Subject: Are we really "1 nation under God? |
Bible Note: Ok dougboy777, lets see what you've got. :-) As for me, here is some "evidence" that America WAS founded by Christian people, was envisioned to be a Christian nation, and was inhabited by an overwhelmingly Christian population... From the beginning of our nation's history, religion had a place in politics, in education, and in every aspect of American life. Consider the following: * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - John Adams, Second President (Speaking of July 4, 1776) - "I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty." Letters of John Adams, Addressed To His Wife, Charles Francis Adams, ed. (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), Vol. I, p. 128, July 3, 1776 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - "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." The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, June 21, 1776 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." The Correspondence and Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1890), Vol. IV, p. 393, Oct. 12, 1816 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - Alex de Tocqueville, Historian (1800's) "Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention...The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other... Religion in America...must...be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country, From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved." The Republic of the United States of America and Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined, Henry Reeves, trans.(Garden City, NY: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1851), Vol. I, p. 335 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - John Quincy Adams, Sixth President "[T]he birth-day of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birth- day of the Saviour [and]forms a leading even in the progress of the gospel dispensation..[T]he Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth [and] laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity." An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), pp. 5-6 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - Noah Webster, Founding Father "[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government." History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1832), p. 300, ΒΆ 578 * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - Thomas Jefferson, Third President "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of 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." Notes on the State of Virginia(Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, p. 237 PART 1 OF 2 |