At this critical moment in American history we need what C.S. Lewis called “the clean sea breeze of the centuries” to clear our minds and to reboot our national integrity. As Americans are focused on political corruption on a massive scale, let us glance back a few centuries. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin spoke of the differences between America and the statist bureaucracies of Europe. Unlike Europe, there were few political offices in America. None of them was profitable enough to be attractive to men of greed. In fact, all politicians were expected to earn their own living in the private sector. Political office was to be chosen not for profit but for the purpose of sacrificial service.

Speaking of America, Franklin said, “Of civil offices, or employments [civil servants], there are few; no superfluous ones, as in Europe; and it is a rule established in some of the states, that no office should be so profitable as to make it desirable. The 36^th Article of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, runs expressly in these words; ‘As every freeman, to preserve his independence, … ought to have some profession, calling, trade, or farm, whereby he may honestly subsist, there can be not necessity for, nor use in, establishing offices of profit; the usual effect of which are dependence and servility…faction, contention, corruption, and disorder among the people. Wherefore, whenever an office, through increase of fees or otherwise, becomes so profitable, as to occasion many to apply for it, the profits ought to be lessened by the legislature.’”

Security & Stability

Until the mid 20^th century, Americans did not find their profits, pensions, or job security in government service. Where did they find their security? Americans were committed to private ownership, family centered entrepreneurship, and biblically derived principles and values as the way to true security and prosperity. They knew that the U.S. Constitution had delegated most of government to the local level. Responsible and charitable individuals, volunteer associations, and churches were the engine of our prosperity, the heart of our welfare system and the guardians of our liberties. Following this model, America became the freedom and prosperity capitol of the world, as well as the center for Christian charity and missions for 350 years. This was accomplished with an extremely small national government, no income tax, no national health care or welfare system and no government retirement. Americans were a truly free people with God as their source, not the State.

Benjamin Franklin explains, “Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion [Christianity], under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there, infidelity rare and secret; so that persons my live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been pleased to favor the whole country.”

In a Different World

Increasingly over the last century all three branches of America’s national government – Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court – have ignored the written constitutional limitations on their power. Most congressmen in recent generations have been trained at progressive law schools to ignore the Constitution. They have abandoned the rule of law, writing tens of thousands of arbitrary, unaccountable, unconstitutional laws. Congress has become what the Heritage Foundation has called the “ruling class”.

Most Americans do not know that their “public servants” actually live in a different world and under different laws than they do. Federal and state public employees have their own pension plans and health care that guarantees each person hundreds of thousands of dollars in their retirement. Recent studies reveal that public salaries are nearly double that of the private sector for comparable jobs. And because of public employee unions, these millions of bureaucrats are promised life-long job security and retirement by age 50-something. On the other hand, private citizens, by the age of 65 receive a pittance of their contribution to Social Security, virtually no pensions, and Medicare which is nearly bankrupt.

Abandoning the “Rule of Law”

The socialist academics and politicians have prodded the nation to leave the rule of law for dependence on massive government. This fact leaves us on the verge of class warfare which always leads to tyranny for all. Attorney and author Richard Perry states “The liberties of the American citizen depend upon the existence of established and known rules of limiting the authority and discretion of men wielding the power of the government.” He says that dozens of key documents beginning with the Magna Carta to the Mayflower Compact to the United States Constitution are all part of a single long political process. In his landmark book, Sources of Our Liberties, Perry includes 32 key documents which, along with others, “…contribute to the establishment of those rules of law in our Constitution and Bill of Rights which now state and guarantee our liberties.”

A righteous anger from “We the People” is about to begin routing the “ruling class” in Washington and at every level of government. Tens of millions of Americans are remembering that we are not like other nations. We are not “citizens of the state” or divided by classes. We are a republic, a nation of laws and not of men.

The Battle of our Time

Robert Winthrop said, “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Together we must engage in what Samuel Adams called the “animating contest of freedom.” The battle of our time is not between public employees and the private sector or between races or classes. Adams calls us to this contest with these challenging words. “Courage, then, my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” Our choice is clear.

                                                                                             Dr. Marshall Foster

This is how it happened.

For nearly a century our earliest ancestors set up their civil society molded around the principles of limited, accountable, representative government.

Their experiment was the culmination and expression of the blood-bought freedom documents including the Celtic interlinear Bible translations in the first centuries A.D., Patrick’s Liber Ex Lege Moisi (Book of the Law of Moses), English Common Law, Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact.

But we should have no illusions that our colonial ancestors created the exceptional American society with ease. Just as they were becoming successful, the colonists were devastated by the London financial and stock market collapse in 1720, caused by the Parliament’s “regulating” the markets, which destroyed fortunes all over the English Empire. Credit and the real estate bubble collapsed in the colonies.

England began to break centuries of English law, crushing colonial freedom. A series of unaccountable, corrupt, crown appointed governors were sent to overshadow the self-governing colonial legislatures. They lined their pockets with America’s burgeoning prosperity. They perpetuated a system based on tax, spend, and steal. Professor Marvin Olasky says that these governors with “aspirations to dictatorship” filled political power positions in the colonies with “pimps, valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels, decayed courtiers, and abandoned, worn-out dependents.” For decades these corrupt politicians attempted to control the lives, jobs, money, and religious freedoms of the colonists. A new surge of immigration brought thousands of outcasts from Europe, some of questionable character. As the colonial cities grew, immorality and destructive addictions multiplied. Early Christian zeal lessoned and many youth strayed from the faith.

