by: Attorney David Gibbs III
America’s government was intended by our founders to rest on the stable support of a three-legged stool. One of America’s first laws as a new nation, passed in Congress at the exact time the Bill of Rights was being enacted, identified these three legs as religion, morality, and knowledge (education). This law, the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, was adopted to assist in the formation of new states and territories in the west. It declared that “religion, morality, and knowledge” were “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”
In George Washington’s Farewell Address, our nation’s first president warned citizens of the importance of preserving those same three legs of the stool when he alerted them to “with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion… Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.” For two centuries, our laws, our executive officials, and our courts kept the three legs strong. In the last several decades, however, those legs have started to wobble. Since then, the stool on which our government rests has become ever more unstable. It is beginning to look as though that stool might ultimately collapse if not soon repaired.
Today, in the face of a revisionist history that seeks to hide the truth of America’s Christian heritage, we need to be reminded that the vast majority of those who formed our nation’s government were Bible-believing Christians. We need to be reminded that these men never intended that religious freedom only be limited to the freedom to believe as one wishes; rather, they intended that America would be a land where the freedom of religion meant the freedom to exercise, or live out, what they believed, free from governmental tyranny. We need to be reminded that they knew their very lives and the freedom and future of this new nation depended solely on the benevolent hand of Almighty God.
This month’s free resource from the NCLL, “One Nation Under God,” provides just a glimpse into the profound influence Christianity had in the very early years of this nation. Being reminded of these facts will help us confidently work to restabilize our nation’s three main supports—religion, morality, and education—no one of which can continue to stand without the other two.
Fact: Christopher Columbus, who opened up the New World to the Old, was motivated by his Christian faith to make his difficult voyage.
Today, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) is a man both praised and vilified, honored and ridiculed. Was he a visionary explorer or just an opportunistic exploiter? We must be careful to avoid both extremes in our assessment. Some today completely denigrate Columbus for all the shameful deeds of those who followed him. Others exalt him as if he were a totally noble character. In reality, Columbus was a flawed man, but he was also a visionary. Most importantly, he had a very strong commitment to the Christian faith. Any reasonable study of his life shows that he was a man who loved the Scriptures and found his motivation in them. Matthew 24:14 was a very important verse to him: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Dr. John Eidsmoe, in his book, Columbus and Cortez, gives us one explanation for the recent revisionist political movement that is attempting to defame this great seafaring visionary. He says: “[S]ome are determined to remake America into a secular or pagan society. To do so, they must move this nation away from its Christian foundations.” If we remove Christianity and its impact on Columbus, we must then remove the man entirely, because without his faith and his belief in God’s call upon his life, it is unlikely he would ever have attempted to sail to the West.
Fact: In 1620, the Pilgrims drafted our nation’s first self-governing document, the Mayflower Compact, which clearly stated that they had come to the New World to glorify God and to advance the Christian faith.
This compact became a forerunner to the U.S. Constitution as the first document providing a system that would govern the new colonists. Written over 100 years before the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact—a governing document—explains that they came to this country for the glory of God, to advance the Christian faith, and that this agreement was made in the presence of God:
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
—Mayflower Compact (Modern Version)
Fact: Various settlements throughout the early colonies provided refuge for religious dissidents of all faiths.
Wherever the story of freedom is told, Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams (1603–1683), must be remembered. He was a true pioneer for Christian liberty. Today, Williams is sometimes represented in American history textbooks as a liberal who rejected Puritan doctrine, a virtual unbeliever. That image is totally false. Roger Williams was a man completely shaped by his faith in Jesus Christ.
Rhode Island, the legacy of freedom Roger Williams created, was a product of Puritanism. If Puritanism means being strict about what you believe, then Roger Williams “out-Puritaned” the Puritans. It was Roger Williams’ own strong biblical views that set him at odds with the Puritan authorities in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because his views differed in many ways from those of the political leaders of Massachusetts, he was banished from the colony. To avoid deportation back to England, he chose to flee from Massachusetts to an area outside the political control of the Puritans. Williams purchased land from the local Indians and immediately began welcoming settlers of all religious persuasions to Rhode Island, making it a haven of religious freedom for others who did not conform to the prevailing views of their colonies.
While some in the Puritan colonies saw Williams as merely a contrarian—disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing—God used him to help bring about a higher level of freedom in the United States. Williams was one of those rare people for whom conviction and the freedom to exercise religious conscience was everything. Such people live out their consciences regardless of the consequences.
Roger Williams did not set out to found a new colony; but like Paul and Barnabas in the New Testament, he and the Puritans of Massachusetts had a falling out, one that God used to multiply and expand religious freedom in America. In the providence of God, Rhode Island became a settlement dedicated to religious liberty. Its founder was a gifted man with strong biblical principles and convictions. And its capital is aptly named, “Providence.”
