abstract: it is unjust to criticize the Founders for not knowing what we know, not seeing what we see. And it is equally wrong to portray the Founding Era (or any era for that matter) as an idyllic time that, if we could only return to it, would solve all our problems. They were men who sought to create a country where true freedom could be preserved. The loss of freedom should not be blamed on them but on their faithless followers who despised the foundations and pulled down the ancient landmarks and to the Church which has refused faithfully to preach the faith once for all delivered to the saints

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by Steve Wilkins

(An Address to the National Reform Association, October 9, 1999)

Too often we are people of extremes and reactions -- both of which are characteristic of folk who have grown up in a revolutionary age. Having been propagandized with the lies of the Philistines from our youth, we rejoiced in the early in seventies when some began again to point out the Christian roots of this nation. But being extremists at heart we over-reacted and sought (all with good and noble intentions) to make anything America did as "the will of God" and turn this country into the "new Israel."

It was a mistake and predictably drew forth a response from others that we had gone too far. Professors Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden brought forth the book The Search for Christian America -- raising the question of just how "Christian" this "Christian" country was. It was, I thought a helpful caution and one that should be heard. Consequently, Dr. Gary North and others have brought forth the theory that the Founding Fathers, far from being Christians were, in fact, conspirators devoted to undermining the Christian foundations of the country. I want to examine this thesis which, it seems, has been embraced by many in our day. What was the role of Christianity in the Founding era?

Was there an "American Enlightenment"? It is often assumed that the thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment were greatly influential in this country. A number of things should be noted:

Most of the citizens were unfamiliar with the works of the more radical enlightenment thinkers. Gary North notes: "few people who were involved in the war -- soldiers, laborers, farmers, sailors, wives -- had heard of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, let alone had read their works. A few churches may have had pastors who were in some way influenced by Deism or Unitarianism, but French atheism was utterly foreign to the colonies, and the milder Enlightenment heresies were not much more acceptable." ("The Declaration of Independence as a Conservative Document", The Journal of Christian Reconstruction vol. III, Summer, 1976, no. 1, p. 95)

It is evident that even the intellectual and political leaders were not always intimately familiar with the thinking of the more radical of the Enlightenment thinkers. Bernard Bailyn makes this observation, "The citations [i.e., from Enlightenment thinkers] are plentiful, but the knowledge they reflect, like that of the ancient classics, is at times superficial. Locke is cited often with precision on points of political theory, but at other times he is referred to in the most offhand way, as if he could be relied on to support anything the writers happened to be arguing." (The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, p. 28) Though not inconsequential, the influence of the Enlightenment thinkers was not in any sense dominant or determinative (Ibid., p. 30).

Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman have shown that the assumed dominance of Enlightenment thinkers and in the writings of Americans is fallacious. They reviewed an estimated 15,000 items, 2,200 books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and monographs printed between 1760 and 1805. Their conclusions are revealing: "The source most often cited by the founding fathers was the Bible, which accounted for 34 percent of all citations. The fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, because of its heavy emphasis on biblical law, was referred to frequently." (Referenced in John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, pp. 51,52) The "Enlightenment" thinkers garnered only 22 percent of the citations and even this figure is somewhat misleading: The "First Enlightenment," [i.e. the more conservative movement] dominated by Montesquieu, Locke, and Pufendorf, comprises 16% of all citations. The more radical writers of the "Second Enlightenment," men like Voltaire, Diderot, and Helvetius, garner 2% of the citations. The "Third Enlightenment," [most radical of all] typified by Beccaria, Rousseau, Mably and Raynal, received 4% of the citations . . . (Ibid., p. 52) It ought to be remembered also that this listing includes both negative as well as positive references (some of the references to the more radical writers were negative rather than complimentary).

