The American Wisdom Series

Presents
Pamphlet 344

Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?

I. HOW WAS AMERICA FOUNDED?
 Just what did our founding fathers have in mind, when they set up this nation?
Listen to what they said:

A. Listen to the Discoverer of our continent, Christopher Columbus,
when professional opinion warned him that dragons and death awaited him,
beyond the charted waters.  He said: "It was the Lord who put it into my mind--
I could feel His hand upon me--the fact that it would be possible...

All who heard of the project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me...
There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit,
because He comforted me with rays of illumination from the Holy Scriptures...
It was simply a fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied...
the fact that the gospel must be preached in such a short time to so many lands...
this is what convinced me."  In other words, the Holy Spirit of Jesus
led Columbus to discover this continent, as part of spreading the Christian gospel.

 B. Or listen to the first settlers on our shores:
  1- 1606--the charter was obtained from King James of England
for a settlement in Virginia: "To make...a colony of our People
into that part of America, commonly called Virginia...in propagating
of the Christian religion to such People as yet live in Darkness...
to bring...a settled and quiet government."
  2- 1620--The Pilgrims wrote their Mayflower Compact:
"Having undertaken for the glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian faith...
a voyage to plant the first colony..."
  3- 1629--First Charter of Massachusetts, so that: "Our said people...
may be so religiously, peaceably, and civilly governed, as their good life
and orderly conversation may win and invite the natives of (that) country
to the knowledge and obedience to the only true God and Savior of mankind,
and the Christian faith, which, in our royal intention, is...the principle end of this plantation."
  4- The charters of other early colonies reflect a similar purpose and commitment:
  -Maryland, 1632, "for extending the Christian religion."
   -North Carolina, 1662.  A charter was granted, because the colonists were "excited
with...pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith..."
   -Rhode Island, 1663, "that they, pursuing...religious intentions...
in the holy Christian faith...a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained...
grounded upon Gospel principles."
 I don't want to bore you, but the charters of Connecticut, New Hampshire,
Georgia, and New Jersey were virtually a restatement of the Christian goals,
reflected in these other charters.  Our nation was discovered and founded
to be a nation that honored Jesus Christ!

C.   Or listen to our first educators.  Our great colleges
were founded "to stop that old Deluder, Satan, from keeping men
from the knowledge of the Scriptures." ("Old Deluder Satan Law"--1647)
  1-America's first college, Harvard: "Let every student be plainly instructed
and earnestly impressed to consider (that) the main end of his life
and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ...and therefore lay Christ
as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning."
  2-1692-William and Mary was founded "that the Christian faith may be propagated."
  3-1701-Yale was founded "to propagate in this Wilderness,
the blessed Reformed, Protestant religion."
  4-1746-Princeton was founded by Presbyterians with the motto:
"Under God's Power She Flourishes."
  5-It is a fact that 106 of the first 108 colleges in America were founded on the Christian faith.

D. Or listen to the patriots, who fought for our freedom.  They did it for Jesus.
  l- Their cry was "No King but King Jesus."
  2- Samuel Adams, the "Father of the American Revolution," declared:
"Our cause is just" and it was..."a Christian duty to defend it."
  3- General George Washington, the "Father of Our Country,"
wrote to his Minutemen (July 9, 1776) asking "Every officer and man...
to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest
Rights and Liberties of his country."    Throughout the Revolution,
miraculous interventions frequently saved the new American army,
which should have been easily crushed by the British might.
 But Washington tells of unexplained fog and rainstorms,
which allowed the Americans to escape certain defeat.
 Once George Washington found four bullet holes in his jacket.
He later met a man, who had personally fired 17 shots at him.
 He even had several horses shot out from under him.
Yet he lived, miraculously protected by the power of God.
(By the way, this amazing story appeared in public school textbooks
for over 100 years.  Why can't it still?)

