I apologize in advance for the length, but I couldn’t find a way to shorten it! Quickly, in regards to the monuments in Washington, they are built by people who, over the past 100 years, have tried to scrub away G-d from the public sphere-MLK Jr’s monument has no mention of G-d and he was a preacher! It was his faith that propelled his activism for equality (only a Biblical doctrine, not man).
I think the letter of Adam’s above is an example of his detest for governmental religious control, not against the holy Spirit itself.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’ll just chime in anyway! The Christian Nation, the theocracy, that the Puritans wanted to establish is different than the American Nation established on the Judeo-Christian religion and the Bible, combined with the knowledge of what worked in the democratic Republics of the past. I think keeping that distinction clear is important. However, Puritan principles and experiments in government were a contributing factor in her development.
I would suggest reading their letters yourselves and coming to your own conclusions. They are fascinating! It’s important not to just read a letter here or there, but over the course of their lives. These men questioned things far more than many modern Christians are comfortable doing about many areas of authority- the churches and the states- and had knowledge about various past church doctrine and heresies or assumed heresies that aren’t really discussed in the modern church either. In addition, terms that we use weren’t exactly the same as they are now. For example, what Unitarianism was at the end of the 18th cen. and the beginning of the 19th is different than what it became in the mid-19th to now.
Recall that they were also much closer in the historical time-line to the atrocities of the state Catholic and Protestant church (like Q. Elizabeth’s enforcement of her Protestantism) and the effects of the Protestant Reformation with the many varied doctrines that resulted. For example, some Calvinistic Anti-nomianism, at that time, had become a problem in the doctrine of eternal salvation as it allowed for immoral living w/eternal security. So there was a lot of railing against Calvinistic teachings in Jefferson’s and Adams’ writings for that reason and others against church abuses throughout history. Adams also railed against ridiculous French ideas that lead to the French Rev.-but I digress.
They didn’t use evangelical language as is common today. The Founders had no problem questioning that there were certain Christian doctrines that the church had stated as undeniable truth that may not be; and they disputed them. Those that dispute those “truths” could be considered as not excepting Biblical Revelation, when it’s not Biblical Revelation at all, but a human invention happened to be sanctioned by the Church. A personal example of that type of non-orthodoxy, would be in my rejection of the common view of the pre-trib and mid-trib Rapture doctrine, eternal salvation doctrine, an aspect of the Trinity doctrine (which I won’t detail so as not to freak anybody out) and what happens to us after death prior to the Second coming (again, not going into detail here).
The Founders were so prolific in their writings that it is easy to verify what they were thinking. You can look up the laws and Proclamations they supported and made to discern what they believed and how they viewed religion to be lived out in the public square and not be hindered by gov’t. Not a “Christian Nation” from the Federal stand point of having an established state religion, like in Europe; however, it was stated that she was established on Christian principles. It was most certainly not a secular nation they envisioned, as we have now. They would be appalled at the muzzling of the churches via the tax code and mandates; the decay of virtue; they would decry the lack of action among self-proclaiming Christians in their communities and country, they would be amazed at the Biblical illiteracy among most everyone and inability to think critically (prior to the 20th C., the Bible was considered the foundation of a learned person) and definitely be amazed that those crying for social justice in the liberal churches would use government (i.e, making it tyrannical) to enforce their religious moral code and calls for “pure democracy” where rights do not come from Nature’s G-d, that they’re not unalienable, but come from man.
I don’t think people are trying to put their hope in an America t moves away from secularism and back to our Judeo-Christian foundations instead of hope in Messiah’s and the hope of the World to Come. Being salt and light through your moral living and the churches affecting the culture and community used to be the norm, whereas now they have either abdicated their role in society and/or it’s been eroded by the power of big gov’t. The bigger the gov’t. the less influence the churches have- look at Europe. Should Believers act less like Messiah so that the End Times come?
I think both renewing the good aspects in America’s spiritual past and the hope in the saving knowledge of Messiah can co-exist together. Ultimately I know that all Nations will turn against Israel and from G-d and Messiah will return. However, no one knows the time. Perhaps if those who claim to believe in the G-d of the Bible and His plan of Salvation would live accordingly as reflected in their lifestyle choices which in turn becomes the culture, then our country would not be on its secular descent.
Was Jefferson a Christian as we would define it? No. Did he believe in the Creator G-d of the Bible? Yes. I don’t think he was a full-fledged Deist; Franklin neither. Were there Christians, as we would define it, during the First and Second Congresses and then the Constitutional Congress? Absolutely. Can you reject the Trinity doctrine and still believe that Jesus is the Savior? Yes
Our Founder’s, whether Deist, non-orthodox Christians or Orthodox Christians, they formed our Nation upon the Laws of the Bible, Biblical teachings of individual freedom, the intellectual benefits of the Age of Reason and the Renaissance, the teachings of Messiah, Grecian virtue, and the best of past Republics and Democratic principles. Check out the wording of the original Constitutions (some may still be relatively unchanged) of the various states. Very revealing.
One last thing: the Treaty of Tripoli is cited many times as being the example how John Adams did not endorse Christianity and America.
It states: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
We were fighting Muslim pirates who had clumped us together w/Europe, whose Monarchs ruled as absolutes, with the authority of Heaven, requiring their subjects to follow their religion; not to mention the violent history between Christianity and Islam. So we had to clearly establish the differences between ourselves and the “Christian Nations” of Europe to make peace w/these Barbaries. Context is so important.
I’ll post a separate post about some book resources I think are helpful.
I hope this was helpful perspective-it’s a wonderful topic.