But suddenly, God rose up a tavern keeper’s son from the English countryside to come to America and ignite the Great Awakening. George Whitefield, the most famous minister in England, became a missionary to the colonies. He and his friends, like Jonathan Edwards from Connecticut, were scholars. For over 30 years they declared an intelligent Christianity that not only converted souls but focused minds on intellectual pursuits that impacted all of society. They united the colonists to limit the power of government to its biblical jurisdiction as had been reasoned in documents of liberty for centuries back to Magna Carta.

Olasky explains, “The Great Awakening had the potential to lead to separation from England precisely because it did not, in general, propose separation from the world: The Calvinist background of most revivalists helped them to avoid the common revival  spawned sense that the world is so evil that any political and social reaction within it also is evil. [The withdrawal of Christians from public life is a central reason for America’s decline today.] Revival leaders such as Gilbert Tennett were careful to insist that

Christians are ‘born for Society’ [born to engage in all of culture] and must work for ‘the Good of the Public’ [be involved in government], which we were born to promote. Soon, observers were noting that consistent Calvinists emphasized God’s sovereignty over all, including kings; they strove for holiness in government as well as in their own lives.”

The Great Awakening united the American colonies, not only spiritually, but politically. The believers were challenged to apply the Scriptures to all of life, including civil government and its limited jurisdiction. By the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonists were the most literate people in the world. They had received their intellectual training at the feet of hundreds of patriot pastors like Whitefield and were students of the great Calvinist writers who declared the sovereignty of God over everyone, including the king. Yale Professor Harry Stout documents that the “sermon stood alone” as the weekly “medium of public communication.” Stout says that “the average weekly churchgoer in New England …listened to something like 7,000 sermons in a lifetime, totaling somewhere around 15,000 hours of concentrated listening.” According to a ten-year long study done by the University of Houston of 15,000 writings and speeches by the Founders, 94% of the Founding Fathers’ quotes were quoted, either directly or indirectly, from the Bible. America was irrefutably founded as a Christian nation.

Americans have been turning away from Him and history, His story, for decades. At the start of the 20th century our true history was rewritten (“revisionist history”), and has since been forgotten. As C.S. Lewis says, “It is the forgotten past that enslaves us.” If we had not forgotten history, we would have known that every time people turn away from God, immorality, corruption and eventually economic depression result. We would have also remembered that America has had a number of economic meltdowns. Each time, Americans repented, a great renewal resulted and America’s prosperity and stability were restored.

For example, by the late 1600s, the colonists compromised their “Pilgrim” faith and turned to greed and moral corruption, which led to the economic depression of the 1720’s. But the Great Awakening followed and swept almost half of the population back to faith in Christ and cultural renewal resulted. In the 1780s and 90s, moral and spiritual collapse led to economic depression. Then revival swept the Ivy League schools, leading to the founding of the world’s first great missionary movement. In the stock crash of 1857, one man began a prayer meeting in South Manhattan. The meeting grew from 5 men to 10,000 men who prayed daily for months, and revival spread to England, Australia and around the world. Then, after the Great Depression and World War II, a repentant America and England began the greatest evangelistic explosion in history, reaching the emerging world.

Now, this is our moment. It is not a time to panic. This is the time to learn the essential lessons of history and apply God’s unchanging, successful solutions to our lives and our nation. For example, see if you can find hope for us today in the following story. Like Americans now, the English people of the 13th century had nearly forgotten their great heritage of Christian liberty. Their nation was filled with corruption and lawlessness. A small group of landowners and business leaders at that time experienced the same anger and frustrations that we face today. They were being overwhelmed by an out-of-control government, in their case, a king.

King John killed the true heir to the throne and began tyrannizing the other leaders of his nation. He stole more and more of their wealth and their land and even their wives. In 1214 he demanded such high taxes from everyone that the poor serfs were starving in the streets. The nobles and landowners wrote a letter to the king demanding that he abide by the law. King John refused their request and multiplied his efforts to tyrannize nobles and peasants alike. So the nobles made a wise choice and went to the most committed spiritual leader of the time, Stephen Langdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They asked him to write a document that would force the king to limit his power based on the law of the land (the biblically based common law). Langdon was well motivated to write this document since he had seen his own family torn from his house and exiled by this wicked monarch.

Langdon’s writing became known as Magna Carta, the foremost document of liberty ever produced, next to the Bible. Magna Carta, and its 63 articles, became the masterpiece of freedom for the next 800 years. Its first article insured that the church shall forever be free from state interference. It stipulated that there could be no taxation without representation. It demanded a trial for every freeman by a jury of peers.

Magna Carta’s greatest legacy is the concept of a nation of laws rather than men. In its final article it called for armed resistance by the people if their rulers would not obey the law. This same obligation of the people to rise up and throw off tyrants is stated in our Declaration of Independence. All of the articles of Magna Carta were rooted in a long history of biblical principles and the Ten Commandments.

