Transcript

America's Providential History podcast explores Christian form of U.S. Government

>> Stephen McDowell: Welcome to America's Providential History Podcast, where we talk about the real story of America and explore the hand of God in our history. Now here's your host, Stephen McDowell. Hello. I'm glad you are joining us for this edition of America's Providential History podcast. Today we will be exploring the Christian form of our government. Now, in recent podcasts, we looked at how God miraculously moved during the American Revolution to give us victory over the greatest military power in the world. We saw his hand involved in supporting the cause of liberty, of American liberty. and then we also saw how after we gained our independence, that it was necessary for us to form a new government. Government. And we looked at God's hand in the events around the Constitutional Convention and saw how the founders recognized the finger of Almighty God and all those events to bring about, our United States Constitution, which has been in effect over 235 years. It's unique, in the history of mankind. And so I want to begin to explore more about this unique, form of government, the United States Constitution.

Benjamin Franklin: What makes America a Christian nation?

Now, we might ask, should ask the question, you know, what makes America a Christian nation? We have been looking at the evidence of that over many, many, podcasts. We've seen God's hand certainly involved in it. But if we were just to ask someone today, you know, was America founded as a Christian nation? most Americans would not think that's the case at all because they have been taught contrary ideas. And they would might point out, well, you know, the founders of America, they weren't all Christians, they were a bunch of deists or secularists. But, they had faults and problems. so many fell short in so many different ways. They couldn't be a Christian. Oh, maybe only a small percentage of the people are Christians. So when we ask the question, what makes America a Christian nation? We of course need to have some understanding of what is a Christian nation. Now some people would say we weren't a Christian nation, certainly aren't today because we've got people of all kinds of faiths, not just Christians, but from every other kind of denomination or non belief that there is. So certainly we're not Christian. But having 100% of the population, is that the definition of what makes a Christian nation? Or even if it were a majority, suppose if just over 50% of the population of a nation is Christian, does that make it a Christian nation? Well, certainly a Christian nation as we will define it is not one that has 100% of the population is Christian because America never has. And no nation ever has or will on this side of Christ's return, have 100% of the population Christian. But neither is it necessarily a nation where the majority of the people are Christian. It, certainly has a good foundation to potentially be that. But it's not the percentage of the people in a nation claiming the Christian faith that makes a nation Christian or not now. And it's also certainly not a nation that has no sin, no faults, no problems. Because as we pointed out, there are certainly shortcomings of the founders of America that they sinned, just like we as believers today fall short of how God intends us to walk. But the definition of a Christian nation is not based upon perfection or everyone being perfect in all of their doings, because we're growing in the knowledge of grace and Christ growing in our walk with the Lord to come in more in line with how he desires us to walk. So a Christian nation is not based upon percentage of Christians perfection of individuals. Ah, are not, and many modern people, attack this concept of America, Christian nation, pointing out things like this, that they fell short in many ways. But. But a Christian nation is not determined by really, who formed it in the sense, was it formed by Christians or not? But what form did it take? Now, we remembered, we've explored in past podcasts, this concept of the principle of power and form. You know, every external form of government is produced by some internal principles and characteristics in the heart of a people. This is a biblical concept. The internal is causative to the external. And so the internal ideas and principles that form the foundation of those who gave birth to America certainly did impact the form of government that we had. The various forms of government in the colonies before our independence, which we've talked some about, and then after we became a nation and we had a constitutional convention and formed a whole unique form of government, it was without a doubt impacted by the character, the worldview, the ideology, the understanding of what is the function of government, what's the nature of man, the worldview of the founders. And that worldview is primarily shaped by their faith, their religion, which was primarily the Christian faith. And so our form of government, the United States Constitution on the national level, is a reflection of the internal power and principles in the heart of the citizens of the nation. And those who gave us this form of government and those internal ideas and principles, came forth primarily were impacted by the Christian faith because it was the primary influence in the birth, growth and development of this nation. In 1867, the prestigious Literary