Influence of the Bible on America, part 1

Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and the Culture. It's WallBuilders and we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I kind of paused there. For biblical, a biblical perspective, the Bible has had more influence on the American culture, the American way of life and the American success story than anything else, and we're going to be highlighting that the rest of this week, talking about the influence of the Bible in America. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David Barton and Tim Barton. David is America's premier historian and our founder at Wall Boulders. Tim Barton's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

We appreciate you listening and hope that you will apply what you learned this week. This is going to be really cool. You're going to learn a lot about how much the Bible influenced the nation of America, how much it influenced our Constitution, our Declaration, our way of life, the way we think, the way we solve problems, everything from free enterprise and property rights to the way we elect our officials all of it. Biblical influence is what gave us that secret sauce, that formula that produced the greatest nation in the history of the world. And it's very, very interesting that in the last few weeks and I know a lot of people have been negative about this, but the emphasis on Christian influence in the culture and the emphasis even with Donald Trump coming out and talking about this Bible that they put the Declaration of the Constitution, a copy of those, in there. Some people don't like that. I think it's great. I think you're taking essentially the fundamental, foundational readings that made America great and the documents that were influenced by those readings. So you know, it's one reason we read through the Founder's Bible every year we want people reading God's Word, being saturated in God's Word, but also reading the articles and the stories and the history of how people in American history applied God's Word. Then when you see other people applying God's Word to the things that they did in life, then you'll think about how to do that in your own life. So we're really I can't tell you how much I love reading through the Founder's Bible every year and how much I hope that you will do the same.

But this week we want to emphasize the story behind America and so, before we do that, I want to play this clip of Donald Trump talking about the importance of the Bible and talking about the importance of religion and you can be cynical and say it's all politics, he's just campaigning and all that stuff you know. Okay, fine, if that's, even, if, even if that's the case, what he is saying is spot on and needs to be said, and the more that we can have people say this, for whatever reason that they might say it. And I think, genuinely, the man has figured out this is the formula and has figured out. Look how far the nation has gone by rejecting religion and morality, just like George Washington did. I mean, Washington said the exact same thing Religion and morality are indispensable supports of political prosperity. In vain, would that man claim the tribute of patriotism that would work to subvert these great pillars. Washington figured that out.

He's watching the French Revolution when he gave that speech and he sees the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. The difference, very simply, is one said libertas, freedom, but it's innate, it comes from within. You literally get it from each other or from the government. And therefore it was the law of the tiger and the shark and it led to the guillotine. And therefore it was the law of the tiger and the shark and it led to the guillotine. That was the French Revolution.

The American Revolution said freedom comes from God, and if your freedom comes from God, then government can't take it away, your neighbor can't take it away, but you have to live it out respecting the authority of God. It's got to be done within the rules and the boundaries of what he gives us. That's why it's so important what Donald Trump is saying and what, frankly, more and more pastors are saying and more and more people are recognizing the need. I mean even Joe Rogan and others now commenting on the need for religion and a concept of right and wrong, moral, absolutes truths all of those things vitally important. So first thing up, let's play this clip from Donald Trump where he's talking about the importance of the Bible.

Donal Trump

I'm proud to be partnering with my very good friend, Lee Greenwood who doesn't love his song God Bless the USA in connection with promoting the God Bless the USA Bible. This Bible is the King James Version and also includes our founding father documents yes, the Constitution, which I'm fighting for every single day, very hard to keep Americans protected. Also, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance are all part of this God bless the USA Bible and it's very important and very important to me. I want to have a lot of people have it. You have to have it for your heart, for your soul. Many of you have never read them and don't know the liberties and rights you have as Americans and how you are being threatened to lose those rights. It's happening all the time. It's a very sad thing that's going on in our country, but we're going to get it turned around.

Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country and I truly believe that we need to bring them back, and we have to bring them back fast. I think it's one of the biggest problems we have. That's why our country is going haywire. We've lost religion in our country. All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of people's favorite book. This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back America and to make America great again is our religion. Religion is so important, it's so missing, but it's going to come back and it's going to come back strong, just like our country is going to come back strong.

In the end, we do not answer to bureaucrats in Washington. We answer to God in heaven. Christians are under siege. We must protect content that is pro-God. We love God and we have to protect anything that is pro-God. We must defend God in the public square and not allow the media or the left-wing groups to silence, censor or discriminate against us. We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and back into what will be again a great nation.

