America's Christian Heritage

   YOU ARE PART OF A JURY TRIAL . . . the purpose is to determine America’s Christian heritage.  You have heard the propaganda from the prosecution, but now it’s time for the defense.  The evidence is overwhelming.  Have you been lied to?  We challenge you to examine these facts and decide for yourself!

   All nations that ever existed have been founded upon either some theistic or anti-theistic principle.  If we know our history, we know that America was founded upon Christianity.  Before the Pilgrims set sail for North America, Governor William Bradford stated motives for re-locating their church.  He said they had “a great hope . . . for propagating and advancing the Gospel of the Kingdom.”  The Pilgrims were all Christians!  Inside the rotunda of our capital is a painting of the Pilgrims about to embark from Holland.  The chaplain has the Bible laying on his lap. The words state, “The New Testament according to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”  On the sail is the motto of the Pilgrims, “In God We Trust. God with Us.”

   “Haven undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”  (America’s “birth certificate,” the Mayflower Compact).

   Before setting foot upon the rocky coast of Cape Cod in 1620, the Pilgrims met in the captain’s cabin and drew up the first contract of government, America’s “birth certificate,” the Mayflower Compact. It’s purpose was to establish a “Holy Commonwealth” in which only believers in Jesus Christ were fully part of the community, could vote, or hold public office.  It begins with these words: “In the name of God, Amen.”  And it continues, “Having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”

   Scholars recognize the Mayflower compact, based on the pattern of biblical covenant and government, as the founding document that led to the United States Constitution framed in 1787.  When the New England settlements finally gathered together in 1643, they formed their bond in what is known as the New England Confederation. They alleged in that document:

   “Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PAVE THE WAY
   Most people don’t realize what this nation was like at its beginning.  Even as late as 1776 — 150 years after the Pilgrims moved their church to America, we see the population of our country as: 98% Protestant Christians, 1.8% Catholic Christians, and .2 of 1% Jewish. That means (note well) that 99.8% of the people in America in 1776 professed to be Christians!  Pastors who were part of the “Black Regiment” (because of the black robes they wore) preached resounding sermons that resonated throughout New England.  The day after the famous nighttime ride of Paul Revere, the first shot of the Revolutionary War and the first blood was spilled, killing a member of Reverend Jonas Clark’s church only a short distance from the church parsonage.  Clark looked down with great anguish at those who had fallen and made this statement: "From this day will be dated the liberty of the world." 

   “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospels of Jesus Christ.”   (Revolutionary Patriot Patrick Henry). 

   An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence states, “All men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . .”

•  After signing the Declaration, Samuel Adams, who was called the firebrand of the American Revolution, affirmed his obedience to God by stating, “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient.”

•   Reverend Doctor John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration, described as the “man who shaped America” said, “God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable . . . .”

•   Benjamin Franklin, who signed the Declaration, delivered his most famous speech on June 28, 1787, at the age of eighty-one.  He stated, “The longer I live, the more proof I see that God governs in the affairs of man.  And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?     . . . except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain.”

   Other Christian signers of the Declaration are:  Charles Thompson, who is responsible for the first translation of the Greek Septuagint into English; Dr. Benjamin Rush, founder of the first Bible Society in America; Francis Hopkinson, who published the first American hymnbook; and Cesar Rodney, whose home state of Delaware (the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution) required that officeholders sign a declaration of Christian faith.

   John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, said, “Let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the Universe.”  Governor Morris, the person who wrote the Constitution in 1787 said, “Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”  William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution, closed his speeches with Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous rule, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan.”  George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights stated, “My soul I resign into the hands of my Almighty Creator.”  Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 52 strongly professed the Christian faith and signed at the end of the Constitution, “Done in the year of our Lord, 1787.”

   John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court wrote, “Unto Him who is the Author and giver of all good, I render sincere and humble thanks for our redemption and salvation by His beloved Son.”  To this day every court session begins with this shout:  “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”   

   Statesman Daniel Webster warned of political disaster.  He stated, “If we and our posterity neglect religious instruction and authority . . . no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us.”   Noah Webster, who literally wrote the English dictionary claimed, “The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all civil Constitutions and laws.”  Patrick Henry, a Christian patriot and golden-tongued orator of the Revolutionary period said, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”  Henry also said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on  religions, but on the Gospels of Jesus Christ.”  A slogan of the American Revolution was “No King but King Jesus!”

   In 1799 the Supreme Court in Maryland ruled that everyone appointed to public office had to say, “I do profess faith in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration.”  The U.S. Supreme Court in 1892 gave us the Trinity Decision.  The Court declared: “These and many other matters add to the volume . . . of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”  Today, all state constitutions contain statements about faith in God.

