looked at the author info, I then reread it looking for problems but didn't see any.
 

Jan51

Well-Known Member
I think it was back then when the country was started. Today, not so much.



I don't know about that. I'm going to leave that to God to decide. I believe there will be far more people going in the rapture than the pessimists who issue low numbers for the rapture. I believe that the "one moment in time" decision that many made in genuine faith, but got caught up in the worldly things will get raptured. They will have little in the way of rewards in Heaven, but they will still be saved because of what they believe, rather than how they acted. We might all be surprised at how many or may be even how little who made it when the rapture happens. I'm not going to play the "high or low" number percentages game. No one knows for sure. Only God does. So, I will leave it to Him.



That bolded part there to me is an error. The "wolves" in the pulpit speak just enough truth to snare people into their false teachings. A little bit of truth mixed with a little bit of lies, has been the recipe the devil has been using since the beginning. Don't fall for it Jan.

I don't want Calvinists or their teachings promoted on the forums. We will not pick and choose which teaching of Calvinists to keep or discard on RF. If someone is a Calvinist, I DO NOT want them promoted on the forums.

Even if they write a good article, I do not want it on here because people may be persuaded to read more of their teachings and writings. THAT is when people get snared into their false teachings. So, my belief is if someone has glaring teaching errors like Calvinism, I don't want it anywhere near RF.

There are too many other good teachers that we can use that are not caught up in Calvinism or another false teachings. We need to use them, not the ones teaching errors. JMHO.
Sorry, I understand we don't want Calvinist stuff on here. Like I said to Andy, I didn't realize it till later, I was just looking for info and differing viewpoints on the idea of America being founded as a Christian nation. I will try to be more careful in the future. :oops
 

Andy C

Well-Known Member
I believe there will be far more people going in the rapture than the pessimists who issue low numbers for the rapture. I believe that the "one moment in time" decision that many made in genuine faith, but got caught up in the worldly things will get raptured.
I have been saying this for years. A number will go up that far surpasses what most believe.

I think all of us at one time believed the numbers would be low based on our limited observations. I believe as Christians, we tend to judge others based on their actions, but judge ourselves based on our good intentions.
 
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