Founders' Views on Faith Pt 3

"Bruce Feiler ( America's Prophet, Council of Dads) writes part 3 in our...series this week on the Founders and their faith. The Founders, despite what liberal bloggers blogging from their mom's basement think, were religious. How much of a role did their faith play in the shaping of America? Bruce Feiler explains in "How the Story of Moses Inspired the Founding Fathers". [Glenn Beck Staff Writer, 27 May 2010].

The Founders' views on Faith: [Pt] 3

"A few years ago, I set out looking at the role of Moses in inspiring generation after generation of Americans. I had just returned home from a decade retracing the bible through the Middle East for a series of books called Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born, and was interested in how the Bible helped shape America.

I sailed on Plymouth Harbor, where the Pilgrims compared their journey to Moses; I retraced the Underground Railroad where “Go Down, Moses” was the national anthem of slaves; I climbed the Statue of Liberty, whose spikes of light and tablet were taken from the moment Moses comes down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments; and I donned the robe Charlton Heston wore in The Ten Commandments.

But nothing surprised me more than how central Moses and the story of the Exodus were to the Founding Fathers.

As the Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia in 1776, comparisons with the Exodus filled the air. From politicians to preachers, many of the rhetorical high points of the year likened the colonists to the Israelites fleeing Egypt. The Liberty Bell has a quote from Moses on its side, “Proclaim Liberty thro’ all the Land to all the Inhabitants Thereof – Levit. XXV 10.” Thomas Paine invoked the analogy in Common Sense, the best-selling book of the year. Samuel Sherwood made it the centerpiece of the year’s second best-selling publication, The Church’s Flight into the Wilderness.

And on the afternoon of July 4th, after passing the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress asked John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin to come up with a public face of the new United States. They chose Moses.

Three of the five drafters of the Declaration of Independence and three of the defining faces of the Revolution proposed that Moses be the face of the United States of America. In their eyes, Moses was our true founding father.

But how did this happen exactly? How did the reluctant leader of Israelite slaves end up as the favorite son of the founding fathers? In short, how did Moses become the hero of the Revolution?..." Full text: America’s Prophet: How the Story of Moses Inspired the Founding Fathers by Bruce Feiler

Response to comment [from a "Christian"]:  "Hey douche, how about you put all this stuff in your original thread instead of creating multiple threads? Are you just trying to add more content for your blog?"

And this person claims to be a Christian. Your horns are showing (1 Jn 4:3, 3:14). We know how you hate the truth Dooku.

Response to comment [from other]:  "How many more parts to this ongoing (and incredibly boring) saga?"

I don't know. I post them when they come out.

We know how you and Count would love for our founders to be God-haters.   Fact is--they weren't.

"Out of where?"

Glenn Beck is doing a series on the faith of our founders. Some popular historians are helping him out. I'll check in on his site every once in a while because I know how you love this stuff.

[Count and the rest of the God-haters] "What you 'know' could fit on top of a pin head with room for a mini BBQ."

You accept the fact that the founders were God honoring men? ...And you do not want to reinvent them at all at this point?

We're getting somewhere today. Your leftiness is headed right.

Let's wait and see if Dooku agrees. It's so hard to keep up discrediting each thread. I know how it frustrates him/her.

Response to comment [from a Satanist]:  "Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Paine must be surprised to find out just how Christian they really were."

Have another martini. 

Benjamin Franklin:

”...Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity..." Full text:   Franklin’s Appeal for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention

Thomas Jefferson:

"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 the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." President Thomas Jefferson

"The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson

"Of all systems of morality, ancient of modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to be so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson To William Canby, 1813

"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man..." President Thomas Jefferson

“I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, better husbands... the Bible makes the best people in the world." President Thomas Jefferson

"My views- - - are the result of a lifetime of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference of all others—" Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush On April 21, 1803

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator." Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his Bible.

"...[I]n the year of our Lord Christ." Full text:  Thomas Jefferson Document  

John Adams:

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: 'It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." President Adams, July 4, 1821

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." -- John Adams in letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams from his Oct. 13, 1789 address to the military.

"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there contained! Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance, frugality and industry: to justice, kindness and charity towards his fellow men: and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God....What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be." John Adams diary entry Feb. 22., 1756.

"The Christian religion is, above all the Religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of Wisdom, Virtue, Equity, and Humanity. Let the Blackguard Paine say what he will; it is Resignation to God, it is Goodness itself to man." John Adams retorting to Thomas Paine in his diary, July 26, 1796.

"A patriot without religion, in my estimation, is as great a paradox as an honest man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men? Can he be a patriot who, by an openly vicious conduct, is undermining the very bonds of Society? ...The Scriptures tell us righteousness exalteth a Nation." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"...a true American Patriot must be a religious man...He who neglects his duty to his maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but the God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. Trust in Him at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before Him; God is a refuge for us." Abigal Adams, wife of President John Adams in letter to husband John Adams 1776.

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, dated June 21, 1776.

"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were . . . the general principles of Christianity." John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813, The Adams-Jefferson Letters,ed. Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol 2, pp. 339-40...

John Quincy Adams:

"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God." President John Quincy Adams

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." President John Quincy Adams

"My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising... It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day... It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue." 

Thomas Paine:

"Thomas Paine on "The Study of God".  Delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797, in a [d]iscourse to the Society of Theophilanthropists...

"It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author..."  Full text:   Thomas Paine Criticizes the Current Public School Science Curriculum

Source:  ErrantSkeptics.org

Response to comment [from a Christian]:  "Scripture addresses those that hate their fathers. I'd say that also applies to Godly and noble forefathers. Jews and Christian alike face some hard times ahead for apostasy. Overdue time to turn away from confused and astray preists and turn towards God with a passion."

I wonder how many in our country feel a sense of indebtedness to those who advanced the cause of freedom?

Founders' Views on Faith Pt 3