Rushdoony also points out that just because Americans quoted from Enlightenment thinkers in no way proves they were sympathetic to their overall philosophies: "Enlightenment writings were known to Americans; in arguing their case for independence, American thinkers freely resorted to the thinkers who carried weight with Europeans, but this did not mean an acceptance of their framework. American thinking was still essentially Christian, and its context was more theocentric than humanistic." ("The Myth of an American Enlightenment," The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, vol. III, Summer, 1976, no. 1, p. 70)

Deism, in its consistent European form, never had a wide following in America. Gary North notes, "English Deism was never imported in its original form. A consistent Deist argued that God is remote. God once built the world, but since then he has permitted it to function autonomously, almost as a giant cosmic clock might operate. God is therefore wholly removed from his handiwork, an uninterested, or at least only passively interested, spectator to human affairs. A modern historian would be hard-pressed to find any American, let alone a leader in the movement toward political separation, who believed such a God would or could exist." (North, op. cit., p. 95)

Those leaders in this country who have been called Deists did not have this view of God. Benjamin Franklin (who is consistently referred to as a Deist) was hardly one of the "European" stripe: "Franklin was a deist as a young man, but he became disenchanted with deism. While Franklin probably never became a Christian in the orthodox sense, he came a long way from deism in his eighty-four years." (Eidsmoe, op. cit., p. 44) Remember, it was Franklin who only three years before his death, stood to call the Constitutional Convention to prayer. ["I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. . ."] (quoted from Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention in Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. I, pp. 450-452)

Thomas Jefferson also made statements which show him to be something other than the classical Deist. Jefferson was a self-professed Unitarian but never a deist.

John Adams and Jefferson who both privately rejected trinitarianism, never publicly acknowledged their Unitarian beliefs -- it would have been political suicide. Rushdoony observes that Deism always had the flavor of foreignness, of something alien and hostile. (Rushdoony, op. cit., p. 70)

Perry Miller makes this observation: "Actually, European deism was an exotic plant in America, which never struck roots in the soil. 'Rationalism' was never so widespread as liberal historians, or those fascinated by Jefferson, have imagined. The basic fact is that the Revolution had been preached to the masses as a religious revival, and had the astounding fortune to succeed." (Ibid., p. 97) In other words, the American Enlightenment, such as it was, occurred after, not before, the War of Independence. Deism was savaged by colonial churchmen.

Much has been made of the colonists usage of John Locke (who has been labeled a Deist by many). But a number of things must be noted:

1. Locke was emphatically not a Deist in the common sense of the term. James Bulman makes this point plainly: "For all his insistence on reason, Locke subjected his reason to the Bible; because the Bible is altogether reasonable, while his capacities were faulty . . . Locke said, 'I shall presently condemn and quit any opinion of mine, as soon as I am shown that it is contrary to any revelation in the Holy Scripture.' . . . he affirmed the Scriptures to have been 'dictated by the infallible spirit of God.' . . . The Bible is the book, Locke said, 'Whither, at last, every one must have recourse, to verify that of it, which he finds anywhere else.'" (It Is Their Right, pp. 22,23) Regardless of what we might think of some of Locke's views, it must be acknowledged that these sentiments are not those of the consistent Deist.

   Archie Jones has this to say about Locke's political views: "Locke himself was the direct heir of Puritan political thinkers, as well as the son of a Puritan, who not only claimed that he derived his political teachings from the Bible, but whose political teachings 'had become the common stock-in-trade of the Independents as a whole.' . . . for Locke, God was not absent from the civil order; rather, it was under His rule and was to be ordered according to His will." (The Christian Roots of the War for Independence, The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, vol. III, Summer, 1976, no. 1, pp. 32,33)

   Winthrop S. Hudson notes: "Where did Locke derive his political ideas? With regard to his general political principles one need not look far. They were being shouted from the housetops during the years he was at Westminster and Oxford, and they had been explicated again and again by the sons of Geneva with whom he was in contact throughout his life." (Ibid., p. 33)

2. The colonists quoted Locke selectively. Where he defended liberty and property, they quoted him; where he advocated majoritarianism, they ignored him. It must be remembered that Locke followed a long line orthodox theological writers (Calvin, Vindicae Contra Tyrannos, Samuel Rutherford, John Owen, etc.) and often was merely restating familiar principles which had Biblical foundations.

   Hudson notes, "It is well to remember, however, . . . that Locke was used selectively by the colonists, and that he was preceded by a long line of more explicitly theological political thinkers who originated and developed the themes of society as contractual, of individual rights and of the right of the people to revolt against an unjust ruler." (Ibid., p. 32)

   It should also be noted that often the colonists would invest Locke's terminology with their own meanings and they did the same with much of the vocabulary of the enlightenment.