Our founding fathers did a tremendous thing when they built America on Judeo-Christian values. Now that foundation is under attack, perhaps as never before. What can we do? Stand up, speak out and pray that God will bless America again. I'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again. Pray, get educated, get motivated and stand with me and the legions of Americans asking God to bless our great nation, to bring our great nation back and to make America great again. I'm proud to partner with Lee in this offering. He's a very special man, both as a talent, but maybe even more so as a human being. He's very, very special and I think you all should get a copy of God Bless the USA Bible now and help spread our Christian values with others. There you have it. Let's make America pray again. God bless you and God bless the USA.

Rick Green

That was Donald Trump talking about the importance of reading the Bible and, yes, you know, selling his Bible, but hey, you buy Bibles from Thomas Nelson and you know other publishers, so I don't know why everybody's dissing on Donald Trump for making this Bible available.

I think it's great and we want to encourage Americans to study God's Word, to be in the Bible, because even if you're not a believer, even if you're not a Christian, the Bible has wisdom for your life. It's an instruction manual for life, the best one ever written, and if we can get back to it in our culture, then the culture is going to be far better off. Okay, let's take a break, and when we come back from the break, we're going to jump right in to this presentation, this video that you can get at wallbuilders.com called the Influence of the Bible in America, and we're going to do that throughout this week, it these programs this week with your friends and family. Please come alongside us and be a force multiplier by just simply sharing the links with your friends and family. All right, quick break, we'll be right back. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastor's briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in. It's in Washington DC.

On Tuesday night we do an after-hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them. And, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.

Rick Green

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Let's jump right in. Here's the Influence of the Bible in America.

Speaker

Over the course of eight years and six months, a group of dedicated but greatly outmanned and outgunned soldiers from the American colonies performed the unimaginable they successfully defeated a vastly superior and more well-equipped British army and navy, an event that culminated in the signing of the historical Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, at which time the United States of America became a separate, independent nation. In those initial days of America's infancy, the bedrock and foundations of this great country were laid.

David Barton

The fact that America fought for and won its national independence is, of course, a well-known fact of American history, but what many Americans are not quite so aware of is the important link that the Bible, that's right, that the Bible actually played in making America the single most successful government of all time, now being the longest ongoing Constitutional Republic in the history of the world. Both the Bible and America are unique. Both of their achievements are unmatched, but what many Americans don't know is that the two accomplishments are not unrelated. In fact, the Bible has had a very direct impact on the success of America's uniquely successful government, an impact that was widely understood and acknowledged by previous generations, but an impact that's largely unknown today. So in this program we're going to see firsthand the historical records that categorically prove the Bible has directly affected the most important aspects of our culture, including our system of government, law, education, our free enterprise system, our views of private property, our social services and so many other aspects of our culture. I hope you'll join us as we go back in time and review the historical records documenting the impact that the Bible has had on American life and culture over the past four centuries. 

Perhaps part of the reason that so many today don't recognize the substantive influence of the Bible on America is that today, too little time is spent reading and studying the Bible. But such was not the case in previous generations. On the contrary, our forefathers made the Bible a centerpiece of their lives, not just a convenient add-on. For example, the pilgrims could spend up to several hours each day in studying their Bibles, and during the founding era, many of America's most prominent statesmen made it their habit not merely to read their Bibles, but to read through their Bibles once each year and to study their Bibles, seeking practical insight for their day-to-day and personal and civic lives practical insight for their day-to-day and personal and civic lives. Too many today, however, consider the Bible to be, at best, nothing more than just a spiritual devotional book. By and large, it's no longer seen as a practical guidebook that has the potential to safely direct every aspect of daily life and living. Early Americans, however, knew that the Bible held forth not just eternal and spiritual benefits, but it also held forth immediate and practical benefits both for individuals and for their societies. In fact, many Americans today are surprised to discover just how many famous Americans of the past forcefully urged the importance of reading and studying the Bible.

For example, statesman and patriot Patrick Henry declared the Bible is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed.

And famous educator Noah Webster also forcefully announced.

The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society, the best book for regulating the temporal, that is, the secular concerns of men.

And Dr Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, urged.

The Bible should be read in our schools in preference to all other books, from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge, which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.

And Daniel Webster, the great defender of the Constitution, declared, to the free and universal reading of the Bible.

Men are much indebted for right views of civil liberty. The Bible is a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity and his equality with his fellow man. Individual responsibility, his own dignity and his equality with his fellow man.

