In the first two parts of this series we delved into the historical insights and proofs discussed in Sam Kastensmidt’s very detailed small book, Ten Truths About America’s Christian Heritage, published by D.JAMES KENNEDY Ministries in 2008. I’ve learned a lot about our early American history from this author, and about the depth of commitment to their Christian faith that so many of our American ancestors exhibited, a commitment that seems to be fading away in this day and age. These first two articles in this series covered, in some detail, the first six of this author’s “Ten Truths About America’s ChristianHeritage”. This final article will deal, in lesser detail, with the final four historical “truths” that, I trust, will totally validate his contention that, indeed, our nation was founded on Christian principles that can be seen in so many places and in so many historical documents.
This series has been a sort of “Book Review” of Mr. Kastensmidt’s 2008 publication. I considered it so seminal that I wanted to share his thoughts with you. So, let’s continue.
TRUTH #7: AMERICA’S SCHOOLS WERE ESTABLISHED TO ADVANCE THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed.” So wrote Noah Webster (1758-1843): American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 (reprinted by Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967, Preface, p. 12). I assume we all know (I hope) that Noah Webster prepared and published our nation’s first dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, and in that same preface, above, Webster declared:
“No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” Preface, p. 12.
As I have previously written here in the Times Examiner, from our earliest days as British colonies and as an independent Republic, all citizens supported the education of their children in one form or another; mostly in home school environments and sometimes as private schools in the colonies or states, usually with relatively small enrollments. Most parents throughout our early history, and even into the first half of the 20th century, considered that gaining at least a basic understanding of God’s Word--our Bible and its doctrines—was at least as primary a purpose of education as teaching “reading, writing, and arithmetic”.
In fact, as author Kastensmidt stated:
“The first law governing education was passed in 1647 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Its purpose—to ensure that children would be able to read and write the Scriptures. The law, famously known as the ‘Old Deluder Satan Act’ declared:
‘It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep
men from the knowledge of the Scriptures…. Every township...
shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such
children as shall resort to him to write and read’.”
As difficult as it may be to believe in today’s atmosphere of agnosticism and anti-Christian brainwashing being carried out by most of America’s “Institutes of Induced Ignorance”, aka government school, including “colleges and universities”, of which many if not most of them were originally established as Christian centers of learning. In his great book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, Rev. D. James Kennedy wrote: “Almost every one of the first 123 colleges and universities in the U.S. has Christian origins.”
(Dr. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?” published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1994, p. 52
For example:
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, founded in 1636…
THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY, founded in 1693…
YALE UNIVERSITY, founded in 1701…
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, founded in 1746…
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, founded 1769.
All of them, and many more, were founded as either Christian centers of higher learning or at least as Christian oriented schools. My, how did our nation survive for all those years of that Christian teaching?
TRUTH #8: FOREIGN NATIONS ACKNOWLEDGE OUR CHRISTIAN ROOTS AND HERITAGE.
The author opened this segment by declaring:
“While secularists and atheists in America may attempt to rewrite our history and deny our Christian heritage, they cannot erase from the record the observations of our Christian heritage that have been made by other nations and their leaders.” (p. 65)
Even early leaders of the now thoroughly Marxist United Nations Organization recognized that truth. For example, Carlos Romulo, president of the U.N. General Assembly from 1949 to 1950, declared:
“Never forget, Americans, that yours is a spiritual country…. (U)nderlying everything else is the fact that America began as a God-loving, God-fearing, God-worshipping people”. (p. 65);
The Hon. Charles Malik, president of the 13th session of the U.N. General Assembly…stated in 1958:
“The good (in the U.S.) would never have come into being without the blessing and power of Jesus Christ…. I know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and cynics; but whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of America is at its best and highest: Christian.” (p. 66).
My, how attitudes and philosophies have deteriorated since those early generations of U.N. leaders. I’ll wager that it has been many decades since those sentiments have been expressed in the collectivist confusion of the communist-dominated U.N.
TRUTH #9: PRESIDENTS, CONGRESSES, AND OUR NATION’S CAPITOL DECLARE OUR BELIEF IN GOD.
“Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first—the most basic—expression of Americanism”, declared Kasdtensmidt (p. 73).
Of course, that acknowledgement of the American people and their governments (federal and state) did not cease with the deaths of our Founding generations. Up to this time in our history all of our presidents, our elected lawmakers, and our jurists-- all continue to give at least “lip service” to our country’s historic reliance upon our Creator God. We all know (I assume) that every single U.S. President since George Washington was sworn into his office with one hand upon a Bible. And they’ve all given affirmation in their inaugural addresses that our nation depended on God to survive. Our first President, George Washington, reminded his countrymen, and his posterity, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States”
(First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789).
Most presidents expressed similar sentiments.