journal the North American Review declared that the American government and Constitution is the most precious possession which the world holds or which the future can inherit. And they went on to say, this is true because our Constitution is the political expression of Christian ideas. And so if you take biblical principles, Christian ideas, and express them in a civil document, a civil governing document, the best that the world, the best we've seen in history is the United States Constitution. And because it reflected these people's worldview and so our founders would certainly believe that to have been the case. Even unbelievers such as Benjamin Franklin often publicly cited Scripture in the Constitutional Convention. We looked at this in the past. Franklin is the one who rose up and said, we have been assured, sir, and the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. He's quoting Psalm 127. There he said, 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. So even non Christians like Franklin recognized that God, the creator of all things, needs to form the foundation of a nation that's going to succeed. And he acknowledged, we see the finger of God in these events giving us the Constitution and the ideas embodied in the Constitution stem, primarily from the Bible. See our founders reasoned from the Bible far more than any other source. Almost all Americans understood this really until modern revisionist historians began to promote a contrary view, saying ah, we weren't a product of the Christian faith, we're a product of rationalistic Enlightenment thinkers. This was the major influence in the, in America, those European atheistic Enlightenment writers. But this is easily to show this is not the case. In fact, there's a professor of political science at University of Houston some decades ago, Dr. Donald Lutz, who I met back in the 80s and met him in his office. And we were discussing things such as this particular study that he did. It was an exhaustive 10 year study research where he looked at about 15,000 political documents of the founder's heir from 1760 to 1805, went through all the political documents he could find that were referenced by the Founders and recorded every quote or reference to another source. And so anytime any of these writers quoted a source, he recorded them. And they of course writings at that time, they did not quote sources or footnote sources in the way that we do, some, some academics do today. And so he came up with a list of 3,001, 154 citations that the founders made that from documents that affected their political views, their political philosophy. So he analyzed all those. It was published in volume 78 of the American Political Science Review in 1984. And the results give an accurate measure of the influence of these various sources of thought on the Constitution, on the founders of America, and on our Constitution, and reveal that this concept were birthed by the, rationalistic Enlightenment thinkers is just not true. And by far the most quoted source for their political ideas was the Bible. In fact, over 1/3, 34% of all the citations in these political writings, these weren't religious writings, theologians writings, they were political writings when they, they sourced them 34% of the time. And then the next most quoted sources, the three top sources that were quoted were all biblical thinkers and got ideas for their political philosophy from the Bible as well. Montesquieu is quoted 8.3% of the time. He was a Frenchman, who wrote the spirit of laws. Blackstone, 7.9%, wrote his famous commentaries of the laws of England, studied by lawyers for 150 years in the English speaking world, 7.9%. And as we pointed out in past podcasts, they had a Christian view of law. And then Locke was the third most quoted source, around 3%. And so with these sources and others, about 50% of all other references, so 34% directly from the Bible, 50% can be attributed to authors who themselves derive their ideas from the Bible. So, this study reveals that 84% of the ideas in our Constitution are based either directly or indirectly on the Bible. 10% were from ancient Greek and Roman writers. And some of their ideas were good, contained truth in them. And only 6% were from those Enlightenment writers, which you might call atheistic Enlightenment writers. There's two different, there's different streams of the Enlightenment, atheistic Enlightenment writers, Voltaire, Rousseau, those kind of guys. And there is biblical and if you want to call them Enlightenment writers like Blackstone, Locke and others. And so this study reveals what we've explored in past podcasts and we talk about in our various books that we published at the Providence Foundation. The vast majority of the source of their ideas came from the Bible, because the Bible and civil liberty are inseparable. Again, we've looked a lot of that evidence in past podcasts. I would encourage you to listen to some of those. And even in more recent times, even secular magazines and writers that are honest, reveal the same thing. Back in 1982, Newsweek magazine, after a major analysis of the Bible's influence in America, said, now historians are discovering that The Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document. Well, most historians, most of our history, already knew that. It's only the time of revisionist historians. And as we get into the 20th century, that began to promote other ideas. And by the way, when I met with Dr.

