Was America Founded by Men of Faith?

For the last few decades we have heard and witnessed an out and out attack on our founding fathers who birthed this nation. Our children have been taught every wart and blemish that can be found on them, yet are not taught of their greatness. One of those misleading teachings has been how our founders were not Christians, and were either Deists or maybe even Atheists. Nothing could be further from the truth. This started mostly in the late 50s and early 60s. Many old books were re-edited to eliminate all references to the faith of our forefathers, for instance one of the key history writings that historians all study Alexis De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" was over 780 pages long from when it was first written during the presidency of Andrew Jackson until 1956 when from then on it is only 275 pages with all references of faith and it's importance in American society and in it's founding were removed. Let's look at some facts together.

Of the 55 men who signed the Declaration of Independence 52 were members of orthodox Christian Churches and many were evangelical.

A story about George Washington that used to be in all of our history books until about 40 years or so ago was when he was a young colonel fighting with the militia during the French and Indian war. He was with a British brigade that was bushwhacked with a "new way" of battle where the French and Indians hid instead of lining up to fight. His army was destroyed. He was the only officer of the 86 who wasn't shot. After the battle he wrote a letter to his brother that said; "by the all powerful desperations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability, or expectation for I had four bullet holes through my coat and two horses shot from beneath me."

Twenty years later he went back to visit that battlefield with a friend, James Craig. While there an Indian Chief who had fought in that battle asked to meet him. He told Washington that he had at the onset told his warriors to kill all the officers first, and that he himself had fired 17 times at Washington. He said that he came to realize that Washington was being protected by God and order his men to no longer shoot at him. "I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of that great battle, I have come to pay homage to the young man who is the particular favorite of Heaven, and who can never die in battle."

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly, or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Patrick Henry

"Why it that next to the birth day of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns to the day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation indivisibly linked with the birth day of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity."
(this continues for 60 pages)
John Quincy Adams: July 4th 1837

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it's the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
John Jay, first Supreme Court Justice, and co-author of Constitution.

Where did the Founders get their ideas of government that produced the longest lasting Constitutional government now at 220 years? Consider that at near the same time Italy and France changed their governments, France has had 7 total different governments since then and Italy has had 51.

The University of Houston did a study to find out. They believed that if they could read all the quotes being written during their time and compare them with quotes referenced by the Founders that they could get an idea of how the Founders thought. They studied 15,000 writings from their era, it took 10 years to complete this exhaustive study. They isolated 3,154 direct quotes and were able to identify them to their sources.

Here is what they found:
Most Quoted:
1. Baron Charles de Montesquieu 8.9%
2. Sir William Blackstone 7.9%
3. John Locke 2.9%
The Bible directly 34%

Sir William Blackstone was the top source for legal thought, his book Blackstone's Commentary on Law published in 1768 was the legal text book used in American Law Schools for 160 years. What was in this book?

How about this story, Charles Finney went to law school, and through his reading and study of the law through Blackstone's book he learned so much about the Bible, through the non-stop scripture used to validate the case of each legal discussion that Finney became a Christian and became one of the most prominent evangelists of his time.

When they crossed referenced the quotes they learned that a full 94% of every quote by the Founders came either directly or indirectly from the Bible.

3 Branches of Government comes from Isaiah 33:22
Separation of Powers from Jeremiah 17:9
Tax Exempt of Church Ezra 7:24

Often Congressmen would come to the floor of Congress and read something that they felt enlightened by in the Bible. They would then discuss and debate it and would put it into the law.

Congressional Record from Sept.25th 1789 showed that a discussion of II Chronicles 6 led to the declaration of the 1st Thanksgiving holiday.

The left's obsession with the First Amendment creating a wall between Church and State is a fallacy that at least needs to be looked at from a historic respect.

1st Amendment
"Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise there of."

It never says anything about separation of church and state.
Here are the facts. Shown by Supreme Court cases following the 1st Amendment, and the Justices reasoning.

People v Ruggles 1811
"whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends to manifest by to the dissolution of civil government."

This was a case where two decades after the 1st Amendment a man was handing out pamphlets attacking Christianity, he was convicted and charged with attacking the Federal Government by attacking Christianity.

U.S. Congressional records from June 7th through Sept. 25th,1789 as they debated the Constitution what the clear intent of the 1st Amendment.
That was to not have any one denomination running the nation.

1799 Runkel v Winemiller
"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christianity are placed on the same equal footing."

Just where did the "separation of church and state" begin? How did it become part of our national vernacular?