E. Or listen to those who framed our new government,
as they speak very plainly of the necessity of Christ and the Bible
as foundation stones of the American Republic:
  1- President George Washington (October 1789):
"It is impossible to rightly govern...without God and the Bible."
 In his farewell address (1796), he states that "reason and experience,
both, forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle."
  2- In 1892, the Supreme Court declared that "this is a Christian nation."
As its defense of this, they mention numerous "organic utterances" of the founders.
Let me skim a few, for you to get the idea:
   John Quincy Adams, 6th President: "The highest glory of the American Revolution
was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of government
and the principles of Christianity."
   Patrick Henry: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often
that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians;
not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ."
   John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and one of three men,
who framed the Constitution, said: "Make sure you elect Christians for rulers.
 It is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation,
to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
   James Madison, the "Chief Architect of the Constitution," said:
"Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."  "Religion...
is the basis and foundation of government.  We have staked the whole future
of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it...
(but) upon the capacity of each and all of
us to govern ourselves...according to the Ten Commandments of God."
   Noah Webster, called "America's Schoolmaster," who authorized textbooks
for schools and was responsible for the good old faithful Webster's Dictionary, said:
"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."
   In his first Dictionary (1828), he regularly used Bible verses
to clarify the context, in which a word was used.  The Dictionary
has later undergone censorship to remove its Christian perspective.
 He must be rolling in his grave!
    And what did they offer our school children?
For many years (from 1690) the New England Primer
was the textbook of American schools.  When it taught the
alphabet, it used Biblical phrases:
    A-"A wise son makes a glad father."
    B-"Better a little with the fear of the Lord..."
    C-"Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden."
    E-"Except a man be born again, he cannot..."

 Can you imagine this?  Listen, we were founded to be a Christian nation!
Our founding fathers did everything in their power to set it up and keep it that way.
 They based our laws on God's Word.  They even set up our three branches
of government, with the separation of power and the checks and balances,
based in Isaiah 33:22 and Jeremiah 17.  94% of all their quotes are from the Bible.
This is where they got their idea for our form of government.
 And it has been remarkably successful!  Our same constitution, documents,
and system has survived, unchanged, for 220 years, while (during that same period)
France has had 7 different forms of government and Italy, 48.
 This has been our national heritage.  Let us not forget it.
And let us not turn from the God, who made us great!

 This leads me to the second question... II. WHEN DID THIS CHANGE?

 Today all we hear is "Separation of Church and State."
The Christianity of our founders is being pushed out of
the American way of life very obviously and very forcibly.
What happened?  It's a long story, and I'll try to make it brief.
Most people (67%) believe that the phrase "Separation of Church and State"
is found in our first amendment to the Constitution.  Please, show it to me!
 None of these words, "separation," "church," or "state,"
can be found in the first amendment.  ("Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.")
Check the records, and you'll find that the first amendment was after one thing:
to make sure that we didn't have one denomination running the entire country,
like they did in England.  We did want God's principles, but we didn't want
one denomination controlling things.  The idea was clarified in 1796:
"by our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion
and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing."
There was no separation of church and state.  The church was being protected
from the state, but the state was to be influenced by the church.

 But, in 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association heard a rumor
that the Congregationalist denomination was to be made the national denomination
of America; and, in good Baptist fashion, they fired off a letter
to President Thomas Jefferson, expressing their concern.
 On Jan. 1, 1802, Jefferson addressed them and said not to worry,
because "the first amendment has erected a wall of separation
between the church and the state."  What he meant was that the church
was being protected from interference by the state. But he could not
have meant that there was a wall, isolating the government from the
Christian principles that our founding fathers had deemed so necessary
for the success of our form of government.
 However, in 1853, a small group petitioned the powers-that-be
for the separation of Christian principles from our government.
The House and Senate studied the matter for a year and reported this:
"Had the people who fought in the Revolution had the suspicion of
any attempt to war against Christianity, that revolution would have
been strangled in its cradle."  "At the time of the adoption of the
Constitution and its amendments, the universal sentiment was that
Christianity should be encouraged but not only by one denomination...
in this age there is no substitute for Christianity...that was the religion
of the founders of the Republic, and they expected it to remain the
religion of their descendants.  The great, vital element of our system
(what holds it together) is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines
and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ." (March 27, 1854)
In other words, we are not going to separate the Christian religion from government.
 This is what has made us so successful.  It is our foundation.
 The Supreme Court used this principle for the next 93 years,
in order to make sure that Christian principles remained as a part of our government...
until 1947, in the case of "Everson vs. the Board of Education."
And suddenly this new court reversed everything.  They said:
"The first Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state.
That wall must be kept high and impregnable."  This was something new.
This was not what Jefferson had said.  For the first time in 170 years
of our national history, the first Amendment was being used to protect
the government from Christian principles and not to protect the church from the state.