Lutz says the source of our Constitution comes from the Bible

Lutz in his office back in the 80s, not only do we discuss his research here, but, he had asked himself a question. He had gotten his doctorate at a secular university, and he was taught what a lot of people learn, most people learn in these secular universities, that the Bible and Christianity had little to do with the founding of America at all, but lots, in his teaching and reading and research about political science, wanted to find out, you know, where is the source of America's unique laws, our unique form of government? We had laws that protected liberty unlike the world had ever seen. They were unique. And he wanted to find out where they come from, what is the source? And part of this study, he was searching for that source because he had been taught, yeah, we are a product of the atheistic Enlightenment thinkers, and that's where it came from. But it may be rooted back in Greek and Roman writers, but he. He wanted to find out where did. Where did it really come from? And so he, as he told us as we were meeting with him, he said after a lot of extensive look and study and digging back to find the. The source, the foundation, he said, one day I kind of came to. In one hand, I had the Bible. On the other hand, I had Calvin's Institutes. And he said those were the sources of the civil laws of liberty that came forth in the United States of America. And that's right. And of course, Calvin's Institutes, he got his ideas directly from the Bible. And Calvin in particular, because his writings, his institutes of law and his other writings, were greatly impacted those Protestant individuals who gave birth to America. His writings helped give, influence five nations, @ least, directly during that time, none more so than the United States. And so Lutt said, look, I never was taught this in school, never was taught this anywhere through my whole doctoral studies and writing. It was only something he discovered afterwards because he was honestly seeking, truthful answer to this question. Of course, we've been writing about that for some years and have continued to do so because the evidence is overwhelming that the source of our liberty, the source of our law here in the United States of America, comes from the Bible, from biblical men, from men who sought to live out their life based upon the truth in God's word. And as they applied that truth. It gave birth to a unique nation, an exceptional nation such as the world has not seen. And so throughout most of our history, most everyone, founders of America, and for the first few centuries, what used to be taught in schools and colleges and churches is the Bible is the source of our Constitution, our form of government. And they've, and honest historians will recognize that it's the sacred writings and the bill, that Franklin recognized. This is the source of our unique form of government. Now if you look at the document itself, the Constitution, it's full of biblical ideas. just take for example, the Preamble to the Constitution. The preamble reveals to us the biblical purpose of government as presented in the scripture. It's kind of a summary, if you will, of the purpose of civil government. And here's the kind of five basic things that are revealed in scripture and reflected in the United States Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution. Now, the first purpose of civil government presenting the preamble is quote to, establish justice. The Bible says in 1st Peter 2:14 that civil rulers exist for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do do right. We read back in Genesis 9, 6 that God told Noah that whoever sheds man's blood by blood is by man his blood shall be shed. This is justice. Justice is protecting life. And so God created civil government. One of its purpose is to establish justice, to punish evildoers, to give praise to those who do right. Now we read a second purpose of civil government is quoting from the Constitution is to ensure domestic tranquility. We see this is what scripture teases in First Timothy 2:1:2, where Paul urges Christians to pray for civil rulers in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life and all godliness and dignity. And so, in order for us to lead a tranquil and godly life, a life of peace, domestic tranquility, we need good civil rulers. We need civil rulers who understand part of our mission is to establish justice, to protect life, to provide an atmosphere of peace so that individuals can carry on the mission that God has given us to advance his kingdom here in the earth. So we see a third purpose. According to the, Constitution, government is to provide for the common defense. Now the protection of innocent human life is, ah, at the foundation of the purpose of civil civil government. no. Capital punishment is one penalty that God tells that we should use against those who unjustly take life. If man sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed to assure that he never does that again. And the reason we set up, we have armies, we have police forces, and to protect us from external threats of enemies outside the nation, but also internal threats from evil doing men who would want to steal our life, liberty and property. See, Romans 13:4 tells us that civil government does not bear the sword for nothing. It bears the sword in order to protect our life, liberty and property, to provide for the common defense, to bring peace in society, to establish justice. And of course the