The nobles, because of King John’s arrogance, were forced to raise an army which they called the “Army of God.” They marched on the king’s troops, defeated them, and then forced the king to sign Magna Carta on the field at Runnymede on June 20, 1215. After

signing the charter, John escaped back into his castle at Windsor and threw himself on the ground, beat his fists and ate straw like a mad man. The next year John recanted his agreement to obey Magna Carta. The barons were forced into another war with the king. But the king was caught in a rising tide while he was trying to move all his treasure, and he lost his wealth in the ocean. He died of dysentery three days later. From that time forward all the kings of England were forced to deal with the brilliant biblical principles laid out in Magna Carta by Stephen Langdon. America’s foundations of liberty are built upon these principles, and others, reasoned from the Bible.

The story of Magna Carta is one of many that reveals the strategy of how to restore liberty to a nation in chaos. We have the greatest heritage of liberty of any nation on earth. But we cannot live on our past laurels. We must lead our nation back to God, teaching and applying the great lessons of history. And then we can go back into the center of the cultural battle for our nation and hold our representatives accountable to obey the limits of the Constitution. We, the believers, have been absent from duty, disengaged from the main issues of our time. This is our moment. Our children are watching.

 - Marshall Foster

God accomplishes His purpose in “History” by providentially superintending His creation. This is called the Providential view of history and it was the predominant view of Christians from all ages, including our American founders. Noah Webster, the great educator and LEXICOGRAPHER, who complied the first American dictionary in 1828, defined providence as:

The care and superintendence which God exercises over creatures… Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence, not considering that a general providence consists of particulars. A brief in divine providence is a source of great consolation to good men. By divine providence is understood God Himself.

As you might have surmised, Noah Webster was a devout Christian holding to the Providential view of history. Note that in his definition of providence, Webster said that it is a “source of great consolation to good men.” In this statement, he alluded to the peace that comes from knowing that a just God presides over the nations and that His plan cannot be thwarted. The opposite is also true. If one is fighting the God of History and then learns of His Providence, it can be very disconcerting!

Eighteenth-century historian Charles Rollin reflected on the predominant view of early America and Christendom all the way back to Saint Paul when he wrote:

Nothing gives history a greater superiority to many branches of literature, than to see in a manner imprinted, in almost every page of it, the precious footsteps and shining proofs of the great truth, viz. that God disposes of all events as supreme Lord and Sovereign; that He alone determines the fate of kings and the duration of empires and that He transfers the government of kingdoms from one nation to another because of the unrighteous dealings and wickedness committed therein.

Has the great God of the universe unveiled to us His cosmic plan for the ages? Yes! The Scriptures reveal His will. The Godhead (trinity) before time began planned the redemption of His people and His world (revelation 13:8; Titus 1:2). Jesus Christ – through His death, resurrection, ascension, and eventual second coming – provides the center focus and meaning for history. As 1 Corinthians 15:24 says, at the end of time as we know it, “Then comes the end, when He (Christ) delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.” All of God’s created order is destined to bow before Jesus Christ: “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). The Lord himself tells us what will happen at the end of history, “For it is written: ‘As I live, saith the LORD, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God” (Romans 14:11)

Parents and students can approach this subject with great anticipation if they see their study from a providential perspective. History does not cause itself. It is written and directed by the Creator of the universe. President James Garfield (1831-1881), one of our truly Christian presidents, illustrated a knowledge of providence worth emulating when he stated:

The world’s history is a Divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cantons and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian – the humble listener – there has been a Divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.

As we act our proper roles for our Lord in the time we have been appointed, there is an audience, a great “cloud of witnesses” who are rejoicing in the heavens and glorifying God. That great cloud of witnesses id defined in Hebrews 12:1-2, 22-24. These witnesses include (1) countless multitudes of angels in festal, or celebratory, gathering, (2) the church in heaven and the righteous who have been made perfect – all the believers who set the stage for us, (3) the God who is the judge of all, and (4) Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant. Every day we rise to put on our spiritual armor and fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:11-12); these are the “cloud of witnesses” whom we will meet face to face some day.

In the life of a Christian, the most important goal is to find and do the will of God. God’s will is found through prayer and the study of His word, through the individual insights given by the Holy Spirit, and through wise counsel. There is yet another important way to help direct our lives, and that is to discern and learn from history.

The apostle Paul wrote of the importance of learning from the victories and failures of past generations. He said:

Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:11-12).

Sir Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, said “If you look far enough back in history, you may be wise enough to see far ahead into the future.” He knew very well of what he spoke. Imagine the historical follies of past English monarchs. If they had remembered Queen Elizabeth I’s foolish optimism concerning Spain’s promises never to send an armada, they would have been more cautious of Hitler’s assurances to Nevelle Chamberlain in 1938.

Seeing Order in Apparent Chaos

Most modern historians neither understand nor present the historical purpose and vision of history that is made clear by Biblical Christianity. The result is that they often become bogged down, becoming experts in minutiae, but can no longer play the prophetic role of projecting trends into the future or calling a nation back to unchanging principles.

