The Surprisingly Christian History of Early America

In the 1600s, the best of the Reformation converged on America…covenanted together under God…and took His law as the basis for their government. By 1880, America had the largest GDP in the world. Today, Americans contribute 90% of global charity. God’s blessing has rested on us for 250 years, and to this day, we are the most God-blessed nation. Kevin and Danny discuss what happened to bring such blessing…and whether it could happen again.

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New kids and family podcast from Generations - TeachMeTheFaith.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And welcome friends to Generations. Kevin Swanson, your host with you. Today, Danny Craig in studio with me. Welcome, my friend. Always good to have you. And today on the 250th anniversary of this nation, and I think significant that we ought to come back to this. And every family in America needs to, I think, be thanking God for the blessings upon this nation that we've enjoyed for what 250 years now. And uh and we've gone over some of these, and I want to I want to talk about the roots of Christian America today because I do think it makes a difference. And some of the things people are getting is that, you know, hey, you know, there's problems with our founders, they had issues, they weren't perfect men. Uh, and yes, yes, yes, but that doesn't discount the good things that have happened. Nobody's perfect. King David wasn't perfect, and yet God blessed that nation during David's time. Yet, you know, again, God's working with him throughout the entire process. Uh, so we can be sure that there's some good things going on in the world, and we're thankful for the good things that God is bringing into this world. There's some redeeming that's happened thanks to Jesus' influence upon the entire world, discipling nations, and true believers were involved in the planting of this nation, certainly in the 1620s, but on into the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s as well. So, my book, Under God, has just been released to the point where people can purchase it online. Uh, a 500-page introduction to freedom, liberty, uh, biblical principles for governance, um, and the incredible and amazing experiment in liberty on the part of this country, the United States of America. It's the 250th anniversary commemorative edition, uh, available at generations.org.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

When that concept came to your mind, were you thinking about the 250th?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

I actually wasn't. I was just simply thinking we need to equip the men and women of God, the young men and young women of God, for every good work, including politics. Now, does it make sense that we ought to bring every part of life to the feet of Jesus? If we are following Jesus and uh we are serving the Lord Jesus Christ and we acknowledge him to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, why not take every part of life, including that point at which we vote for our representatives on election day, should we bring that to the feet of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings? I realize not everybody does this, but should we do it?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah, Kevin, uh you launched Under God this week, and we also launched the Under God Summit this week as well. Right. That's uh homeschoolsummits.com forward slash under God, and you all you all can get registered for that. And the reason that we're doing this is for the very reason that you said is we want to do three things. Number one, we want to help people understand the biblical foundations of liberty and uh godly government. We want to remember the works of God. Uh Psalm 78 is so critical that we not forget the works of God. That is a huge part of our family discipleship endeavor. Uh, so at the summit, day one is focused on the biblical foundations. Day two is let's go back and review the biblical or the mighty works that God did in the founding of this nation. And then day three is how do we train our children to fight for freedom? Because at the end of the day, I think we want our children to understand what responsibility do I have before God, not just in my personal life, not just in my family, not just in my church, but in the broader uh society that I engage in.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

And we want to give hope, you know, and that yes, our contributions can be of some value absolutely to the maintenance of freedom and liberty for this generation and to future generations. And I think two things. One is to be grateful, right? We should all be grateful. You know, I I think almost every Christian church and Christian family in this country takes a moment to thank God that we can worship without the gendarms breaking down the doors and arresting us and throwing us in prisons and such. We we we appreciate the religious freedom of this nation. And I think, you know, uh millions, 20, 30 million Americans, probably at least 10% of this nation, will thank God on almost any given Sunday for the freedoms they enjoy. Number one, let's be sure that we know, that we know, that we know the great foundations of this country, that we might be grateful for it. And then secondly, that that our children will be challenged, that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps they could be salt and light, they could be an influence on maintaining liberty or freedom in this country or some country around the world in the year 2100.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Right. And that this is a biblical responsibility and obligation, is that as believers, we seek the welfare of the nation in which God has planted us. Amen. And we do that by going back to the foundations of God's word and his law.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

And that it happened once. Yes. Here's the question I bring into my book under God. Could it happen again? To which you would say, by the grace of God. Yes. Yes. And so I realize there are post-mills out there going post-millennialists, super optimistic eschatology people, would probably say, Oh, of course, absolutely it could happen. In fact, it's going to happen again. Praise God for our optimists. We appreciate our optimists that are listening. But there are also the ultimate pessimistic eschatologies that say no way can never happen again. I personally actually reject that. I think, you know, we don't know when Jesus is coming back. Do you you got that dialed in? And I'm narrowing in the calculations, but I haven't figured it out. Exactly. That being the case, when we say could it happen again, the answer needs to be absolutely. And yes, we've gone through a period of time in which governments have increased sixfold as a percentage of GDP. We've created tyranny around us. We have pretty much abolished the right to life in this country, with the exception of a couple of three, four states now. There are several states that actually have held a line on this. We're thankful. So, again, actually, there might be just a wee bit of hope that we are actually entering into a window of opportunity, a window of time in which we can take advantage. And if there are any Christians out there, they could fill some of these posts of governance and bring a reign of a governance of righteousness and liberty in their particular corner where they live. I think it's possible. I think you could turn on the lights, I think you could be the light, the salt, in any given situation, in any given place around the world. And by the way, I bring that into my book, Under God. I actually give hope. I render hope to people who are living in Japan.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

