Faith and the Founding Fathers

(excerpted from http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage17.html)

While making certain not to endorse any denomination of religion over another, the founders of this nation made it emphatically clear that the principles upon which this Nation was built are based squarely upon the Bible.

Virtually every one of the 55 writers and signers of the United States Constitution were members of various Christian denominations: 29 were Anglicans; 16 to 18 were Calvinists; 2 were Methodists; 2 were Lutherans; 2 were Roman Catholic; 1 lapsed Quaker and sometimes Anglican, and; 1 open deist--Dr. Franklin who attended every kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed to all denominations.

George Mason is called the father of the Bill of Rights, for he insisted that the first ten amendments be added to the Constitution. The purpose for such an addition? "The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth," Mason said.

James McHenry was a member of the Continental Congress, a state legislator, a soldier, and a signer of the Constitution...as well as the president of the first Bible Society in Baltimore. McHenry stated:

"Neither...let it be overlooked, that public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures."

"The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness."

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney also signed the Constitution, and served as a delegate to the national Constitutional Convention, and was an author of the Constitution of South Carolina. Pinckney was a statesman, soldier, planter, a brigadier general and a candidate for President and Vice-President. Like the rest of the signers of the Constitution, he too recognized the Sovereignty of God:

"Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Saviour Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land."

And, for those who fear this sort of law breeds intolerance or disrespect for others, Patrick Henry boldly declared:

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here" (bold Constitution Conscious).