Famous historian Arnold Toynbee described most modern historians by saying that they see “only as a horse sees between its blinders or what a U-boat captain sees through his periscope.” They approach history not with an open mind, but with the IDEOLOGIES that allow them to see only what supports their private agendas. No wonder students have lost interest in history in recent generations.

But from a Christian perspective, the history of nations leads us to an obvious conclusion: they who keep covenant with the God of the Bible and its laws and principles live longer, deeper, richer, freer lives, as a general rule. Sharon Camp and Joseph Spiedel, in Target Earth, documented that of the top twenty-five nations in quality of life and standard of living, twenty-four have Christian Foundations. The other is Japan, whose success is partially due to adoption of Biblical principles of liberty and free enterprise, in imitation of the Western nations following the Second World War. Historians often recoil from drawing the inescapable conclusion because it indelibly stamps history with God’s name and law, and they would prefer to write their own scenarios.

The following historical narrative is a summary of the great beneficial effect of Biblical Christianity in Western civilization. We see through a mirror darkly (I Corinthians 13:12), and do not share fully in God’s cosmic perspective of all events. But we are called as Christians to use our sound mind (II Timothy 1:7), and because “we have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16), we can perceive the hand of God working out His plan for the world.

The Christian Impact in the Development of Europe

Historian Otto Scott summarized well the medieval march of Christendom.

For the first time, an entire civilization mired in decay was lifted and transformed into an entirely new condition, against the will of its government and many of its leaders. Christians did this despite persecution, torture, and humiliation for nine generations. Then, after Constantine, Christians converted a savage Europe from human sacrifice to the faith, and created the richest, most diverse, most successful civilization the world has ever known.

The Middle Ages, or Dark Ages were actually the age of faith and pioneering evangelization. During this period, Christianity became the dominant force in Europe as a continent was transformed from BARBARISM.

In modern textbooks, it is fashionable to use the term “Dark Ages” to describe the period from the Fall of Rome (fifth century) to the rediscovery of classical culture in the Renaissance (fourteenth century). The reason for this classification is philosophically – not Historically – based. There is a definite bias today against teaching the unifying theme of Western civilization during this era, which was the Christianization of barbarian Europe.

The major theme in the development of Europe is the unseen hand of God and His remnant in each generation, from the early missionaries and converted barbarians like Patrick and Boniface to the persecuted purifiers of Biblical doctrine like John Wycliffe, John Hus, and Martin Luther.

Life in 1500

The hopes and fears of the early sixteenth century were much like those we are experiencing today. It was an exciting era, the day of Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Raphael, Copernicus, and Columbus. Institutional structures that had not changed for centuries were under critical review, and especially in religious aspects, found wanting. But this free-thinking revolution, brought on partially by the Italian Renaissance, was not the experience of most Europeans. For the vast majority of people were feudal vassals or poor farmers. These people were faced with the constant struggle to eat the next day. Droughts, pestilence, and floods often drove thousands of people to begging for food. Plague continued to devastate Europe in 1500. In Strasbourg alone, it took the lives of 16,000 of the 25,000 residents, and left 300 deserted villages in that region. It was an age of death contrasted with humanistic hope in the pleasures of Italy. It was an age of great religious pomp and external show, but the heart of the Church was rotting with hypocrisy and lawless living. In this age of crisis, one event stands out that still impacts our lives today.

The Reformation

The central event of the sixteenth century took place on 31 October 1517. On that day, a young priest and professor nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg Castle. He was protesting the trafficking of indulgences by the infamous Tetzel, a German Dominican monk. Tetzel would excite the masses with a sermon highlighting the torments of purgatory, concluding with his well-known line, “Once the coin into the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs.” Martin Luther’s denunciation of the corrupt practices of the Church started a revolution he never planned or expected. Luther was excommunicated; thousands joined him, and Frederick the Wise, one of the most powerful princes in Germany, protected him. The Protestant Reformation swept Europe in the next century and changed the course of history.

There were other important figures that preceded the Reformation, like John Wycliffe, as well as John Hus, the Waldensians, and members of other reform movements. But Martin Luther, armed with the power of moveable-type printing and the freedom to translate and teach the Bible, brought the fundamental questions of all time to the attention of all Europe: How is man saved? Is he justified by faith in Christ alone, or is obedience to the Church and its ordinances the only door that opens to Heaven?

Luther, reading the book of Romans, was set free by the truth of justification by faith, based upon God’s grace. His famous words were, “Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open.”

In the following years, millions of new believers began to join the ranks of the reformers. Along with Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and John Knox, they proclaimed “Sola Scriptura” – the word of God alone was the basis of their faith and practice. They called for the reinstitution of the “crown rights” of King Jesus, declaring that He alone, not the pope or the king, could claim ultimate sovereignty. God alone was sovereign.

If there was one religious figure in the formation of modern thought who has surpassed Luther, it is John Calvin (1509-1564). In 1526, this brilliant 27-year-old convert to the faith wrote his Institutes of the Christian Religion, which is, after the Bible and Augustine’s City of God, probably the most influential book of all time. His systematic Biblical reasoning provided the foundation for the reformed denominations, which became the dominant influence in Holland, England, Scotland, and America for centuries. Calvin’s major emphasis was on the sovereignty of God in heaven and on earth. This teaching brought shivers of fear to the tyrants of Europe. If God was Sovereign, then the king was not, and neither was the Church. John Calvin is, by virtue of this doctrine and its implications, the forgotten founder of the American republic.

