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This month’s issue: Principle # 4: "Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained."

Question: Why did the Founding Father’s (FF’s) feel religion was essential to the government of a free people?

Answer: Many FF quotes are available, but the following reference will suffice to answer this question and provide insight into how important the FF’s felt religion was to the government of a free people. This example is found in the wording of Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance law, a law that was passed by congress in 1787, the same year the new Constitution was adopted. Article 3 reads "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." What happened to forever?

The problem – how to define these 3 subjects: religion, morality and knowledge so they could be taught in schools and colleges without favoring one religion over another? An important question, especially for our day when the ACLU is leading efforts to have the federal courts remove the slightest hint reflecting on the Christian religion, or religion in general. Very carefully. Jefferson provides us the first hint with the words "the Laws of Nature, and of Nature’s God"that are found in the first paragraph of his Declaration of Independence. Clearly Jefferson, contrary to today’s court’s rulings on "separation of church and state," had in mind that a free people had to be a religious people, subject to the law’s of "Nature’s God." Borrowed words from Cicero. A pattern on how religion could be taught without offense came from Franklin in a letter to Ezra Stiles, then president of Yale University. Said Franklin: "Here is my creed (belief): I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points of all sound religion." Franklin’s definition of religion would allow schools to teach basic religious principles without favoring one creed over another, but as a means of teaching a child to ponder life, who they were, the creator of the earth, and their obligation to God, society, etc.

The five fundamental points expressed in Franklin’s statement would be: 1. There exists a Creator who made all things, and mankind should recognize and worship him; 2. The Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong; 3. The Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat one another; 4. All mankind live beyond this life; and 5. In the next life mankind are judged for their conduct in this one. Could such principles be incorporated into today’s curriculums? Doubtful, but needed! If they were it might help reduce the growing population of the incarcerated in the nation's ever growing numbers of prisons.

But where would the FF’s get such ideas, ideas that would now be considered "politically incorrect" by a few, and unconstitutional by our federal court system. We are living in a secular society today where the statutes and laws of God have been replaced by the "philosophies of man." The FF’s were intelligent men, well read in the Bible and in the great classics of their day, the books by Cicero, Baron Charles de Montesquieu, John Locke and others. They had a vision, a vision of a free people, self-governed, whose laws would succeed because they would be held inviolate, and secure to its citizens: 1. the free exercise of conscience, 2. the right and control of property, and 3. the protection of life. No nation provided such protection to their people in their days. They were only dreams. The FF’s searched for a pattern of law between ruler’s law, tyranny, and no law, anarchy, "a people’s law." They found such a pattern in the laws and statutes given to Moses and ancient Israel by God on Mt. Sinai. Many of the FF’s saw their day as the "latter-days" Moses referred to when God would again restore His "peoples laws" to a new nation of free people -America. Some believe the FF’s day was the "latter-days" spoken of by Moses to restore God’s perfect laws of liberty his people, the Israelites, lost.

Moses’ writing’s that influenced them most are found in Leviticus 20, and in Deuteronomy, primarily in chapters 1-4, & 7. Washington stated that on at least 67 occasions the Lord answered his prayers when he asked for guidance or help. And Washington believed God was leading him and his army to the promised land, just as the Israelites were led out of bondage to their promised land. The FF’s were aware of the life-styles that had caused the destruction of the nations destroyed by the Israelites. These immoral social conditions are well documented in Lev. 20, especially vs 23, which reads: "And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhor them." Strong, but clear language, to men about to create a new nation "under God.".

John Adams called these tenets for teaching religion, morality, and knowledge the "general principles" on which the American civilization had been founded. Jefferson called these subjects the principles "in which God has united us all." At our juncture in history we, America, needs to ask this question over and over again: "without religion can we survive as a free people?" It’s a question that needs an answer. And soon.