   “The highest glory of the American revolution was it connected, in an indissoluble bond, thee principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” (John Quincy Adams, 6th U.S. president).

   Two historians at the University of Houston did a 10-year study on the ideas that shaped our republic. The three most quoted individuals were Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke.  But biblical citations dwarfed them all.   Ninety-four percent of the founding fathers’ quotes were based on the Bible.  A hundred and nineteen of the first schools, including Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale, were founded on the Word of God.  As late as 1850, Christians ran virtually every newspaper in this country. The law and the federal and local judiciaries were either all Christians or Jewish.  Our country is simply the result of a very successful church relocation project!

PRIORITIES OF OUR EARLY US PRESIDENTS
   The first President of the United States, George Washington, professed his Christian faith publicly in many of his speeches and writings. Washington said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”  His personal prayer book, written in his own handwriting, declares: “O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful loving Father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day.”  

   John Adams, our second president, said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” 

   James Madison, fourth president of the United States and referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” stated, “The belief in a God all powerful, wise and good, is essential to the moral order of the world.”  

   John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States and “Chief Architect” of the Constitution said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” 

    Andrew Jackson, our seventh president claimed, “That book, sir, (Bible) is the rock on which our republic stands.” 

   Thomas Jefferson, third president, appointed missionaries to the Indians and established tax-exempt status for churches.  Although Jefferson is credited today as some form of authority regarding the First Amendment to the Constitution, he had absolutely nothing to do with its writing.  Jefferson was not a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he was not a signer of the Constitution, nor was he a member of Congress in 1789, when the Constitution was adopted.  He did not participate in any amendment debates, nor was he a member of any State legislature at any time relevant to the passage of the First Amendment.  In fact, he was not even in this country when the First Amendment was written.  Jefferson was no more of an authority on the First Amendment than Bill Clinton is an authority on the Viet Nam War.

   Reference to “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence or any other of our country’s official documents.  It does, however, appear in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union.  Additionally, it is ludicrous to state the Founding Fathers intended the First Amendment to outlaw prayer in public schools, when on the same day that Congress passed the First Amendment, they also passed the Northwest Ordinance which states, “Knowledge, morality, and religion being essential for the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education are to be forever encouraged.”

    In the first 150 years of the federal court system, the term “separation of church and state” appear less than a dozen times.  In the last 50 years the term appears in over 6,000 cases.  The separation of church and state was so foreign to the roots of America that Jefferson and Congress even approved a special printing of the Bible for use IN public schools!  

   Thirteen years AFTER the First Amendment was signed Jefferson penned the (now famous) Danbury letter.  After it’s signing, Jefferson rode his horse to church.  The church Jefferson attended was located in (note carefully) the halls of the US Capitol!  It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington, the state literally became the church because of the many church services in executive branch buildings including (note well) the Supreme Court!

A TOUR OF OUR CAPITOL REMINDS US
•   The Supreme Court portrays Moses holding the Ten Commandments.

•   The Capitol Rotunda contains eight oil paintings.  Four of these portray Jesus Christ and the Bible:  1) Columbus landing on the shores of the New World, and holding high the cross of Jesus Christ, 2) a group of pilgrims gathered around an opened Bible, 3) a cross being planted on the shore of the Mississippi River by Explorer De Soto, and 4) the Christian baptism of the Indian convert Pocahontas.

•   Statuary Hall contains statues of medical missionary Marcus Whitman holding a Bible.  Another statue is of missionary Junipero Serra, who founded the missions of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

•   Inscribed on the walls of the Library of Congress are these quotes: “Nature is the art of God,”  “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”  (Micah 6:8).

•   The Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument all display extensive Christian inscriptions.

   President Harry S. Truman said, “The basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.”   

   Discussing God in the Pledge of Allegiance, President George W. Bush stated, “It is confirmation of the fact that we received our rights from God as proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence.”    

   Don’t be misled because of the blatant censorship and distortion that has gone on in most of our schools and universities.  Read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and other documents for yourself, instead of just taking someone else’s word for it.  

   When we quit doing this we become no better than sheep being led to slaughter.  Jesus promised, “If you confess Me before men, I will confess you before My Father who is in heaven.” ( Matthew 10 -32).   I am doing that now.  We have allowed an ever-growing number of heathens to spring up in our nation until they are virtually surrounding the church.  It’s high time we — without shame and apology — reclaim our Christian heritage and return to the greatness with which God once blessed our nation!