Religion and the New Republic

Library of Congress ^ | 2003 | Library of Congress Home Page

[daniel1212]

VII. Religion and the New Republic

The religion of the new American republic was evangelicalism, which, between 1800 and the Civil War, was the "grand absorbing theme" of American religious life. During some years in the first half of the nineteenth century, revivals (through which evangelicalism found expression) occurred so often that religious publications that specialized in tracking them lost count. In 1827, for example, one journal exulted that "revivals, we rejoice to say, are becoming too numerous in our country to admit of being generally mentioned in our Record." During the years between the inaugurations of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, historians see "evangelicalism emerging as a kind of national church or national religion." The leaders and ordinary members of the "evangelical empire" of the nineteenth century were American patriots who subscribed to the views of the Founders that religion was a "necessary spring" for republican government; they believed, as a preacher in 1826 asserted, that there was "an association between Religion and Patriotism." Converting their fellow citizens to Christianity was, for them, an act that simultaneously saved souls and saved the republic. The American Home Missionary Society assured its supporters in 1826 that "we are doing the work of patriotism no less than Christianity."

With the disappearance of efforts by government to create morality in the body politic (symbolized by the termination in 1833 of Massachusetts's tax support for churches) evangelical, benevolent societies assumed that role, bringing about what today might be called the privatization of the responsibility for forming a virtuous citizenry.

[daniel1212]

Came across this as I was doing research for an article, and while I have not read it all through, I was amazed that a Gov. resources could still record the extensive Christian historicity of the United States. Praise the Lord. This is only one part of a Library of Congress exhibit, and it has much more, including what the FBI's examination of Jefferson's letter from which the term "separation of church and state" is principally credited to indicates (part IV)

While not extensive as a book, it gives a good overview, and I would suggest you save the series to your hard drive before future gov. revisionists really go to work on it. On my next post I will list some links that relate to this subject, that may be helpful.

[daniel1212]

The Christian Roots of American Liberty: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cdf/ff/index.html

As regards religion and education:

http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/Education_in_the_United_States

http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html

Separation of church and state: http://conservapedia.com/Separation_of_church_and_state

Moral decline:
http://conservapedia.com/Moral_decline

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/decline.html

Statistical correlations: Faith and politics, etc. http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Statistical_Correlations.html

Costs of the War against God: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html

[loveliberty2]

Not specifically to that point, but on a related note, little is said today about the role of the pulpit in America's formative years.

Professor Ellis Sandoz, many years ago, assembled "Political Sermons of the American Founding Era" in two volumes. This collection is now available online at the Liberty Fund Library.

A reading of some of these is an enlightening experience. There are sermons on the role of Divine Providence, Election Day Sermons, and one by Bishop James Madison (cousin of the "Father" of the Constitution and President James Madison).

These volumes are priceless reminders of those generations preceding and following the framing of the American Constitution. They are stirring reminders of the true nature of liberty, and its Source.

Aside from the Sandoz collection, Liberty Fund's Online Library is a tremendous source for all who wish to arm themselves with truth for the current battle of ideas.

[daniel1212]

Glad to see some are interested. Where do i get that resource?

The political side is secondary to the spiritual, yet insofar as conservatism goes, an increasing number of conservatives seem to suppose it came out of bottle, and that the effects of a living (not institutionalized) Christianity and its evangelicalism were and are not crucial to the real greatness of a nation. And more importantly, to the salvation of souls.

Early on, in a pamphlet for Europeans titled Information to Those Who Would Remove to America (1754), Benjamin Franklin wrote, in part:

“...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may 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 by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country.

Alexis de Tocqueville commented,
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.” - Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII (1835)

Os Guinness comments that,

“while America has never officially been a “Christian Republic,” for much of its history the Christian faith has been a leading contribution to its unofficial civil religion.”

[loveliberty2]

The web address is for the online text of Professor Sandoz's volumes of the sermons of the Revolutionary period. Of course, while you're on the Liberty Fund site, you may want to explore all the other wonderful collections of writings available there.

Another great historical resource is Frothingham's "History of the Rise of the Republic . . . ." A search for this 1800's history will reveal copies available. Frothingham traces what he calls "the Christian idea of man" in the development of the Republic.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Excellent.

What struck me, recently, in reading the Constitution is the way the the framers closed their work:

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

Go Washington – President and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire – John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

. . .

Combine that with the preamble

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

and you have an open-and-shut case that although the framers were convened to produce a secular document rather than a theological one, it would have been unnatural and strained for them to have completely avoided Christian language in their work.

Which in any case is blatantly obvious by the mere fact that the document was written in English. Had it been written in Arabic, you would have expected the authors to be Muslim, had it been written in Chinese you would have expected some implication of Confucianism, and so forth. Real cultures are associated with religions, you know . . .

[daniel1212]

Thanks! The rise of the republic of the United States by Richard Frothingham is online (Google books) and i have been looking at http://oll.libertyfund.org/

(Psa 11:3) “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

(Hosea 10:12) “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

Me too

[daniel1212]

“In the year of our Lord” Indeed. The Constitution presupposes religion: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams

If men are not sufficiently ruled from within, they must be ruled from without, God controlled or gun (Gov) controlled, “either by the Bible or the bayonet” (Robert Winthrop 1809 – 1894). And it is the Evangelical gospel that so powerfully effected the former control, while sanctioning the use of the latter.

And if the argument from silence is to hold, with the absence of any mention of Deity meaning they intended to exclude God, then the Book of Esther could be included.