Celebrating the Historic 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July 2014!

I never tire of the historical record on this topic – so many amazing documented words left to posterity for us to KNOW the minds and purposes of our Founding Fathers. It always amazes me to see how contemporary spin doctors want to twist their words to match the seemingly prevailing departure from the bold efforts of the men and women of 1776 – attempting to negate, if not erase, the predominant place that Christianity and the Bible played in the formation of our American government and society.

“The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this – it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principle of civil government with the precepts of Christianity.”

John Adams, Letters

Flawed in part – to be sure (what else could be expected when mere humans are involved) – but inherently sound at its foundations, The Declaration of Independence and subsequent Constitution were drafted in keeping with a Bibilical worldview that the Lord would ultimately guide and direct this nation so long as we remained humble in our acknowledgement of His Lordship in all our ways. Basically – when we blow it – He lets us eat the consequences that we would turn, evermore, to Him.

I am re-posting a piece I compiled a couple years ago with just the surface of a plethora of primary source material on this topic. May we remember our Lord – apart from Whom this day would not be – and mark it as John Adams hoped we would:

“It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”

John Adams

I fancy myself a writer. Often, however, I concede that I am a mere wanna-be. For when it comes to sharing in words my heart for our nation’s acknowledged anniversary, the 4th of July, I am a poor scribe. Trying to sound eloquent in the company of Jefferson’s, Adam’s, and Hancock’s – just the tip of the iceberg of the most articulate generation produced on these shores – men and women alike – I must defer to primary sources to sing the praises of the day and the author’s original intent:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . . .

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions . . . And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Thomas Jefferson

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Patrick Henry

Governor of Virginia

“We recognize no sovereign but God, and no king but Jesus!”

John Hancock and John Adams

“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that 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 and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before.”

John Quincy Adams

6th President of the United States

Excerpt from a speech on the 61st anniversary of

The Declaration of Independence, 1837

“Statesmen . . . may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.”

John Adams, 1776

“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time’ they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure . . . are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”

Charles Carroll

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all . . . Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.”

Samuel Adams

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

“The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity . . . I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

John Adams

Second President

“A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district – all studied and appreciated as they merit – are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.”

Benjamin Franklin

Statesmen, Inventor, and Scientist

“Contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence

First Founder to call for free, national, public schools

“The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.”

Patrick Henry

Revolutionary Leader & Orator

“O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust’

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

Francis Scott Key

Final verse of The Star-Spangled Banner

“I now made it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection’ that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for brethren who have served in the field; and finally that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of Mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”

George Washington, June 14, 1783

Excerpt from “Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors

of all the States on the Disbanding of the Army”