The Founding Fathers: America’s founding Christians

“The competing sides have entirely different visions of the law and of American society generally,” said Daniel Epps, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis stated for a quote in a CNN article from July 2, 2022 entitled, “Supreme Court makes it clear there’s a red America and a blue America”.

On the surface, it’s very easy to see how the divide is playing out. Red V. Blue or Republican V. Democrat. Conservative V. Liberals. Radical V. Radical.

But, the truth is a lot easier to define. The divide is between those who want to keep America based on the original Christian morals and principles of the founding fathers and those who seek to move America into a more secular direction away from God.

That’s the Truth.

There are many on the left and even some on the right that don’t want to believe this country was founded on Christian principles and our founding fathers sought to keep it that way.

We will provide some receipts for those who don’t believe. We don’t want another 1619 project revisionist history event with our founding fathers so we are going to compile it all here for you.

It [the Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests. -President Andrew Jackson

The bible is the best gift God has given to men. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. – President Abraham Lincoln

I believe the Bible to be the written Word of God and to contain in it the whole rule of faith and manners. –Robert Treat Paine, Signer of the Declaration

Remeber, that you are the redeemed of the Lord [Ephesians 1:7]-that you are bought with a price [1 Corinthians 6:20], even the inestimable price of the precious blood of the Son of God…Acquaint yourselves with Him in His word and holy ordinances. –William Samuel Johnson, Signer of the Constitution

Our all-gracious Creator, Preserver; and Ruler has been pleased to discover and enforce His laws by a revelation given to us immediately and directly from HImself. This revelation is contained in the Holy Scriptures. –James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; Signer of the Declaration

The Holy Scriptures…can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and institutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness…Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience. –James McHenry, Signer of the Constitution

Should we continue? Yea, let’s continue for anyone who still doubts our founding fathers were indeed Christians and founded America on Christian values.

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited…What a Utopia-what a Paradise would this region be! The Bible is the best book in the world. John Adams, Signer of the Declaration

The Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of energy that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of religion in the new nation exceeded that expended by any subsequent American national government. Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity.

The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world. By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects…It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts. John Jay, President of the Continental Congress, author of the Federalist Papers

No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. The first and almost the only book deserving such universal recommendation is the Bible. –John Quincy Adams, President

Congress appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces, sponsored the publication of a Bible, imposed Christian morality on the armed forces, and granted public lands to promote Christianity among the Indians. National days of thanksgiving and of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” were proclaimed by Congress at least twice a year throughout the war.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation
Whereas a joint committee of both Houses of Congress has waited on the President of the United States and requested him to “recommend a day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnities and the offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States, His blessings on their arms, and a speedy restoration of peace;” and

Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action; and

Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy–to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved; that our arms may be blessed and made effectual for the reestablishment of law, order, and peace throughout the wide extent of our country; and that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original excellence:

Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do appoint the last Thursday in September next as a day of humiliation, prayer, and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our country.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed, this 12th day of August, A.D. 1861, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-sixth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLIN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State .

At its initial meeting in September 1774 Congress invited the Reverend Jacob Duché (1738-1798), rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, to open its sessions with prayer. Duché ministered to Congress in an unofficial capacity until he was elected the body’s first chaplain on July 9, 1776.

On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams “to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America.” Franklin’s proposal adapted the biblical story of the parting of the Red Sea (left). Jefferson first recommended the “Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by Day, and a Pillar of Fire by night. . . .” He then embraced Franklin’s proposal and rewrote it (right). Jefferson’s revision of Franklin’s proposal was presented by the committee to Congress on August 20. Although not accepted these drafts reveal the religious temper of the Revolutionary period. Franklin and Jefferson were among the most theologically liberal of the Founders, yet they used biblical imagery for this important task.

Congress set December 18, 1777, as a day of thanksgiving on which the American people “may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor” and on which they might “join the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance.” Congress also recommends that Americans petition God “to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.'”

Congress was apprehensive about the moral condition of the American army and navy and took steps to see that Christian morality prevailed in both organizations. In the Articles of War, seen below, governing the conduct of the Continental Army (seen above) (adopted, June 30, 1775; revised, September 20, 1776), Congress devoted three of the four articles in the first section to the religious nurture of the troops. Article 2 “earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers to attend divine services.” Punishment was prescribed for those who behaved “indecently or irreverently” in churches, including courts-martial, fines and imprisonments. Chaplains who deserted their troops were to be court-martialed.

Our Founding Fathers were based Christians who, without a doubt, founded this country on Christianity.

Our job is to keep what they built.

“A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” James McHenry