 William James, the "Father of Modern Psychology," said:
"There is nothing so absurd that, if you repeat it often enough,
people will believe it."  And that is what began with this 1947 ruling.
Our courts started to say: "This is what our founding fathers wanted:
complete separation of church and state."  And they have said it so often
that 67% of Americans believe it!  And the Christianity,
which our founders held to be so vital to the success of our nation,
has been under threat ever since!
 In 1958, one of the Supreme Court judges, who was tired of hearing about this,
said: "If this court doesn't stop talking about separation of church and state,
someone is going to think it is a part of the Constitution."
 Well, they continued to talk about it, until June 25, 1962,
when the "Engel vs. Vitale" case came up.  And "for the first time in America's history,
there was a ruling to separate Christian principles from our government"
(World Book Encyclopedia, 1963).  This was the case that removed prayer
from our schools.
 This liberal Supreme Court, for the first time, used ZERO precedents for its decision.
It simply announced that "we'll have no prayers in school any more."
 By doing so, they violated our constitution and our historical heritage.
And in a year's time, they had completely removed prayer, Bible reading,
and religiously moral instruction from our schools.
It was a radical reversal of everything, for which our nation had stood for 180 years.
 The only explanation the court made for taking the Bible out of school
(June 17, 1963-"Abingdon vs. Schremp") was that: "if portions of the New Testament
were read without explanation, they could have been and had been
psychologically harmful to the child" (in other words, the Bible had to come out of schools,
because it causes psychological damage to a child.
 I wonder what those liberal judges would think, if they had been able to see
the condition of our schools and city streets today, where children have grown up
with no idea of right and wrong?)  At that time, the Court did a study
and found that 97% of Americans believed in God.
Yet they threw God out of our schools, because of the 3% who didn't believe in Him.
 They said, "We side with the 3% against the 97%” That’s another "first"
in this strange new "fuzzy" logic!  Now the philosophy of the 3%
would have to become the philosophy, under which 97% would have to
conduct their lives.  It's crazy!

 But it leads me to my third question... III. WHAT DIFFERENCE DID THIS MAKE?
 When we forgot our godly heritage and tried to run this nation,
apart from the God who made it great, what has been the effect?
What has happened to our school students, since that fateful 1963 decision?
 Teenage pregnancy has increased 550% and sexually transmitted diseases,
among school students, has climbed 226%.
 Or what has happened to the educational system since 1963?
 Check the SAT scores.  Way down!  They had remained stable, since 1926.
But since 1963, they have steadily declined, until now they are so low
that (for the first time in America's history) we are graduating a generation
that knows less than their parents did, when their parents took that same test.
And what has happened to families since 1963?  For 15 years prior to '63,
divorce had been declining in America.  Since '63, the number of divorces has tripled every year.
We all know that the family is in trouble as never before.
And now we are supposed to recognize same sex marriages!
And what has happened to our nation, since 1963?  "Surely,
our great nation is still #1 in the world!"  You are right.  Since '63,
we are #1 in: violent crime, divorce, teen pregnancy, abortions, suicide,
illegal drug use, and illiteracy.

 Psalm 78 warns us not to forget our godly heritage.  Jeremiah 6:16 says:
"If you want the ways of peace, go back to the old paths."
I think it's time to GO BACK FOR THE FUTURE!

 But... IV. WHAT CAN WE DO?  How can we get back to our national heritage?
Three things:

 A. GET SMART.
Start to study how our nation was supposed to work.
We're not a lynch mob, ruled by the majority.  We are a Constitutional Republic.
Study your Constitution.  Have you ever read it?  Will you believe an absurd lie,
if you hear it often enough?  Christians need to know,
so we can be a preserving influence on our society.
That's what our founding fathers told us to do!

 B. GET INVOLVED.
Politics may be a "dirty business," but we can't turn it over
to immoral and godless people.  We need to get involved locally and nationally.
 Did you know that only 30% of evangelical Christians have even bothered to vote?
We'd better vote this time.  This election will be pivotal in our history.
Charles Finney once said: "Christians must take the right ground in government.
 Christians must do their duty in government as a part of their duty to God.
 God will bless or curse this nation, according to the course that Christians take in politics."

 C. GET RIGHT.
Our nation cannot rise above its individual citizens.    Tell me, are you right with God?
 Are you a reason for Him to bless, or a reason for Him to curse, our nation?
Have you turned from your selfish ways and made Jesus your Savior and Lord?
Are you living and teaching your children by the principles of this Book?
That is exactly where each of us needs to start, and we need to start today!

 Let's go back to our godly heritage, for the sake of the  future!