I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture , but the issue of the founding fathers’ views on religion got one of the biggest responses.
It is true that 29 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had degrees with Bible Colleges or Seminaries and these men we know were God-fearing Protestants. This means they had a biblical view of man with an understanding of our sin nature and this led them to come up with a limited government with many checks and balances. They had a strong belief in the afterlife and in future punishments and rewards. They also encouraged Christianity and were not hostile to religion. However, they did not set up a Christian Theocracy but wanted freedom of religion.
People really are losing their faith in big government and they want more liberty back. It seems to me we have to get back to the founding principles that made our country great. We also need to realize that a big government will encourage waste and corruption. The recent scandals in our government have proved my point. In fact, the jokes President Obama made at Ohio State about possibly auditing them are not so funny now that reality shows how the IRS was acting more like a monster out of control. Here is a clip discussing the founders and what their religious views were.
Here is some comments from our debate on the Arkansas Times Blog in July of 2013:
YossarianMinderBinder, you think David Barton is a con man. I think if you look at the historical facts that he puts forth then you will come to a different conclusion. Tell me how you can deal with these historical facts from Greg Koukl?
https://thedailyhatch.org/2012/09/12/open-l…
In a letter to the White House in 2012 I included these words by Greg Koukl:
Who Were the Founding Fathers?
Historical proof-texts can be raised on both sides. Certainly there were godless men among the early leadership of our nation, though some of those cited as examples of Founding Fathers turn out to be insignificant players. For example, Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen may have been hostile to evangelical Christianity, but they were firebrands of the Revolution, not intellectual architects of the Constitution. Paine didn’t arrive in this country until 1774 and only stayed a short time.As for others–George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, John Witherspoon, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and even Thomas Jefferson–their personal correspondence, biographies, and public statements are replete with quotations showing that these thinkers had political philosophies deeply influenced by Christianity.The Constitutional ConventionIt’s not necessary to dig through the diaries, however, to determine which faith was the Founder’s guiding light. There’s an easier way to settle the issue.The phrase “Founding Fathers” is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group of men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose thinking deeply influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding Fathers, though, made up the core.The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public record. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists–Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin–this at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith.[1]This is a revealing tally. It shows that the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were almost all Christians, 51 of 55–a full 93%. Indeed, 70% were Calvinists (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and the Dutch Reformed), considered by some to be the most extreme and dogmatic form of Christianity….
What Did the Founding Fathers Believe and Value?
When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a precise picture comes into focus. Here it is:
Virtually all those involved in the founding enterprise were God-fearing men in the Christian sense; most were Calvinistic Protestants.
The Founders were deeply influenced by a biblical view of man and government. With a sober understanding of the fallenness of man, they devised a system of limited authority and checks and balances.
The Founders understood that fear of God, moral leadership, and a righteous citizenry were necessary for their great experiment to succeed.
Therefore, they structured a political climate that was encouraging to Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than hostile to it.
Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for the first 150 years of our history.
However…
The Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian theocracy.
They specifically prohibited the establishment of Christianity–or any other faith–as the religion of our nation.
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