3. Locke was very respected on both sides of the Atlantic. He had been the chief apologist for the Glorious Revolution in 1688. It was far more politically advantageous to quote Locke than it would have been to quote earlier Puritan political theorists. Hudson notes that Locke was: "made to order for those who sought to defend the rights of the American colonists in the years preceding the American Revolution. On the one hand, his political thought was thoroughly acceptable in America because it was a restatement of familiar principles -- principles forged by the heirs of John Calvin during the English Civil Wars and long the common property of most of colonial America. On the other hand, as the chief apologist of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which brought William and Mary to the English and Scottish thrones, Locke was eminently respectable." (Ibid., p. 33)

   James Otis noted that to have cited the Puritan writers would have given opponents of the colonial cause excuse to raise the cry of rebellion. (Ibid.)

It needs to be noted that the charge that the colonists got their ideas from the leaders of the Enlightenment overlooks the long history of American constitutionalism and governmental theory. Donald Lutz has made a most important observation in this regard: "In 1641, John Locke was only nine years old and Montesquieu, Rousseau, Blackstone and the other major writers prominent in late eighteenth century were not to be born for at least another half century. Yet by 1641, much of what will become American constitutional government is already operating under the early foundational documents." (Lutz, "The Origins of American Constitutionalism: The Colonial Heritage" in Juris: For Jurisprudence and Legal History, 2, 1987, p. 5; quoted in Douglas Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World, p. 124)

This alliance between American biblicism and the European Enlightenment may seem odd but is to be explained by the fact that there was an agreement on practical goals. Also, the fact the many of the influential thinkers operated within a Biblical framework: "They had accepted the pietists' [American Biblical] presuppositions, and they had adopted the pietists' arguments. Nor were the rationalists 'secular' in their point of view. They still thought in terms of the claim of God in the natural order as it was made known to them by the light of nature." (Ibid.)

The vast majority of the men who framed the Constitution were all skeptical of the assertions of the Enlightenment thinkers of Europe. Dr. M. E. Bradford states, "An internal transformation of American society in the direction of a secularized egalitarian state was the furthest thing from the minds of these men." (op. cit., p. ix) Pierce Butler, delegate from South Carolina, during the debate on allowing foreigners to hold office in this country, stated that these people brought with them not only attachments to other countries but ideas of government so distinct from ours that in every point of view they are dangerous. (Bowen, op. cit., p. 207)

All of them would later come to view the French Revolution with disgust. Hamilton referred to France as "a frightful volcano of atheism, depravity, and absurdity." (Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution p. 156) They often spoke with disdain of the "philosophical abstractions" of the European thinkers. Rufus King (delegate from Massachusetts) had an absolute horror of "political abstractions." Dr. Bradford notes: "By 1786 he had put away entirely any earlier faith he might have had in the 'common man'; [King would say] 'the great body of the people are without virtue, and not governed by any Restraints of Conscience.' 'Equality.' in his view, was the 'unnatural Genius' of his age, 'the arch Enemy of the moral world' whose disposition is to degrade what is worthy, not to raise what is low. To argue to the contrary was to advocate 'principles that do not exist.'" (Bradford, op. cit., p. 12)

The "classical" philosophers and political thinkers of Greece and Rome had little influence as well. It is important that we pause to remember that the whole concept of "representation" is a distinctively Biblical concept and "representative government" is an inheritance from ancient Israel through the Reformation. It is not in any sense borrowed from Greece or Rome as we are so often told. Russell Kirk makes this observation:

Representative government did not exist, nor was even thought of in ancient civilizations. In the city-states of the Hellenic and the Roman epochs, a free government was one in which the citizens -- or at least the principal men among them -- could assemble in a forum, debate public concerns, and vote as individuals. In neither republican Rome or imperial Rome was any attempt made to "represent" the far-flung provinces or even to represent Italy; for during the Republic the government was carried on by the Senate, an aristocratic self-perpetuating body; and during the Empire by the emperors, their power virtually absolute. (America's British Culture, p. 48)

This is not to say that we have gained anything from the history of Greece and Rome, but it is to say that we have gained little positive from their history (other than what not to do) and we have gained next to nothing from the philosophies of these so-called "classical" civilizations. Most leaders in this country had fair acquaintance with the most prominent classical authors. But, as Russell Kirk points out, "from such study the American leaders of the War of Independence and the constitution-making era learned, by their own account, chiefly what political blunders of ancient times ought to be avoided by the Republic of the United States." (Ibid., p. 98)

All familiar with the civilizations so loved by modern humanists know that their history is a long recital of betrayal, intrigue, rebellion, civil strife and fratricidal warfare. For this reason these men agreed with Madison's judgment that the political systems of Greece and Rome were "as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius of America." (Ibid.)