The American Expression of Liberty

The motto of the Pilgrims was “Reform ourselves without tarrying for any.” The members believed that the church should be separate from government control and under Christ’s lordship only, a belief that gave rise to their name: Separatists. They simply wanted to line in peace, obeying the teachings of the Scriptures. But the new king, James I, would not tolerate religious liberty. Some Separatists were maimed or burned at the stake. In 1607, the men of the Scrooby congregation were imprisoned for eight months.

They were not pale plaster saints, hollow and bloodless. They were men-and women, too- of courage and conviction, strong and positive in their attitudes, prepared to sacrifice much for their principles, even their very lives.

The Pilgrims, as they came to be called, escaped from England and much persecution in 1608. For twelve years they lived in relative peace in Holland within the walled city of Leiden, where thirty-four years earlier the Dutch had taken their heroic stand against the Spanish invaders.

But as time passed, John Robinson, the Pilgrims’ faithful minister since the early years in Scrooby, and his congregation began to realize the need to emigrate. As foreigners, they could hardly find work in Holland, although they wanted to be successful so that others would join them and place their faith in Christ’s redemption. Their children were being corrupted by the increasing moral laxity of Dutch life. And, the Spanish were planting a new offensive to wipe out all religious dissent. There also was a fourth reason, as William Bradford recorded, for wanting to emigrate. He wrote:

Last, and not least, they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least of making some way toward it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the World.

In 1620, the Pilgrims were able to obtain a charter to the “northern parts of Virginia.” This charter was granted by James I, who had despised and hounded them seventeen years. Yet, as providence would have it, he unwittingly set the stage of liberty for God’s unsung heroes.

Most of the congregation, including the pastor, John Robinson, had to remain behind. The king feared the potential effect of Robinson’s influence in distant America and would not permit him to go. However, the congregation sent thirty-eight of their number, including their most trusted leaders – William Brewster, William Bradford, and John Carver – to pioneer the desolate wilderness of North America.

Departing from Plymouth, England, in August 1620, with 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower, they endured a terrifying sixty-six-day voyage across the Atlantic. They arrived in America in November, far north of their intended charter. Fearing mutiny since they were out of the territory of the king’s charter, all of the men gathered in the captain’s cabin on 11 November 1620 and signed a covenant with each other to form their new government to glorify God and to advance the Christian faith.

The Mayflower Compact is America’s first great constitutional document, and it is a fine example of the covenantal, or compact, theory of government which is echoed in all of America’s colonial charters and founding documents:

In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, France & Ireland King, defender of ye faith,&c., having undertaken, for ye glorie of God, and advancemente of ye Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a vouage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God, and of one another, covenant & combine our selves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitution & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codde ye 11. Of November in ye year or ye raigne of ur soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France, & Ireland ye eighteenth, and by Scotland ye fiftie fourth. Ano:Dom. 1620.

It should be mentioned that the Jamestown colony had already led the way in stating similar goals in its charter for the Virginia colony in 1606, declaring that they had come to America to propagate the “Christian Religion to such people as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.” The desire to reach the lost world with the Gospel and to fulfill the Lord’s great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) was an impelling force behind the settling of America from Christopher Columbus to the blazing of the Oregon Trail by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.

If, by God’s grace, the men of Jamestown had not been successful in maintaining their colony, the pilgrims probably would have never followed them to America. These Jamestown settlers, after twelve years of trial and turmoil me in July 1619 in the first church built in the colonies start America’s first representative assembly, called the House of Burgesses. These Virginians would hone their governmental skills for 150 years, until the 1770’s, when the founding generation of Virginia patriots would turn the world upside down.

The Root Determines the Fruit

America’s unparalleled success as a nation is the result of God blessing us with the Bible in the hands of the common man, the example and wisdom of the Christian thinkers and martyrs of Europe, and the Patriot Pastors in the Colonies who taught the Biblical principles of nation building for 150 years before our founding generation.

Our great political documents, free enterprise system, legal system and educational system were direct products of applied Biblical truth over time. Progressively, however, over the 19th and 20th centuries, these foundations have been eroded.

The Great Challenge of the 21st Century

The American Church, as a whole, by withdrawing from active leadership in our culture, gave secularists control of our major institutions for most of the twentieth century. These optimistic humanists have failed in all their tinkering and brought us to the brink of cultural chaos. Their experiments with our schools have failed, their statist bureaucracy is intrusive and headed for bankruptcy, and their moral relativism has left America plagued with violence, illegitimacy, drugs, and pornography. The end of the twentieth century is correctly assessed by T.S. Eliot in “The Hollow Men”:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Learning together

Headpiece filled with sorrow. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in a dry grass

Shape without form, shade without colour

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper-

The secular Camelot that seemed destined to rule the world, with “progress” as its most important product, is proving to be a charade. The mainstream intellectuals and media pundits of the Western world have proved themselves poor guides to the future. These self-proclaimed “experts” have led millions from Darwin, through Marx, to Freud, often ending in despair.