People living in South America and Brazil or South Africa or even in China. I believe there are Christians. I believe that if you're a Joseph in the time of Egypt, or you are a uh Josiah in the time of a very wicked period of time in the children of Israel, or if you are a Daniel in the time of Persia, you could make a profound difference where you are.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Kevin, I think we have somewhat become uh numbed by maybe our society to think that you know our Christian life is very different than our the life we live out in the world. But if you look at um the missionaries, uh they couldn't go into John Payton, couldn't go into Tana and preach the gospel and not simultaneously bring about some impact on the society and the civil government in which he was, you know, the civil situation in which he found himself. Absolutely. Uh we think we see this with various missionaries.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter time and place. If you are walking into that time and place as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit of God, you're going to make an influence upon that area of human life and and earthly geography. Um now, I've just released Under God. It's a full-orbed government course. It's a biblical civics, but it's also uh a great little book for anybody, any Christian in the world to read. Maybe not so much, but but it's it's certainly interesting and readable. But it's a remarkable story of yes, America's foundings, the genius of the U.S. Constitution, the hard-fought Bill of Rights. I've got all of that, entire chapters uh dealing with the biblical standard for good government, uh, a right view of law and liberty against the false views of socialist positive rights and Marxist social justice. You've heard of positive rights, social justice, et cetera, et cetera. But what I want to get down to is that, yes, we have actually an American experiment that was successful. That being the case, I have chapters dedicated to the American experience. Um, indeed, America was a beautiful opportunity for Christians to influence this country. Yes, back in the 1620s and 30s, as the Puritan pilgrims, the best of, the best of uh the English Reformation, the best of the Scottish Reformation, the best of the Reformation in the Netherlands and on into parts of Switzerland, etc., and France, of course, the Huguenots. So they come to America, the very best of the best of the Christians in Europe who had gone through this amazing time of revival and spiritual reformation. They converge on a nation and they experiment with God's law and liberty and present, I think, the very best nation on earth. Now there's it's flawed. It's flawed. Yes, we've made a lot of mistakes along the way. And yet God's blessing has rested upon this nation for 250 years.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I think the big lesson is that God blesses nations. Big time. Absolutely. Absolutely. We see that clearly in the Old Testament, but it's still active today, and we see that clearly uh in the history of this country.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

There's so many examples of that. And I've gone over this before, I'm sure, but America contributes, you know, to charity. America is an example of liberty upon the entire world. In fact, we were number four in 200 nations around the globe on the Heritage Foundation's uh Liberty and Freedom Index back in 1994, okay, when it first came out. We've drifted down to about 22. So, yes, we're losing our freedoms and liberty. There's no question about it. America has slipped for the last 25 years, largely because we have not educated our children enough. We have not raised a generation to fight for the principles upon which this nation was founded. That's why we've slipped on these uh these various indexes. But America was number one. America was at the top. America was had the largest GDP in the world by 1880. America has maintained that. Now on PPP, China is slightly above us at this point on this GDP, PPP. It's another index. But uh but in the general GDP index, America is still number one in the nation in the world today. And uh America, as I said, is the most charitable nation on the earth. Uh America contributes$370 billion in private charity each year. The number two nation is the UK at$22 billion.$370 billion in charitable contributions uh to, you know, charitable issues here in America, but also to all kinds of charitable things that are going on around the world today, including missionary work. America's at$370 billion in private charitable contributions each year. The UK number two at$22 billion, Germany at$5 to$6 billion, and everybody else is in the dirt. Uh so, you know, okay, without America, what would happen? To the world, to the world. How much charity would there be in the world? We would lose probably close to 90% of the charitable offerings would be gone if America was wiped off the map. So America has by far the highest number of Protestant Christians in the world at 160 million. Number two is Nigeria at 60 million, Brazil at 41 million. Um, the US, South Africa, and Brazil, only major countries in the world holding to a supernaturalist view of creation versus evolution, at least in terms of the majority. Just done a little bit of research on that, and we're still we're still hanging in there. We're still right around 38 to 42 percent of Americans still believe that God created them some 6,000 years ago. That's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Kevin, you travel the world a lot. One of my questions for you is uh despite the apostasy in America, it does seem that there's still uh a huge source of Christian teaching and doctrine coming from the incredible, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