In 1801 the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury Connecticut heard a rumor that the Congregational Denomination was about to be make the National Denomination and it worried them greatly. It was only a rumor, but they wrote to brand new President, Thomas Jefferson. He wrote them back on January 1st 1802 and said:
"The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State. They need not fear a National Denomination."

We never hear Jefferson's words in context or intent anymore.

In 1853 a group using Jefferson's letter tried to spin it to petition Congress to remove all things Christian from government. It was referred to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees who researched this claim for nearly a year the final decision was:

House Judiciary Committee Report
March 27th, 1854
"Had the people (Founding Fathers), during the Revolution, a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity that Revolution would have been strangled in the cradle...at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and it's Amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but not any one sect (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 decedents."

Two months later they released another committee report:
"The great vital and conservative element in our system, the thing that holds our system together is the belief of our people in the pure doctrine and the divine truth of the Gospels of Jesus Christ."

For the next 15 years the Supreme Court used Jefferson's letter as proof that it only meant "Not establishing one denomination."
From this date on the Court continued to requote themselves on this, to the point when we were warned from the bench from a dissenting Justice.


This constant refrain of Separation of Church and State has caused us to add it to our National vernacular.

Consider the warning of Dr. William James;
"There is nothing so absurd but that you repeat it often enough people will believe it true."

June 25th 1962 Engel v Vitale
Stuck down School Prayer
World Book Encyclopedia even commented in their 1963 books that this set new precedents never before seen in American History.
This changed the definition of Church that up until 1962 had always meant a denomination, after that Court they defined it to mean "any religious activity performed in public."

This was a brand new doctrine, it had never been seen before that in history. It was unusual in many ways.

Remember that 1892 case that cited 87 Precedents? the case in 1962 was the very first case in Supreme Court history to use 0 precedents, 0 legal cases, and 0 historic incidents. They simply made an announcement.

They outlawed school prayer even though 94% of all the quotes of the Founding Fathers used during the deliberations in writing our Constitution were from the Bible.

In Abinston v Schempp and Murray v Curlett June 17th 1963 they reaffirmed the ban on school prayer with this wording.
"If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be and had been psychologically harmful to the child."

The insanity continued:
Reed v Vanhoven 1965
"allowed prayer over lunch in school as long as no one could tell it was a prayer."

Dekalb b DeSpain 1967
The court declared a nursery rhyme unconstitutional. The reason:
"although the word God was not mentioned, if someone were to hear the rhyme he might think it was talking about God."

Stone v Graham 1980
Removal of the 10 Commandments from Schools.
"If the posted copies of the 10 Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the school children to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the commandments, which is not a permissible objective."

Now let's hear from the chief architect of the Constitution.
"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 each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the 10 Commandments of God."
James Madison

And now our kids aren't supposed to read them?

By the way, the prayer that led to the Supreme Court decision to ban all school prayers is a 22 word prayer.
"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependency upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.
Kind of a prayer light, it has been said it was more or less a "to whom it may concern" prayer. It only mentions God one time, the same as the Pledge of Allegiance and one fourth of the times God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

George Washington's Farewell address he spoke to each of his warnings:
"Let you with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education or minds reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." " Let it simply be asked, 'Where is the security for life, for reputation, and for property, if the sense of religious obligation deserts?"

Thomas Jefferson said:
"The precepts of philosophy laid hold of actions, only but Jesus pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the water at the fountainhead."
In other words, only religion can stop a crime before it happens.

John Adams:
"We have no government armed with 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."

When the 13 Colonies became 13 States they needed to set up new state governments. Below you will see a very common thread that ran through most of their new State Constitutions.
Delaware Constitution 1776
"Every person appointed to the public office shall say 'I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost. One God, blessed for evermore. And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."

An acknowledgement of Christian belief was a requirement for holding public office during the years of the Founding Fathers.

Pennsylvania and Vermont Constitutions
"And each member of the legislator, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration. I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the Rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked."

Since they believed that men would be rewarded or punished for their sins after death, but no nation could be, they believe that the nation would be rewarded or punished for the decisions of the leaders in the moment.

The Constitutional Convention 1787

George Mason: The father of the Bill of Rights explains:
"As Nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of cases and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities."

This is why they felt it critical that we only elect Christian leaders who would themselves be accountable to God.

Benjamin Franklin:
"We needed God to be our friend and our ally. We need to keep God's concurring aid. If a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible an empire can rise without his aid? We've been assured in the sacred writing that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

Thomas Jefferson: "And can liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basic, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Benjamin Franklin, 1774 while Ambassador to France
"He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world."

This was his advice to the French government.
So please, don't try to say that the Founding Fathers didn't want God in our Nation, in our Government, and in our hearts.