Classical philosophers fared little better in the opinion of our founders. John Adams once remarked that he had learned from reading Plato two things only: "First, that Franklin's ideas of exempting husbandmen and mariners etc., from the depredations of war, were borrowed from him; and second, that sneezing is a cure for the hiccough." (Ibid., p. 99)

Was there a conspiracy to undermine Christianity in this country?

Many have criticized the Constitution for not expressly mentioning Christianity or the Christian faith and perhaps things would have gone better for us if the founding fathers had done so. But there were two factors that might explain this omission:

1. The Constitution was viewed as a "procedural" document and not as a philosophical defense of the nature of government. Few, if any, of the founders would have denied the centrality of "religion," and by that they would have meant "Christianity," to sound government. Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists papers indicate this. They basically assumed this fact however when it came to writing the Constitution.

2. Secondly, they could not conceive of this country in anything but Christian terms. The fact that the United States was a Christian country, was unarguable and a given that needed no confirmation. They could not imagine this country ever turning away from Christianity, so pervasive was it among the citizenry. Should they have thought this? No. Did they? Yes.

But what about the phrase "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States"? Isn't this an acknowledgment that the supreme authority in this country is "the people" and not God?

Well, no. Though we have lived to see it interpreted in this way, that is not the way it was originally intended by the framers. Much has been made of this phrase by those who seek to find evidence for radical democracy and centralism in the Constitution. They contend that the framers intended to found a consolidated centralized government rather than a federation of states. This argument was first set forth by the "monarchical Federalists" in the latter part of the eighteenth century and expounded by their followers in the early nineteenth century (most notably, Judge Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Justice Story asserted that the government formed by the Constitution was not a federation of states, but a union of the people of the nation as a body.) Daniel Webster and the radical abolitionists popularized this position prior to the War Between the States to oppose the arguments in favor of the legitimacy of secession. The position has been propagated ever since as that of the founding fathers.

There can be little question that the phrase in the minds of the framers did not imply a "consolidation" of the various states nor the institution of democracy. The original language of the Preamble as drafted by the Committee of Detail and presented to the Convention on August 6, read: "We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare, and establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity." (Max Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, vol. 2, p. 177)

This language was unanimously adopted on the next day though it had to be amended when it was decided that two-thirds of the States would be necessary for adoption of the Constitution. It was noted that it would be improper to name the States as parties to the document until they had actually ratified it. Thus, the final language was "We the People of the United States." Clearly however, the idea was that the individual states were to be the parties to this new government not the "people" in mass.

Forrest McDonald observes: "Few delegates, however, thought of themselves as representing America or the American people. The others thought of themselves as representing the people of the several states severally -- separate political societies -- and the rules of the debates, including the rule that each state's delegation had but one vote, no matter what the number of its delegates, reflected that distinction." (Novus Ordo Seclorum, p. 185)

This was later confirmed during the debates over ratification. In Virginia, Patrick Henry raised the objection that the states were not mentioned in the Preamble: "Give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, 'We the People,' instead of 'We the States?' States are the characteristics, and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated national government of the people of all the States . . . Had the delegates, who were sent to Philadelphia a power to propose a consolidated government instead of a confederacy?" (Norine Campbell, Patrick Henry: Patriot and Statesman, p. 338)

Henry and others were concerned that this language would be interpreted to imply that we had formed a "consolidated" national government which would be ruled by the majority and run roughshod over the rights of the individual states. He would later say, "I find that these shrewd Northern Statesmen have outwitted our Southern men again in the wording of these amendments (the 'Bill of Rights'). They determined when this Constitution was framed to make this a great consolidated National Government of all the people of the States. To secure this object they inserted in its preamble the words 'We, the people of the United States,' instead of 'We, the States.' Their object was to make it a Government of a majority of the whole people; that is a Government of the Northern people . . ." (Ibid., p. 382)