Historian Paul Johnson analyzes many of these twentieth-century thinkers in his important book, Intellectuals:

It is just about two hundred years since the secular intellectuals began to replace the old clerisy (clergy) as the guides and mentors of mankind…. I detect today a certain public skepticism when intellectuals stand up to preach to us, a growing tendency among ordinary people to dispute the right of academics, writers, and philosophers, eminent though they may be, to tell us how to behave and conduct our affairs. The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthy as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that skepticism. A dozen people picked at random on the street are at least as likely to offer sensible views on moral and political matters as a cross-section of the intelligensia.

Here lies our hope. Faith in the humanist’s idealized man is dying. People are seeing through the “New Deal,’ the “Great Society,” and “the bridge to the twenty-first century.” They know America’s greatness taps into a much greater source than political slogans. Millions of parents and students are rediscovering the covenants of our forebears. They are learning the truths about God’s world and His rules for living in it. As parents train a generation in the unchanging Biblical principles of life, these young leaders of the future can rise up and offer real hope to restore the “holy cause of liberty.”

Building upon our inheritance, which requires knowing our true history, we can be a “city upon a hill” for the twenty-first century, becoming an example to other nations, rather than a reproach.

John Winthrop had such a vision when he landed in Boston in 1630:

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall b able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding plantations shall say, “The Lord make it like that of New England.”

For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill; the eyes of all people are upon us.

We seem to be witnessing an aggressive attempt by leading atheists to portray religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as the bane of civilization. Finding the idea of God incompatible with science and reason, these atheists also fault Christianity with fostering a breed of fanaticism comparable to Islamic radicalism. The proposed solution: a completely secular society, liberated from Christian symbols and beliefs.

This critique, which comes from best-selling atheist books, academic tracts and a sophisticated network of atheist organizations and media, can be disputed on its own terms. What it misses, however, is the larger story of how Christianity has shaped the core institutions and values of the USA and the West. Christianity is responsible even for secular institutions such as democracy and science. It has fostered in our civilization values such as respect for human dignity, human rights and human equality that even secular people cherish.

Consider science. Although there have been many civilizations in history, modern science developed in only one: Western civilization. And why? Because science is based on an assumption that is, at root, faith-based and theological. That is the assumption that the universe is rational and follows laws that are discoverable through human reason.

The ‘miracle’ of our universe

Science is based on what James Trefil calls the principle of universality. “It says that the laws of nature we discover here and now in our laboratories are true everywhere in the universe and have been in force for all time.” Moreover, the laws that govern the universe seem to be written in the language of mathematics. Physicist Richard Feynman found this to be “a kind of miracle.”

Why? Because the universe doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no particular reason the laws of nature that we find on Earth should also govern a star billions of light years away. There’s no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone mathematical ones. So where did Western man get this idea of a lawfully ordered universe? From Christianity.

Christians were the first ones who envisioned the universe as following laws that reflected the rationality of God the creator. These laws were believed to be accessible to man because man is created in the image of God and shares a spark of the divine reason. No wonder, then, that the first universities and observatories were sponsored by the church and run by priests.

No wonder also that the greatest scientists of the West — Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Newton, Leibniz, Gassendi, Pascal, Mersenne, Cuvier, Harvey, Dalton, Faraday, Joule, Lyell, Lavoisier, Priestley, Kelvin, Ampere, Steno, Pasteur, Maxwell, Planck, Mendel, and Lemaitre — were Christians. Gassendi, Mersenne and Lamaitre were priests. Several of them viewed their research as demonstrating God’s creative genius as manifested in his creation.

If modern science has Christian roots, so do our most basic political institutions and values. Consider Thomas Jefferson’s famous assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” He claimed this was “self-evident,” but one only has to look to history and to other cultures to see that it is not evident at all. Everywhere we see dramatic evidence of human inequality. Jefferson’s point, however, was that human beings are moral equals. Every life has a worth no greater and no less than any other.

The preciousness and equal worth of every human life is a Christian idea. We are equal because we have been created equal in the eyes of God. This is an idea with momentous consequences. In ancient Greece and Rome, human life had very little value. The Spartans, for example, left weak children to die on the hillside. Greek and Roman culture was built on slavery.

Christianity banned infanticide and the killing of the weak and “dispensable,” and even today Christian values are responsible for the moral horror we feel when we hear of such practices. Christianity initially tolerated slavery — a universal institution at the time — but gradually mobilized the moral and political resources to end it. From the beginning, Christianity discouraged the enslavement of fellow Christians. Slavery, the foundation of Greek and Roman civilization, withered and largely disappeared throughout medieval Christendom in the Middle Ages.

The first movements to abolish slavery completely occurred only in the West, and were led by Christians. In the modern era, first the Quakers and then the evangelical Christians demanded that since we are all equal in God’s eyes, no man has the right to rule another man without his consent. This religious doctrine not only supplies the moral justification for anti-slavery but also for democracy. Yes, the idea of self-government is also rooted in the Christian assumption of human equality. One reason the atheist philosopher Nietzsche hated democracy is because he understood its religious foundation.

