The Patriotic Christian

“Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” – Leviticus 25:10 and inscribed on the Liberty Bell

In this patriotic season, it is a good time for Christians to reflect on the vital role our faith has played in the founding of our nation. Our modern secular society would have us believe that America is an experiment in secular political philosophy. However, this assertion would be a surprise to our Founding Fathers. They certainly seemed to base arguments for independence, the success of the Revolution, and the hope for the future on faith in God.

Years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, Samuel Adams set the groundwork for independence in his work, The Rights of the Colonists. In this work, he laid out the rights of the American colonists, and based it on Christianity. He explains that freedom is a “gift of the Almighty.” Continuing, he stated, “The rights of the colonists as Christians… may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.” So if anyone ever tells you that our concepts of rights are humanist in origin, tell them that Samuel Adams would disagree. While, a full discussion of rights is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say, if any system of human thought or government give us our rights, then those rights are a fragile thing, susceptible to the whims of those same humans, but if rights come from the immortal, unchanging, omniscient God, then those rights can never change or be taken away.

Not only was the justification for the Revolution based on the Bible, but many Revolutionary heroes believed God was responsible for their victory. In 1792, George Washington stated in a letter to John Armstrong, 

“I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.” 

I believe Washington was a much better judge of who was responsible for America’s victory, than some Monday-morning quarterback nearly 250 years later. A cursory survey of early American history would show time and time again the unmistakable intervention and blessing of God upon our nation.

“That’s all very well and good,” I hear you say, “but what difference does Christianity’s role in our founding have to do with America today?” Well, I would say the evidence is all around you. Look at the growing fruit of a nation straying from God. Our republic seems but a few steps from coming apart at the seams. John Adams warned us this would happen. In an address to the military, in 1798, John Adams declared, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This was not a unique thought held only by John Adams. James Madison concurred. In a quote attributed to Madison in 1778, he explains, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government… [but] upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves… according to the Ten Commandments of God.” Following the Bible is critical to our nation’s continued survival. If we hope to see our grand republic endure for future generations, we must return to the Cross.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” – Psalms 33:12

America has a great and beautiful Christian heritage. Countless Christians built and maintained our nation, on the cornerstone of the Word of God. Now it is our turn to take up the torch and let the light of the Gospel shine throughout the land. America’s spiritual revival is the prerequisite of our nation’s social, political, and economic renewal. I will close with the fourth verse of our national anthem, by Francis Scott Key,

“O! Thus be it ever when free men shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation;

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just;

And this be our motto, “In God is our trust!”

And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”