In answer to these charges, James Madison replied, "Who are the parties to it? The people -- but not the people as composing one great body; but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties; were it as the gentleman [Henry] asserts, a consolidated government, the assent of a majority of the people would be sufficient for its establishment . . . the remaining States would be bound by the act of the majority, even if they unanimously reprobated it: were it such a government as is suggested, it would be now binding on the people of this State, without having had the privilege of deliberating upon it; but sir, no State is bound by it as it is, without its own consent. Should all the States adopt it, it will be then a government established by the thirteen States of America . . ." (Quoted in James Bulman, It is Their Right, p. 11)

Madison confirmed his position in The Federalist, in answer to the charge that the framers had departed from their commission to revise the original Articles of Confederation. He maintains that the essential character of the proposed union is unchanged, "Will it be said that the fundamental principles of the Confederation were not within the purview of the convention, and ought not to have been varied? I ask, What are these principles? Do they require that in the establishment of the Constitution the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed . . . We have seen that in the new government, as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction. The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation." (The Federalist, No. 40)

C. Chauncey Burr, who edited an edition of Abel P. Upshur's The Federal Government: Its True Nature and Character, makes this comment in regard to this phrase: "The phrase is, WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, not the people of AMERICA. The very phrase shows the Federal Union to be a government of STATES, and not of the people of all America, as a consolidated body . . . 'The people of the United States,' in the preamble of the Constitution, has the same meaning as 'the people of the SEVERAL STATES,' in the second section of First Article of the same instrument. The idea of SEVERALITY or SEPARATENESS and not that of CONSOLIDATION, is clearly implied . . . The Constitution of the United States is a grant by grantors to a grantee. The grantors are the 'several States,' not as a consolidated people, but as separate and independent sovereignties -- 'the people' as organized into 'several' distinct sovereign communities. Thus the Supreme Court of the United States declares that: 'The States form a confederated government; yet the several States retain their individual sovereignties, and with respect to their municipal regulations, are to each other sovereign.' . . . Again, 'The powers retained by the States proceed not from the PEOPLE OF AMERICA, but from the people of the SEVERAL STATES, and remain after the adoption of the Constitution what they were before.'" (The Federal Government, p. 122n)

Thus, what was formed was a "compact" (or "covenant" or "confederation") between the several states that adopted the Constitution. The States retained their powers and merely delegated certain powers to a federal government which would be superior in those areas specified in the compact. The Federal government is the servant of the States. And that was the intention of the language. Not to subvert republican government or to establish a democracy.

But what about the forbidding of "religious test oaths" in Article VI?

Though there were those present who believed this could be used to allow Atheists and pagans to take office (Luther Martin of Maryland was one), the majority read it simply as a prohibition against allowing one denomination to take precedence over another. This motion was made by Charles Pinckney, a devout Episcopalian from South Carolina. It was seconded by Gouverneur Morris, an Episcopalian. It was also seconded by Charles Pinckney's cousin, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a devout Episcopalian who for more than fifteen years before his death was unanimously elected president of the Charleston Bible Society. The farthest thing from these men's minds was banning Christianity from the nation or opening up offices to pagans and atheists! They were concerned, however, to preserve the place for Episcopalians in the political process by preventing the doctrinal position of any particular Christian denomination from becoming the position of the oath.

Edmund Randolph commented on this provision in the Virginia ratification debate, "It [i.e., the prohibition of religious test oaths] puts all sects [i.e., denominations] on the same footing. A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office or trust under the United States. I am a friend to a variety of sects, because they keep one another in order. . . And there are so many now in the United States that they will prevent the establishment of any one sect in prejudice to the rest, and will forever oppose all attempts to infringe religious liberty." (Farrand, vol. 3, p. 310)

North Carolina's great statesman, James Iredell, responded to Antifederalist objections to this clause in the North Carolina convention. The people, he said, wanted no Anglican establishment, but neither did they wish to see the United States as less than an openly Christian nation, indeed, a Protestant, Christian nation. They did not expect to allow Roman Catholics into the highest offices but in particular, they feared an influx of pagans, unbelievers, deists, and "Mahometans."