Rights and Christianity

Consider finally modern notions of human rights — the right to freedom of conscience, or to property, or to marry and form a family, or to be treated equally before the law — as enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The universalism of this declaration is based on the particular teachings of Christianity. The premise is that all human lives have equal dignity and worth, but this is not the teaching of all the world’s cultures and religions. Even so, it’s appropriate that a doctrine Christian in origin should be universal in application. Christianity from the start promulgated its message as one for the whole world.

There are some atheists and even some Christians who admit that theism and Christianity have shaped the core institutions and values of America and the West. But now that we have these values, they say, why do we still need God and Christianity? Oddly enough, the answer is supplied by Nietzsche.

Nietzsche argued that since the Christian God is the foundation of Western values, the death of God must necessarily mean the erosion and ultimate collapse of those values. Remove the base and the whole building will slowly crumble. For a while, Nietzsche conceded, people would out of custom or habit continue to respect human life and treat people with equal dignity, but eventually there would be ferocious assaults on these values, and practices once unthinkable such as the killing of people deemed inferior or undesirable would once again occur. This is precisely what we have seen in our time, and Nietzsche predicted that it will only get worse.

If we cherish the distinctive ideals of Western civilization, and believe as I do that they have enormously benefited our civilization and our world, then whatever our religious convictions, we will not rashly try to hack at the religious roots from which they spring. On the contrary, we will not hesitate to acknowledge, not only privately but also publicly, the central role that Christianity has played and still plays in the things that matter most to us.

Dinesh D’Souza’

Research Scholar at Hoover Institution, Stanford University and Author of “What’s so Great about Christianity.” USA Today – October 22, 2007

For many American Christians it has become more important to be American than Christian. Some for instance have absorbed the culture of tolerance. I am talking about the new tolerance that requires all ideas to be considered of equal value. But to be Christian is to understand that Jesus, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (John 1:3; Hebrews 1:2-3), has the only ideas that will stand the test of time and eternity (Matthew 24:35).

Consider the difference between Post Modern tolerance and Christ’s Great Commission. Jesus told his followers to be about the business of getting other people, whole nations in fact, to trade in their ideas for His ideas! – “teaching them to obey all the things I have commanded.” Christians should never acquiesce before the idea that non-Christian ideas are as good as Christian ideas. Rather we Christians should help non-Christians junk their non-Christian ideas and replace them with Christian ideas and beliefs.

When it comes to non-Christian ideas Paul speaks in violent terms of warfare. He said we should “pull down strongholds,” and “cast down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,” and bring “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4-6). This sort of thing is very un-American!

When Paul spoke this way, he was not talking about his internal struggles as a believer. He was saying the job of ministers and of Christians is to pull down non-Christian ideas because they exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. The Christian worldview alone conforms to the real world of sin and redemption; this is the only world there is! The Christian Worldview alone tells of creation out of nothing, of the fall of the human race into sin, and of Christ the only remedy for sin. These things are not just ideas, they are the realities of planet earth. Anyone who seeks to live life outside this Christian worldview lives in a fantasy world! In addition, to the degree the Christian consciously or unconsciously adapts to the non-believer’s ideas, he himself is living partially in unreality. The Bible and Christian doctrine apply to all people, to Adam’s entire race! Those who are not conforming to Christian doctrine are living in lies, they live a fantasy! It is for this reason Paul exhorts us to “…not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

So why are America and the West declining? When Jesus directed, “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you,” He used a Greek word that comes from the same Greek root translated “doctrine.” The Third World is growing in Christianity while the Christian West slides away for this very reason – doctrine is little esteemed in the West, and in fact is commonly despised. It is not uncommon to hear a Christian say something like, “I do not like doctrine. Doctrine divides people.” Yet it is Christian teaching (doctrine) that defines the world as it really is. The Christian must be filled with Christian doctrine to understand the world, life, love, sin, death, eternity and everything else. The ICCP seeks to promote right doctrine, a true Christian worldview.

Real World vs. Dream Worlds

Contrary to the Post Modern claim that all ideas are of equal value, there are ideas that conform to reality and many that do not. Ideas that do not conform to reality are lies and fantasies. Jesus came to redeem us from the Lie. Jesus spoke doctrine to people as a means to that end. He said to his listeners, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority” (John 7:16-17). One of the doctrines Jesus taught is that the Old Testament is God’s Word, saying, “…the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Jesus endorsed the entire Old Testament as the Word of God. Jesus told His Apostles that the Spirit of God would come and lead them into all the truth. We believe that as the O.T. prophets were directed by God to write what God wanted written, so also were the New Testament writers directed. We have God’s Word to mankind, the Bible. From the Bible we derive Christian doctrine which is doctrine in conformity to Christ’s teaching and this is always in agreement with the entire Bible. It is Christian doctrine from the O.T. and N.T. that enables us to live in the real world. It is by Christian doctrine that we are delivered from the Lie.

Consider this – America and the West are in a life and death struggle. Vishal Mangalwadi recently observed that the sun is setting on the west. But, says he, and I believe it, the West can be turned around. In the International Church Council Project we pray that God will pour out His Spirit in revival and restoration, and that he would allow ICCP to have a part in the new Great Awakening we believe God in His mercy will send in this generation. We pray that America and the West may energetically repent and return to the doctrines that originally made her great. ICCP is serving to help America do this very thing, even as we seek to facilitate the international Church in setting “a biblical-theological standard of doctrine for the Body of Christ…consistent with the mainstream theology of the first 20 centuries.” We are grateful for your support and prayers to this end, that God may be glorified in all our labors and entire lives.