sword was kind of the most advanced military weapon, of the day that the average soldier would carry. And the principle applies to the more advanced weapons that we use today that civil governments have access to advanced weapons, and whatever those may be from bombs and even nuclear weapons, to protect the citizens. Now no weapon in themselves are immoral, but as long as government intent to have, in having those weapons is to perform its function of protecting the righteous, punishing the evildoer, protecting our life, liberty and property. Of course, if you have immoral men who have access to various weapons, especially modern advanced weapons, there's the potential of great harm to be done. This is another reason we need godly rulers and we need godly citizens to elect godly rulers so that they don't abuse their authority, including abuse of the use of the sword. And so God gives civil government use of the sword to bring wrath upon one who practices evil. And so it's the enforcement mechanism God has given to civil government in order for it to perform its function. It yields the sword, it uses force in order to protect us from evildoers. you know, even Jesus Christ taught his disciples the legitimacy of being armed military militarily. In Luke 22:36 he said, now let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one. He had earlier, you know, mentioned to them, you know, when you go out, send them out in two by twos to preach the gospel. Don't take anything with you, don't take swords, don't take money or anything else. But he didn't want them to have the wrong impression of why he gave them that instruction. Because just before he suffered his death and then resurrection, he told him, look, let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one. He didn't want to leave them defenseless because force and self defense is certainly a biblical, right or precept that we are to follow. And so a fourth principle in the US Constitution preambled related to the role of government, says government should promote the general welfare. Now Romans 13:4 says that civil rulers are servants to you for good. See, the common good of all classes of citizens must be promoted by governmental laws that will guarantee equal opportunities for all people. the civil government, its purpose is not to, it's not to provide equal outcomes. Can't do that. It just provides equal opportunity where everyone's life, liberty and property is protected, where everyone has a right to get an idea, to create new business, new good or service that they can then, offer, produce and develop and offer it to its fellow, his fellow citizens, for the good of the fellow citizen and, and for the good of the nation at large. But civil government merely provides an atmosphere of peace, an atmosphere where everyone is equal before the law, where everyone has equal opportunity to labor and benefit from the fruit of their labor.

In future podcasts, I'll be exploring biblical ideas of economics

In future podcasts, I'll be exploring biblical ideas of economics. And we do in my book, Steward in the A Biblical View of Economics, that you can learn much more about this. And so in the Preamble to the Constitution, talks about promoting the general welfare, not providing specific welfare for its citizens. That's not the function of civil government. Civil government is not to take from the productive and to give to the unproductive, because biblical charity is done voluntarily. And if you have a civil government that's holding a gun to the head of its citizens and collecting taxes and saying, you know, you're too selfish to know what to do with your own money, so we're going to take your money and we're going to distribute it to those that we think, have a need. This is not God. The biblical way to provide for charity, to provide for the poor. And again, in future podcasts, I'm going to look at this in much more detail. See, it's a biblical free enterprise system. It's what will promote compassionate use of wealth. Because biblical free enterprise, where individuals benefit from the fruit of their labor, they're going to be encouraged to work and labor hard to be more productive and produce, more and more goods and services with better quality, better service. This will promote compassionate use of wealth. Socialism and all other forms of statism are contrary to this way because it's civil government seeking to take from the productive citizens and provide material things to those who are not as productive. And this causes all kinds of problems as we are, witnessing in nations today in the world like Venezuela and North Korea. And we've seen that historically as well. And then lastly, civil government exists to secure the blessings of liberty. Now, these are all things from the Preamble to the Constitution. Civil government exists to Protect our life, liberty and property. it exists to establish justice, to ensure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defense, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty. See, blessings are a gift of one's Creator. They're not a privilege granted by government. Government does not grant rights, privileges or blessings. They emanate. They come from the Creator. Civil government just exists to protect the blessings that come from the Creator. And they come from the Creator. as we align our life, our family, our business, our society in accordance with his, the plumb line of His Word. As we obey His Word, it produces flourishing. As we disobey His Word, then