Founding Fathers and Christianity

By Rich Kozlovich

In 1776 every European settler defined themselves as either Christians with the exception of 2500 Jews and 98 percent of all colonists were Protestants the remaining were Catholic. How good a Christian these men and women may have been is immaterial since if we decide perfection is the only definition of a Christian…..there are no Christians.

But make no mistake about this. America was founded by Christians and with the intent of this being a nation based on Christian ethics and principles. This idea the founders were deists is mostly leftist swill as there’s “virtually no evidence than a handful of civic leaders in the Founding era—notably Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and (if we count him as an American) Tom Paine—embraced anything approximating this view. "  Personally, I’ve felt for many years Franklin was a closet atheist….but so what?

Whether these few and important founders were deists or something else, is immaterial, since a more than reasonable argument can be made they were influenced by Christian values and ethics profoundly. Furthermore, there is no reasonable argument to show they desired a strict separation of church and state. And there’s more than enough in the historical record that the rest were clearly Christians.

Jefferson’s much quoted and misused statement about a wall of separation was to keep government out of religion, not religion out of government.

The original colonists came to America to live Christian lives and in to be able to worship a Christian God in a manner they desired. They viewed their efforts as a “sacred cause”, mandating “regular church attendance, and to proclaim that anyone who speaks impiously against the Trinity or who blasphemes God’s name will be put to death.”

The “Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, and Massachusetts Body of Liberties are filled with such language—and in some cases, they incorporate biblical texts wholesale. Perhaps more surprisingly, tolerant, Quaker Pennsylvania was more similar to Puritan New England than many realize. The Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania (1681) begins by making it clear that God has ordained government, and it even quotes Romans 13 to this effect."

Article 38 of the document lists “offenses against God” that may be punished by the magistrate, including: swearing, cursing, lying, profane talking, drunkenness, drinking of healths, obscene words, incest, sodomy…stage-plays, cards, dice, May-games, gamesters, masques, revels, bull-baiting, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and the like, which excite the people to rudeness, cruelty, looseness, and irreligion…” “at least nine of the 13 colonies had established churches, and all required officeholders to be Christians—or, in some cases, Protestants. Quaker Pennsylvania, for instance, expected officeholders to be “such as possess faith in Jesus Christ.”

“The Founders’ use of Christian rhetoric and arguments becomes even more evident if one looks at other statements of colonial rights and concerns such as the Suffolk Resolves, the Declaration of Rights, and the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms—to say nothing of the dozen explicitly Christian calls for prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving issued by the Continental and Confederation Congresses.”

The Declaration of Independence, the most famous document produced by the Continental Congress during the War for Independence, proclaims: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As well, this text references “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” and closes by “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world” and noting the signers’ “reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

“In 1775, at least nine of the 13 colonies had established churches. Although establishments took a variety of forms, they generally entailed the state providing favorable treatment for one denomination—treatment which often included financial support. Members of religious denominations other than the official established church were usually tolerated, but they were occasionally taxed to support the state church, and some were not permitted to hold civic office.”

“After independence, most states either disestablished their churches (particularly states where the Church of England was previously established) or moved to a system of “plural” or “multiple” establishments. Under the latter model, citizens were taxed to support their own churches. Although a few Founders challenged establishments of any sort in the name of religious liberty, most arguments were framed in terms of which arrangement would be best for Christianity.”

But are we to believe creating a more equitable concept of church and state meant these people who were so clearly enthusiastic Christians were now abandoning that enthusiasm for Christianity?

History shows unquestionably the founding fathers believed it was absolutely permissible for the state to encourage Christianity by the mere fact none of these anti-Christian policies promoted by the left in government and the courts was ever touted from the very beginning of this nation’s creation.

Everything else is cherry picking rhetorical leftist swill using our own values against us to undermine the American identity, the Constitution and the nation.

The left constantly uses our own values against us, and we just don't seem to get it.  The founders never intended for the First Amendment to be a suicide pact.  America's founders were Christians and America was a Christian nation until the left decided to use our values against us, and we let them, because they've been horribly successful, including corrupting Christian institutions with their anti-God philosophy, where Marx is as likely - and maybe more likely - to be studied than the Bible.

We're heading into a Seldon Crisis with no vision, no plan and no values, and we've lost our minds!