Other Thoughts

By knowing the only True God and Jesus Christ whom He sent we know ourselves and also the world around us. God who made the universe is the starting place and ending place for thinking. Thinking not in conformity to God’s thoughts is mistaken thinking, sinful thinking! God made reality and we cannot re-make it other than it is. I do not mean we are unable to change things on planet earth; there are many things we can change. However, we cannot change the reality of gravity, nor can we change the standard right and wrong, nor judgment for sin. We cannot change the fact that this is a fallen world, that sin is pervasive in the human soul, and that the only answer to this devastation is Jesus.

Adam and Eve chose to not live in God’s reality. They chose to attempt to live in a world not real. The devil said, “You will not surely die!” Now they certainly knew that God who created the Forbidden Tree and also created themselves could accurately tell them whether or not eating such a tree would cause death. Yet they chose to believe the Lie! They rejected the reality God made and accepted the Devil’s suggestion that the penalty of death would not come. Death came!

One point of connection between us was that we had both read David Aikman’s new book, Jesus in Beijing (Regnery). Aikman, the former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, charts admirably the fascinating, mercurial, and sometimes sadly instructive history of the Christian evangelization of China. It is a story of remarkable men and women: heroes, martyrs, eccentrics, and, yes—as elsewhere—dismal, even disgraceful heretics and apostates.

The Nestorian Christians—whose descendents are the Assyrian churches of Iraq— arrived in A.D. 635. Aikman traverses the subsequent history, ending with an analysis of the startling missionary vision of millions of Chinese Christians of the 21st century: to wend their way along the old Silk Road, gathering in the churches, converting the Muslims as they go, and then at last “to preach the gospel in Jerusalem.” He includes superb mini-biographies of some of the most important historical figures and house-church leaders of the past half-century, as well as of dynamic current leadership.

Aikman’s Chinese interlocutors say (and from my own experience in China I am inclined to concur) that the character as well as the spread of the Gospel in China “is just like that in the Apostles’ time.” First, it has been initially regional, spreading out from widely distributed centers of intense activity such as Wenzhou (“China’s Antioch,” as its inhabitants now say) into far-flung areas to which its tent-maker merchants disperse. Also, while growth at first came largely in peasant populations, it has now crossed over to engage dramatically the intellectual and artistic classes.

In major universities in Shanghai and Beijing, “Christianity fever” has for more than a decade now been endemic; one graduate student told Aikman that graduate students from major universities, especially women, are more likely than not to be Christians. Leading novelists, among whom now are several Christians, agree that in the artistic community also, while not yet predominantly Christian, “the trend is definitely toward Christianity.” Prominent centers for “Christian Cultural Studies” have sprung up at Renmin (People’s) University and at Sichuan University (others are planned). Major university presses (e.g., Renmin, Beijing) are beginning to publish both indigenous and leading Western works of faith-learning scholarship in Chinese translation. Many conversions result, as Aikman has discovered, from a chain of enquiry begun by reading books.

North American and British scholars whose names are familiar to readers of Books & Culture are among those whose works are becoming as widely known in China as in the West. These Western Christian scholars remain a point of distant contact with the missionaries expelled after 1949, whose legacy to China included the establishment of schools, and, as many have said, a powerful instruction in “how to pray.” Exiled, the missionaries have encouraged others to pray for China, so that China has been called “the most prayed for nation in history.” If the growth of Christianity in China is now overwhelmingly an indigenous phenomenon, prayer is certainly a major factor.

Aikman reflects accurately that most of the growth stems not from the “open” or registered Three-Self churches, of whose complex history he gives a particularly useful account. Bathtub baptisms predominate among the unregistered study group assemblies, as do conversions by dream vision and miraculous healings, and it is there—especially in the context of the official ban upon them—that the growth has continued to be most dramatic. (Tertullian was right.)

Doctrinal variations are relatively few, though in one respect significant. The “registered” churches are forbidden to preach on the Second Coming. The expectation of the imminent return of the Lord, however, is clearly a powerful source of hope and endurance—and an incentive for evangelism—in the underground church.

In 1949, there were officially 3.3 million Catholics in China and 900,000 Protestants—a little over four million Christians altogether. An estimate given to me by a ranking Chinese official (not a Christian) is that there are currently 70 to 100 million. For Aikman, “it is worth considering that not just the numerical, but the intellectual center of gravity for Christianity may move decisively out of Europe and North America as the Christianization of China continues and as China becomes a global superpower.” I am inclined to agree, though I am less certain than Aikman that a consequence is necessarily that China would then become “America’s Great Ally.” The Christianity now emerging in China has a radically orthodox character that may unsettle Western Christians steeped in cultural compromise. And no one, I suspect, can predict what may happen if and when China gets its own Constantine.

For readers whose Christian imagination permits of a future in which America is not God’s vicar, Aikman’s book is provocative reading. His appendices, which include the formal creed of the House Church movement, are worth the price of the book.