we're going to have problems. Civil government is just there to protect us and give us an environment where we can obey and be and pursue, happiness. You know, in the Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson talked about governments exist, they're there to protect our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That was not the modern understanding of pursuit of happiness, which to the secular man means I can pursue doing whatever selfish thing I feel like doing or, or whatever I, want. According to Blackstone, that phrase, the pursuit of happiness meant just the pursuit of doing the will of God. Because freedom to do God's will produces happiness. When we do God's will, when we obey God's will, it produces happiness in our life and in our society. And obedience to God's will produces blessings. And so blessings are a gift of the Creator. They're not a privilege granted by government. We can see some of those blessings that come from the Creator. Creator endowed blessings in the amendments to the Constitution. Fifth Amendment of the Constitution speaks about the right to life, to liberty and private property. These are kind of summarize the blessings of liberty that come from the Creator. Scripture declares that God is the source of life. Genesis 1:27. And God created man in his own image, so God created life. It emanates from Him. He's also the author of Liberty. Second Corinthians 3:17 says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Spirit of God brings first internal liberty into our heart and mine. But that internal liberty can't help but flow out and impact every sphere of life. Our families, our businesses, our civil community. So all liberty, personal, religious, economic, political, civil liberty, comes from God, from the Christian faith and from his truth. Leviticus 25:10 says, Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all in its habitants. That's part of our mission is to proclaim the liberating nature of the work of Christ Jesus. and the liberty that comes from adherence to his truth. That's our mission. Civil government's mission is to provide an atmosphere of peace protection so that we can do that. Scripture also presents God as the source of private property, as well. Ecclesiastes 5:19 states, for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also empowered him to eat from them and rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God. So God gives us the gift of labor, work, property, sowing and reaping so that we can as we labor hard, cry out to God for His blessing as for his wisdom to how best to labor that he then can bring increase. Increase comes from our labor. This is the gift of God. And that God desires man to benefit from the fruit of his labor, to eat the fruit of his labor. Or as George Washington used to love to quote in dozens of his letters, he used that phrase used a number of times in Scripture. Sitting under your own vine and fig tree. This implies this concept of private property and of benefiting from the fruit of your labor, of taking your property and through foresight and labor and God's blessing, causing it to be productive. This is a great vision of what a flourishing society will look like when every individual can sit under his own vine and fig tree, can labor hard and cry and benefit from the fruit of their labor. 1st Chronicles 29:12 says, Both riches and honor come from thee. And so we see here in the United States Constitution, just in the preamble alone, that it reflects the Christian nature of this document. See, the ideas in our U.S. constitution are based upon the Christian idea of man and the Christian idea of government. God created man in his image, gave him a mission to steward the earth, to labor hard, and then to benefit from the fruit of his labor to be blessed. There are blessings that come from the Creator and those blessings are best expressed when you have a land of liberty like the United States and when you have the proper form, form of government that will protect our God given liberty. And in the next podcast we're going to even look more at the US Constitution at just some general structure of that document and show that it as well is based upon a Christian idea of man and government. Well if you want to learn more m about our US Constitution, you can pick up some of our books. One of those is America's Providential History, which gives an overview of these things we've been discussing. Publish a book on the contending for the Constitution, looking at the events in the American that led to our Constitutional Convention and some of the ideas and principles in that document, as well. You can find these at our website, providencefoundation.com so I'd invite you to visit the website, read a lot of free articles, get some of our books and I'd also invite you to listen to some past podcasts because we look much more at the hand of God in the founding of America that planted the seeds that after almost 200 years then were, expressed in our American Christian constitutional federal form of government and this U.S. constitution that has existed longer than any other constitution, in history, and it still bears good fruit today and it encourages us to see we need, Godly men, we have godly men, the internal character and understanding to be in positions of government so that they can cause our unique form of government, to operate in the way that the founders intended. Well, thanks for joining us today on this podcast. Hope you can join us again next week. God bless.