In order to help us understand today what earlier generations long recognized, let's review some of the significant contributions made by the Bible to our society. Now, I could probably select a significant example from every year of American history, but in the interest of time I've chosen only a few highlights that I believe will more than amply document the Bible's influence on America. Let's start back with our early beginnings in the 1620s and 1630s, the time of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Those early colonists came to America seeking both civil and religious liberty, and they arrived on America's shores with one book in particular the Bible. Yet it was not just any Bible that they carried to America. It was a very specific Bible. In fact, the famous painting of the embarkation of the pilgrims that hangs in the rotunda of the US Capitol accurately shows that the open Bible before them is the Geneva Bible. Here is an actual original copy of one of the early Geneva Bibles brought here by the Puritans. Now, this particular Bible was printed in 1519 and was carried to America by the Arthur Upton family. In the front of the Bible are even the birth records of their children born in 1627, 1629, 1631, and so forth. The Geneva Bible was the particular favorite of those who had been persecuted for their religious beliefs in England and Europe and who had come to America as a result, it became the most popular Bible of that time, going through 140 different reprints in the period from 1560 to 1644. The Geneva Bible revolutionized the New World in general and America in particular. The Bible is often shown prominently in paintings of the pilgrims, and most of the persecution against them had been because they had embraced the Bible teachings of the Reformation.

Recall that the Reformation had begun when priests and ministers began to question centuries-long practices of the church that they believed did not conform to the scriptures. The result of godly priests like Martin Luther and others challenging the practices of an increasingly apostate church was twofold. On the one hand, it prompted harsh persecution from both church and state leaders against the dissenters, but on the other hand, it eventually resulted in major reforms within the Catholic church and it also birthed what later came to be known as the Protestant Church. So what were some of the issues raised by the dissenters that eventually caused a revolution within the church? The dissenters' primary concerns were two-fold. First, they wanted people to have access to a Bible so that they could read it for themselves, and second, they wanted to conform the culture to God's Word, rather than vice versa. Now, on the first point, the church leaders of that day had insisted that the Bible be placed only in churches and that it be written in a language that was not the language of the common people, thus effectively keeping a knowledge of God's Word out of the hands of the average citizen. On the second point, the reformers exposed cultural customs that did not have a firm basis in God's word. Take, for example, what they did with civil government.

Now, if you'd lived virtually anywhere in the old world four centuries ago, you would have been ruled by a king, whether in England or France or Spain or Portugal or the Netherlands or Romania or Sweden or nearly any other European nation. In fact, all those nations had been ruled by kings for centuries. Citizens were accustomed to a monarchical form of government, and even a casual observer of the Bible knows that kings were featured prominently throughout the Bible. I mean, consider, King Saul, king David, King Solomon, King Rehoboam, King Josiah, King Jehoshaphat, and so forth. Therefore, an easy assumption to make in that day would have been that God preferred monarchies.

Yet a closer study of the Bible reveals that the governmental system of monarchies was actually not God's preference. Recall that God even sent the prophet Samuel to dissuade his people from monarchies. But Israel demanded kings anyway. So what was the biblical form of government before kings? It was what may be termed a Republic. In Exodus 18.21, the people were told to choose out from among themselves leaders of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands, that is, to select officials at what we today would call the local, county, state and federal levels.

Speaker 

But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

David Barton

Understanding this biblical truth, it's not surprising that the early colonists who arrived in America soon established representative governments based on scriptural principles. By 1619, Virginia had an elected legislature, and when the pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts in 1620, in the famous Mayflower Compact, they similarly announced that they too would be self-governed. So how does all of this relate to the Geneva Bible? Well, the one thing that made the Geneva Bible distinctive from all other Bibles at that time was its marginal commentaries on the Scriptures, commentaries by prominent Reformers such as Martin Luther, John Knox and others. It was through these commentaries that the Reformers challenged the culture, pointing out where cultural customs differed from scriptural teachings.

Since the pilgrims would spend up to several hours a day in the scriptures, it's not surprising that their study of the Bible produced significant changes in their thinking and therefore in their practices. In other words, bibles were to them far more than decorations for their coffee tables or even, primarily, a religious devotional book. Bibles, to them, were vital life manuals for practical day-to-day living. For example, as a result of their Bible studies, not only did the pilgrims learn the biblical teachings regarding self-government, but they also learned its teachings regarding private property. I mean, after all, two of the Ten Commandments directly address the protection of private property.