Fact: The education of America’s settlers and founders was uniquely Christian and Bible-based and all America’s early universities—including Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, and Princeton—were biblically Christian in their origins. Rare was the American of 1776 who did not know the Scriptures.
The little colonial student in early America marched off to his one-room schoolhouse and opened his new reading primer, but instead of reading about Jane and Spot, our little colonial friend was taught to read using magnificent truths based on the Word of God. Here is one example:
An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth.
A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure & trouble therewith.
Come unto Christ, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and he will give you rest.
When school children learned their ABC’s during the American colonial era, they also learned sound Bible doctrine. During its first two hundred years, education in America was thoroughly Christian. Our early founders agreed with Martin Luther, who had said a century earlier: “[E]very plowboy should be able to read and interpret the Scripture for himself rather than be bound to follow the interpretation given to him by his priest, for he himself is responsible to God for his own soul.”
Virtually every one of the Founders received a thoroughly-Christian education based on the Bible. In fact, from the very beginning of Christian settlements in this land, a Christian education was a very important part of colonial life for the average child, both in his formative years and later in college, if he attended. A review of biographies of the founders shows that approximately forty percent of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (at least twenty-two of fifty-six) were educated in schools that focused on training for ministry. In fact, eight signers of the Declaration of Independence graduated from Harvard, which, back then, required that every student “be plainly instructed that the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and to lay up Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” The motto adopted by Harvard in 1690, translated from the Latin, means “truth for Christ and the Church.” Yale University, in its early years, actually expelled students who persistently denied the authority of the Scriptures as God’s Word or were found guilty of heresy. Sadly, most of our institutions of higher learning in America today are saturated with teachings and philosophies that either utterly denigrate or flat-out deny the biblical Christianity that was once so prominent at these Ivy League schools.
Fact: The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God are the Basis for the Declaration of Independence.
In 21st century America, the phrase “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” contained in the Declaration of Independence, is difficult to understand. As understood by our Founders, however, the “laws of nature” refer to God’s unchanging principles established at Creation, while the “laws of nature’s God” refer to the written Word found in the Bible. In declaring their independence from Great Britain, our Founders declared their dependence upon Providence (a favorite word used by the Founders to refer to the God of the Bible). The authors of the Declaration stated:
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We think of “nature” as something physical, such as mountains or trees or animals. We also think of “nature” as describing the qualities of a person or thing. However, in the 18th century, when the Declaration of Independence was written, this phrase, “the laws of nature,” was understood to mean God’s law, obtained through reason and science, and “the laws of nature’s God” to refer to His law revealed to mankind in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. America’s Founding Fathers believed that God, as the author and judge of natural law, formed the basis in creation for our intuitions of right and wrong. They also believed that God is the primary context for our ability to reason and to govern ourselves.
In Thomas Jefferson’s climactic closing to the Declaration of Independence, he appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions.” Only God could validate the moral correctness of their movement for independence from Great Britain. Only God could grant them success in their historic endeavor, for this small band of patriots was challenging the most powerful nation in the world at that time. Jefferson reinforced this appeal by ending the Declaration with these words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
In 1776, people were very familiar with the term “divine Providence.” It meant God’s care for His people and His superintending control of the world. It was divine Providence that would be required to see them safely through the war. It was their faith in God and their confidence that independence was morally right and was God’s will for America that gave these delegates the courage to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to this cause. They knew that if they were unsuccessful they would indeed have much to lose.
Conclusion
One month after the tragic 1999 shootings at Columbine High School near Denver, Colorado, one of the parents whose daughter had been killed went to Washington, D.C. to testify before Congress. As part of his testimony, Darrell Scott, father of the slain Rachel Scott, expressed his feelings in poetry about the current direction of America. Darrell testified:
Your laws ignore our deepest needs your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage you’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms and precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere and ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws through legislative creed
And yet you fail to understand that God is what we need.
Whole generations of Americans growing up today have absolutely no idea that the heritage of this country is based on the Bible. Many today have become convinced that America was founded by a group of separationists whose primary goal was to create an environment where all public places like schools, courts, and government buildings were intended to be “religion-free zones.” Many Americans today live as if they believed that the Founding Fathers intended for us to experience both liberty and licentiousness. Many have been led to believe that our founders would be comfortable with the moral filth and unrighteousness we now live with every day in America. Sometimes it seems that any idea may be expressed in America today except the truth of the Gospel of Jesus.
Sometimes the key to victory in the culture wars lies simply in the willingness to show up for the battle. As we act, we must remember that God is in control. Ultimately, He is the one who will decide America’s fate. We have freedom today in America—but we are losing it, little by little. And if we continue down the road we are headed, one day it may be lost forever. God has not given us, or any nation, any guarantees. Our second president, John Adams, once gave a solemn admonition to us, his posterity, a word from his heart that must be taken seriously in the 21st century:
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it! If you do not, I shall repent it in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it!
The National Center for Life and Liberty
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