"(It was the first time in history) an entire country was actually founded upon the idea that all human beings possess certain innate inalienable natural rights," said Robert Hutchinson, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible. "And that these are not privileges that are bestowed by the state, but are gifts from God that no state, no king or potentate can take away."
Some modern scholars would have you think if they did believe in a God, but others indicate they believed in the God of the Bible -- an intimate Lord who bestowed upon them blessings, and gave them both responsibilities and rights.
Pastor Peter Lillback recently wrote Wall of Misconception in part to correct misunderstandings about the founders and their faith.
"There are those who would like to argue that we were started by secularists, those who had no interest in religion," he said. "At best they were deists: that God was irrelevant. And the deists said 'God has not spoken.' There is no Word of God for a deist because God is not involved in history."
And yet the Bible is the book the revolutionaries turned to over and over again when laying the foundations of America.
"Over one-third of the citations of our founders come directly from the Scriptures, more than any other book," Lillback continued. "They were not biblically ignorant. As one writer said, 'They knew the Bible right down to their fingertips.'"
Another third of the founders' citations came from masters of philosophy and law, who just happened to be Christians who drew deeply from the Bible.
"John Locke, Montesqui and Blackstone; all of them were Christian thinkers. And that's two-thirds of our founders' writings, by explicitly Christian thinkers and the Bible," Lillback said.
Interestingly, the founding fathers didn't feel it was simply their right to overthrow their British rulers, but a biblical responsibility.
"There are clear passages in the Bible that when a ruler becomes a tyrant it is the duty of the people to overthrow him because he ceases to be a legitimate leader and is now a criminal," Hutchinson explained.
Some scholars say these founders wanted a high wall of separation between church and state, and infer that meant they wanted a vast distance between God and government.
"It's absolutely clear our founders did not want to separate God and government,". Lillback says the wall the founders built with the First Amendment was to prevent America establishing a coercive state church like so many other countries. So it wasn't to separate God and government.
"It was rather, 'We don't want the government to tell us how to interpret the Bible and how to use the Bible in our worship. We want to be protected from government coercion,'" he said.
The very fact the founders created a democratic republic is because of their biblical beliefs.
"Ancient Israelites were basically a tribal democracy and in Deuteronomy God commands that the people select leaders from all the people," Hutchinson said.
"If you don't believe that human rights are something given by God, then they can be taken away at the whim of the state," Hutchinson said. "And we've seen that time and again when atheistic regimes have taken over."
Hutchinson says, with few exceptions.
"The only countries on earth that actually practice religious tolerance and have civil liberties and political freedoms are those nations that descended from the biblical heritage," he said.
The reason it matters whether or not the founding fathers were true Christian believers is because if they weren't, how could they have formed a Christian nation? And that's a crucial question of national identity.
CBN News Saturday, July 04, 2009
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This is a CHRISTIAN nationby TheAtheistAntidote2,929 views
Just because some founders said the foundation of America was laid on the principles of Christianity does not mean this nation was founded on the beliefs of Christianity.
daimon7 23 hours ago
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religeon, Art. 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, president of the United States, UNANIMOUSLY ratified by the US Senate on June 10 1797!! So if the US is a Christian nation, why did the Government support and back this?
Billyyank1 1 day ago
@GB26007 you do not know your bible. Jesus Created everything that is made. Read chapter 1. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
this is speaking of Jesus.
anthonyehooker 4 days ago
@anthonyehooker no they did not, they hated christianity. They were all Deists, Washington, Franklin, Paine, Jefferson. Nature's God is not Jehovah, Jehovah is not the God of creation (this world) in the bible, Satan is!. So you have come to a dead on, you know full well America is not a christian nation
GB26007 4 days ago
@GB26007 It's not me saying this is a Christian Nation. The founding fathers said it, the Supreme Court said it. Those were here when the nation was founded. Are You denying what the people who created this nation said? That takes alot of stupidity.
anthonyehooker 4 days ago
"There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half of the world fools and the other hypocrities" ~ Thomas Jefferson
GB26007 5 days ago
@anthonyehooker i haven't got a problem with Christianity, i have a problem with you saying America is a Christian nation when it is not. Even a "Atheist" in America has "Creator Endowed rights" weather he/she wants to believe it or not, when you are born you are born with certain fundemental rights in nature, they are the "right to life " the right to own property and the right to pursue happiness.
GB26007 5 days ago
you will only find 10 out of over 250 founders who were not Christian, or at least believed in Christianity.
anthonyehooker 5 days ago
Patrick Henry
Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution
"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 gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
--The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.
anthonyehooker 5 days ago