He went on to appeal to British history to demonstrate that nothing was implied by the exclusion of religious tests other than a hope of keeping the national government within the necessary boundaries of restraint and away from the bad example of "establishment," British style. "Had Congress undertaken to guaranty religious freedom, or any particular species of it, they would have had a pretense to interfere in a subject they have nothing to do with." To Iredell, that which Congress guarantees, is under its authority. Christianity is not under the authority of Congress, therefore, to give no guarantee is to protect the freedom of the faith. (Bradford, Original Intentions, pp. 82-83)

Further, as Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut noted, the provision made in the Constitution for swearing in of the "officers of the United States" made such things as "religious test oaths" an unnecessary redundancy because of the nature of oaths. An oath, he said, "is a direct appeal to that God who is the avenger of perjury. Such an appeal to him is a full acknowledgment of his being and providence."

James Iredell made the same point in North Carolina. The oath, said Iredell, "is a solemn appeal to the Supreme Being for the truth of what is said, by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being." Thus, in Iredell's mind, the oath itself was a test since it establishes the fact that political authority does not flow from the people but from Him "who hath made us as we are," the Great Sovereign to whom we all shall owe an accounting at the last day. (Ibid., p. 92)

They had a fear of an established denomination but no fear of this country becoming a pagan nation. Virtually every state made reference to the fact that they were Christian republics in their state constitutions. In most of the states public office holders were required to affirm their belief in the teachings of the Bible. Nearly all the states had in their laws penalties for "apostates, blasphemers, and idolaters." In a number of states unbelievers were not allowed to testify in courts of law or to serve on juries.

In such an environment, the only strong fear anyone had was that one of the established denominations (mainly the Presbyterians) would push for the exclusion of all others. Thus, the fear of a few in the convention and of the Anti-Federalists that this clause would open the door to infidels to hold political office in this country was not taken seriously. It should have been, but it wasn't.

But for men today to take the presence of this clause to imply that the framers were in sympathy with the rampant secularism and atheism of our day is outrageous. They must assume that these men were the most elaborate of hypocrites in remaining faithful members of their respective communions or utterly confused -- indeed, confused to the point of irrationality.

What we begin to see more and more is that the Founders were not devious, unprincipled, politicians--nor were they careful, discerning theologians. They were men of their times, they held basically a Christian outlook on the world and life, on human nature and government. Some of them were godly and conscientious Christians. Others were merely "cultural Christians"--speaking, thinking and acting in commonly acceptable ways (at least in public). Which ways were formed by a basically and pervasively Christian culture.

They were undiscerning and sometimes careless in the use of language. They (for the most part) saw nothing sinister in the vague language of European rationalism. They simply adopted the commonly accepted language of the day and filled it with a basically Christian content. Which was much easier to do in a culture where there was nearly unanimous agreement on the fact that the Bible was God's infallible and authoritative word, the only rule of faith and life than it is for us who have lived in a culture of agnostics and skeptics who manipulate language to their own ungodly ends. Theological precision is the fruit of controversy.

Nearly without exception, the men who participated in the Constitution were men who maintained faithful professions in churches. But even those who were unquestionably Christian, did not always take the right position on things (just like you and I), they did not always think correctly on every issue, they did not always see things clearly--"the best of men are men at best." But by and large, the nation was pervasively Christian in its outlook and in its actions (both public and private). We must remember a couple of things:

1. Wisdom is cumulative. We learn more as time goes on. We see things more clearly. We have the advantage of the experience of others. Thus, they did not see things as clearly at some points as we do. But it is equally true to say that they saw many things much more clearly than the vast majority of our day.

2. The Founding Era (or for that matter any other in our history) was not perfect or ideal in every respect. History is linear. We are moving toward perfection as time goes on. God's people are becoming more and more discerning and wise. We shall become more and more able to take "dominion" over the creation as God commanded. As we are faithful and obedient, we shall see God's blessing more and more manifest in our world--subduing the ungodliness around us and within us.

For these reasons, it is unjust to criticize the Founders for not knowing what we know, not seeing what we see. And it is equally wrong to portray the Founding Era (or any era for that matter) as an "idyllic" time that, if we could only return to it, would solve all our problems. They were men who sought to create a country where true freedom could be preserved. The loss of freedom should not be blamed on them but on their faithless followers who despised the foundations and pulled down the ancient landmarks and to the Church which has refused faithfully to preach "the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

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