You shall not steal, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor".

Yet at the time of the pilgrims, the kings thought that they owned the world, that they owned America. Therefore they would let groups like the pilgrims use part of their land. But the pilgrims knew better. They knew the land wasn't the king’s to give, so they purchased land from the Indians around them. By the way, this practice of purchasing land from the Indians, quite different from the practice of secular minded colonists. This practice became characteristic of the religious settlers, including not only the pilgrims and Puritans in Massachusetts, but also Roger Williams in Rhode Island, Thomas Hooker in Connecticut, William Penn in Pennsylvania and many others who also purchased their land from the Indians.

The Bible also affected the pilgrims' views toward racial equality. For example, while most today learn that the first load of slaves sailed up the James River in Virginia in 1619 and its slavery was thus introduced into America 1619, and its slavery was thus introduced into America, few today learn about the first slaves that arrived in the Massachusetts colonies set up by the Christian pilgrims and Puritans. When that slave ship arrived in Massachusetts, the ship's officers were arrested and imprisoned and the kidnapped slaves were freed and returned to their home at the colony's expense. The pilgrims understood the Bible teachings about the equality of man regardless of his race. Teachings such as that found in Acts 17.26, which declares 

From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth. Similarly, in Revelation, the Bible notes that those gathered around God's throne included and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.

Very simply, the Bible shaped their views on racial relations. Another important application of the Bible made by the pilgrims related to their social policy. They arrived here as caring, committed Christians, committed to each other. Another important application of the Bible made by the pilgrims related to their social policy. They arrived here as caring, committed Christians, committed to each other and looking out for the welfare of one another.

The logical outworking of this common care, at least initially, was a sincere but misguided type of socialism. That is, each person had everything in common with everyone else and all the fruits of their labor were put into a common pot and split evenly among all. However, it didn't take long for those inclined to laziness to find that this was a system that suited them well. They didn't have to work hard and they could still receive ample provisions. The consequence of this system was much inefficiency and non-productivity. The Pilgrims eventually abandoned socialism as a result of two biblical teachings. The first was found in 1 Timothy 5.8, sitting forth that if someone does not take care of his own household, then he's worse than an infidel.

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The second biblical teaching that changed their socialistic attitude was found in 2 Thessalonians 3.10, in which Paul set forth a clear principle declaring 

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule If a man will not work, he shall not eat.

That scripture also produced a radical change, first in their thinking and then in their policy. Under the pilgrim's new policy, if you were able-bodied, the community at large no longer provided sustenance for you. You could work and produce for yourself. However, if you could not supply for yourself, if you were a widow or an orphan, or if you found yourself in some unfortunate circumstance, then the community would help you. By the way, the massive welfare reform bill that Congress passed, which moved so many from welfare to work, was nothing more than a return to the biblical principles or what today we would often call the Judeo-Christian principles understood and implemented by the pilgrims four centuries ago. These policies, and so many others that we still embrace today, were largely introduced into America by the pilgrims as a result of their diligent reading and studying of the Bible, particularly the Geneva Bible.

Yet even though the Geneva Bible had a significant impact on America and even on the world, it was not readily received by all. For example, kings, understandably, were not great fans of the Geneva Bible. After all, the commentaries in the Geneva Bible pointed out that the long accepted doctrine of the divine right of kings was not the preferred manner of government originally set forth in the Bible Under the divine right of kings, that the preferred manner of government originally set forth in the Bible Under the divine right of kings, that doctrine that had prevailed for centuries prior to the Geneva Bible. Whenever the king spoke, he was supposedly the mouthpiece of God speaking directly to the people. Now, what king would not have liked that doctrine?

In fact, as Benjamin Franklin later pointed out,

 there is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the people's money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children, servants forever.

Understandably, kings were not well disposed toward teachings that tended to reduce their power and because the Geneva Bible contained such ideas, the kings reacted against that Bible. They came out with their own official version of the Bible authorized by the kings. Today we call it the King James Bible. This is an original copy of that early Bible and significantly the King James Bible differs very little from the Geneva Bible in its text.

Rick Green

All right, folks, we're out of time for today, We'll pick up right where we're leaving off. So tomorrow we'll jump right back into the influence of the Bible in America. Thanks so much for listening. Today You've been listening to WallBuilders. Thank you.