If you had to decide which document had the most significant impact on the founding of the United States which one would you select and why? Maybe, you’d say it was Jefferson’s immortal words penned in The Declaration of Independence? Perhaps, you’d point to the genius of Madison and how he framed The Constitution? Or what about Thomas Paine’s fiery pamphlet Common Sense? No doubt each of those were vital to America’s beginning, but I would submit to you that each of them take a backseat to the impact of the Bible.
Despite what the liberals,
atheists and secularists would deceive you into believing, America’s foundation
is deeply rooted in the Bible. Consider just a few facts:
·
The Mayflower Compact was written in 1620 by the first settlers of Plymouth
as they sat in the captain’s quarters of their ship before setting foot on
American soil. The famous document, also known as the “birth certificate of
America,” affirmed that they set out in this great undertaking, “for the glory
of God and the advance of the Christian faith.” Their story is well chronicled
in one of the first books written in the New World, Of Plymouth Plantation by Governor William Bradford. It was he,
through citing the Bible, who named them “pilgrims.” Bradford quoted from 1
Peter 2:11, which says, “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshy lusts which
war against the soul.”[1]
·
George Washington
set the tone as our first president by declaring, “It is impossible to rightly
govern the world without God and the Bible.”[2]
When Washington was inaugurated as president in 1789 in NYC, he got down on his
hands and knees and kissed the Bible. Then he led the Senate and the House of
Representatives to an Episcopal church for a two hour prayer service. That’s
enough to send the ACLU into apoplexy![3]
·
John Jay was one
of the authors of the Federalist Papers
and became America's first Supreme Court Justice. He also served as the
president of the American Bible Society. Dr. Benjamin Rush, who signed the
Declaration of Independence and who attended the Constitutional Convention, was
a founding member of the Philadelphia Bible Society.[4]
John Witherspoon, also a signer of the declaration of Independence, was the
president of Princeton University and an ordained Presbyterian clergyman.[5]
·
Two professors
from the University of Houston, Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman, wanted to
discover whom our Founding Fathers quoted most often. After ten years of
studying more than 15,000 documents, they found that more than a third of all
the Founding Father’s quotes ad citations in speeches and correspondence came
directly from the Bible.[6]
·
During the first
160 years of our nation’s history, public-school students were encouraged to
learn the moral precepts found in the Bible. For example, in 1782 the US
congress said, “The Congress of the United States approves and recommends to
the people the Holy Bible for use in schools.”[7]
Ken Woodward, writing in Newsweek magazine in an article
entitled, “How the Bible Made America,” said, “Historians are discovering that
the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.”[8] -DM
[1] D.
James Kennedy & Jerry Newcombe, What
If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 62.
[2] David
Jeremiah, What in the World Is Going On?
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 126.
[3]
Kennedy & Newcombe, 69.
[4] Robert
Jeffress, Hell? Yes! And Other Outrageous
Truths You Can Still Believe (Colorado Springs: Water Brook, 2004), 170.
[5]
Kennedy & Newcombe, 68.
[6]
Jeffress, 171.
[7]
Ibid. 181.
[8]
Ken Woodward & David Gates, “How the Bible Made America,” Newsweek (27 December 1982).
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