PAST COLUMN #14

From the West Meadow
By Pastor Wesley Higgins

For several generations we have been taught that the Founding Fathers of this nation were very suspicious of organized religion; that because of this, they built into the Constitution a strong “wall of separation” between church and state. Nothing could be further from the truth! Our founding fathers had very strong religious beliefs, and were very concerned about maintaining the “free exercise thereof”.

James Madison, known as the chief architect of the Constitution, said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization...upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, and to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” So ingrained in their thinking was their Christian belief, that they built our governmental system upon the foundation of God’s Word.

James Madison also wrote “religion (is) the basis and foundation of government”. The constitutional delegates so desired Godly influence in the writing of this nation’s foundational documents that time was set aside during the convention for the hearing of God’s Word, for Bible study, for prayer, and for fasting.

An honest study of the historical record reveals just how strong the Christian beliefs of the new nation were. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams declared: “We have this day restored the sovereignty to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His Kingdom come.” Though it seems to have been hidden from our view, the motto of the American revolution was “No King, but King Jesus!” Mankind’s freedoms, cries our Declaration, are “endowed by their creator”. Even the US Supreme Court, in the 1892 case Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, declared “these and many other matters...add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation”.

Regardless of what some modern historians would have us believe, this nation was not only founded by men of strong Christian faith, but its very foundation was based on God’s word, the Holy Bible. These men found in their Christian beliefs the basis for the freedom which they sought–freedom from tyranny. William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, wrote, “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

Be warned: the government of the United States of America was founded by a moral and just people, for a moral and just people. It will not prosper, nor even properly function, any other way!

Remember the song America? One stanza prays, “Our fathers’ God, to Thee/ Author of Liberty/ To Thee we sing:/ Long may our Land be bright/ With freedom’s holy light/ Protect us by Thy might/ Great God, our King!”

This is my prayer for you.

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