In America, 'There is a revolt against biblical truth'
America’s founding was deeply influenced by the principles of Christianity. While our nation has not always lived up to our ideals, the principle of human dignity and the promises of “liberty and justice for all,” articulated in 1776, still stirs our hearts today.
Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are utterly unique in the history of nations. They were framed under the influence of a biblical understanding of life, history, government and human nature. We desperately need to return to this understanding.
While the earliest settlers were not saints, they were overwhelmingly professing Christians—pilgrims, missionaries, and pioneers. The composition of the early colonies at the time of the American Revolution was 98% Protestant. Most of our Founding Fathers self-identified as Christians, even though they had their blind spots. Yet many of their actions gave testimony to their faith, including appointing chaplains, issuing calls for prayer and fasting, maintaining established churches in the states and using federal funds to promote religion and morality in the schools because they believed it was necessary for good government.
In fact, I like to think of it this way: Our three great founding documents were the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bible.
“The Bible?” you say. Yes, it was a kind of spiritual constitution for most Americans, let alone the book that shaped their Western world. They believed it was the most important book in history. Why? Because it set forth divine revelation and God’s moral law. It promoted wisdom, justice, virtue, dignity and goodness, besides revealing who God is and his redemptive work. While we were not founded as an explicitly Christian nation, the Bible and especially the Biblical idea of covenantalism (which gave birth to constitutionalism), deeply influenced both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Story by Dr. Donald Sweeting for The Jerusalem Post
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