Both our U.S. Senate and our House of Representatives open each session with prayers, and both still utilize paid chaplains. One of the most famous of those chaplains was the late Dr. Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the U.S. Senate in the late 1940’s. One of his prayers went like this:
“May it be ever understood that our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else. We were born that way, as the only nation on earth that came into being ‘for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith’” (A line from the Mayflower Compact).
Catherine Marshall, ed., ‘The Prayers of Peter Marshall”, New York, 1949, p. 186.
Most Americans have never learned that for the first several decades of our young nation’s existence, the U.S. Capitol Building and several other government buildings served as places of worship; Thomas Jefferson worshipped every Sabbath morning in the lower level of the Capitol building, where Statuary Hall is now located. In the decades after our U.S. Constitution was ratified, “the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged…. It must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests”.
All over our U.S. Capitol, buildings have the words “In God We Trust” in them; in the Capitol Rotunda there are eight huge oil paintings, four of which feature Christian themes (I’ve seen them up close and in person, and they are awe inspiring). As author Sam Kastensmidt wrote (Pp. 78-79):
“Even Barry Lynn, who as president of ‘Americans United for the Separation of Church and State’ claims that our Founders intended to create a ‘secular state’, admits, ‘Clearly, there are many religious references on buildings across Washington, D.C….. They are part of the history of the country.” In this matter he is correct.
TRUTH #10: THE COURTS HAVE DECLARED WE ARE A CHRISTIAN NATION!
Back in 2005, that far left wing and totally secularist organization known as The Anti-Defamation League, published the results of a nationwide survey which found that 64% of the adults in the U.S. believed that “religion was under attack” in our nation. Fast forward to today, and that reality is much more apparent than it was back in 2005.
Those who are historically cognizant will recall the despicable decision by our “Extreme Court” back in 1980, which stated:
“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the school children to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments….(This) is not a permissible state objective.”
Horror of horrors—to think that young people might actually read, meditate upon, and perhaps honor and obey those Ten Commandments. Wasn’t it fortunate that the honorable (IN)justices on our Supreme Court protected the youth of America from the “scourge” of living under such a “restricted existence” as mandated by a Judeo-Christian philosophy? Yeah, sure it was.
But it hasn’t always been that way here in the U.S. There have been times when our courts upheld Christianity and religious beliefs, and honored the TRUE meaning of our First Amendment “Establishment of Religion” clause. Our Founders would have been in total disagreement with the anti-religion sentiments of the Court. Our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay (1745-1829), wrote a decision that stated:
“The mot effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the Source from which they flow.”
Jay also observed: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
As I have previously written here in the pages of The Times Examiner, back in 1892 the Supreme Court ruled: “We are a religious people”, for the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity.
U.S. v. Church of the Holy Trinity, 143 U.S. 457, SCOTUS, 1892.
In addition, back in 1951, in U.S. v. McIntosh, the Supreme Court ruled:
“We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom and acknowledge with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.”
For our very earliest judicial history in the U.S. it was virtually inconceivable to contemplate an American nation and people separated from the influences of the Christian faith. Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835), the longest serving Chief Justice (1801-1835), and not exactly a believer in the “strict” interpretation of our Constitution, once observed:
“The American population is entirely Christian and with us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and express relations with it.”
Chief Justice John Marshall in a letter to Reverend Jasper Adams.
Author Kastensmidt also presented several examples of State courts giving similar rulings over the years, all of which emphasized that the U.S. was essentially a “Christian” nation filled with Christian people.
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We all should know that over many years, in order to promote and reinforce among our younger citizens their anti-Christian and anti-Semitic and totally secular Marxist view of our nation’s history, atheists and dyed-in-the-wool secularists have continually denied our true American history, almost always concentrating on aspects of our past that were less than noble and not always honorable in our relations with each other, ignoring or ridiculing in some manner the many good and decent and respectful human interactions that have made America the greatest and most free nation in history. These same secularists and atheists have always wanted Americans to deny their own history and the general agreement on thought, word, and deed that we have almost always shared with each other, and which pretty much dominated the decisions of our courts for the first 150 years of American history.
Today’s Americans are faced with the apprehension that our courts have basically abandoned the Christian foundations of our nation and the just legal system that was built upon those foundations. And they are correct to be concerned. The more those Christian foundations of our nation are eroded or cast aside, the greater are the threats to our liberties. That is becoming apparent to all but the willfully blind among us. If Americans continue to turn away from protesting and resisting these judicial inroads that those with “agendas” of anti-Christianity and anti-Semitism have long practiced, the time will come in the not so distant future when Americans will be officially forbidden to worship their God and practice their faiths both openly (close to that now) and even privately within our churches and synagogues. That has long been the goal of the anti-Christian and anti-Semitic collectivists of our modern world—the disgusting and disreputable Marxists/globalists/and Satanic fanatics who seek total power and control over all of mankind. Will you—will we—permit that to happen? The choice is ours, so make your choice WISELY!