How does it compare to other countries? It's incredible. I mean, I just checked out this stat. Uh America's 7% of American kids are being homeschooled. Yeah. 7%. Okay. It was 0% in 1980. Today it's 7%. Uh UK is about 1.5%. That's about number two. Canada's right around there, one or two percent. Uh Australia, New Zealand, right around there. Brazil is probably hitting you know 0.4%. So America is seven times, just about sevenfold. Yeah. In terms of liberty in the field of education and the application of a Christian worldview and education. America is head and shoulders on percentages above the number two, number three, and number four nations in the world today. No question about. To this day, America is the most God-blessed nation on planet earth. And I think it has a lot to do with the foundations of this country.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Let's talk about that. Uh, you mentioned the way that God brought some of the best of the reformations to America. But uh, how did America start out? What are some of the important lessons that we can derive from understanding the spiritual roots of the nation that led to the birth of the nation in 1777?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, the first migrations were people fleeing tyranny, no question about it. John Winthrop, I tell the stories in American Faith. A couple of us have written some of these great uh uh biographies, and they're short biographies, but they're great sketches of the greatest Americans in the formation of this nation. American faith recommended to you, but John Winthrop certainly as well. Uh Bradford, the the pilgrim leader, uh, we got a story on him. Uh, these guys are getting away from the tyranny of James I there's no question. Elizabeth is the first that really tyrannizing the pilgrims. Remember, three of the pilgrim pastors were hung by Queen Elizabeth. I I don't know that people understand this. They all think, oh, Queen Elizabeth the first was great. Well, not so much. She actually was a tyrant, and so was James I. And so these these were tough people, they were tough kings. They were uh they were bringing uh tyranny upon the Puritans and pilgrims, and they escaped that. Later, of course, you get the Scottish migrations out of the 16, 60s, 70s, and 80s, more so. Why? Because, well, James II, Charles II were uh bringing untold tyranny down upon the Covenanters, slaughtering thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these Covenanters. What would you do if your family was being, you know, burned at the stake and drowned in the oceans? Uh, you'd probably want to get out of Dodge and get off to a free country.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And that's apparently that's how the Craigs came over.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Oh, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, I just researched this recently. Okay. And uh back uh late 1600s, uh right at the end of the 17th century, uh William Craig the Covenanter came over. And uh apparently he was just after some of the covenanting wars. So at that point, the covenanter label was more of just like a denominational assignment. Uh, but uh apparently Scotland wasn't that hospitable to the Presbyterians at that point. Oh no, okay. He decided to come over.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

No, no, yeah. And that's when Presbyterianism really began its roots down into the uh colonies in the 1720s, 30s, 40s, I'm gonna say. Um so yeah, so you're still waving the Covenanter flag after these 300 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

I think this guy's an ancestor.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Amen. Okay. So America formed out of people fleeing from untold tyranny, um, government uh inquisitions, persecutions, tyrannical kings attempting to control the church. Now, of course, the battle is the control of the family, and that's that's where we are engaging this battle over family rights, parental rights in the 21st century.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

But this interesting thing, Kevin, it wasn't like this libertarian impulse. This was this was a desire to fear God in family and church. And they had their libertarians that came over on the Mayflower.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah. You know, came over with the Puritans. Yeah, they had a, you know, they were on the ship. Yeah. They were the uh the fortune seekers, you know. They wanted a little land for themselves and such. And so that would have been 20-30 percent of the population. But no, no. The the 60-80 percent of the population coming into the colonies for the first time, some of the most godly, amazing Christians in the history of the world converging on one particular area and then committing themselves to to covenant before God. The pilgrims recorded their objectives uh in the Mayflower Compact, having undertaken for the glory of God, an advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of king and country. So that's what they did. They they established it under God. They did it for the glory of God, for the advancement of the Christian faith. Uh that's why they did it. The Puritan colony in Massachusetts uh got their first body of law together in 1635 under Winthrop. And so you say, well, what kind of law are they going to bring into the country? Well, of course, they um they wanted a pattern after Magna Carta, so they did that first, and then they laid down a legal code that was based on John Cotton's Moses, his judicials. So America's first laws actually quoted the laws of God in the Bible. And here's a quote: It is ordered by this court and authorities thereof that there shall never be any bond slavery, villainage, or captivity amongst us unless it be lawful captives taken to just wars, and such shall have the liberty and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel. And if any person shall commit any willful murder, which is manslaughter, committed upon premeditation, hatred, or cruelty, not in uh man's necessity or necessary and just defense, uh, nor by mere casualty against his will. In other words, it wasn't an accident and it wasn't a self-defense, it was murder. He shall be put to death. Exodus 21, 12 and 13, Numbers 35, 31. That's in the original text. Chapter and verse.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Chapter and verse. Pretty cool. So, in other words, you know, justice will be established by the standards of God's law. The early American colonies used the Trinitarian oaths as well for those who would serve in government. Uh, the political leaders were required to acknowledge and testify their allegiance to the true and living God. Listen to the Pennsylvania legislature and enacted this law in 1704 that required the members of their government, here, quote, profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, the true God, and the Holy Spirit, one God blessed forevermore. These are the roots of the nation.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Now, what do you say? Does it sound like Christian roots to you? It does sound like Christian roots. I think one of the questions that comes to my mind is um, what is a Christian nation? And uh how how does a nation become Christian? Um how is a nation as a covenantal entity different from family and church and yet still somehow under God? How does that work, Kevin?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Well, uh, you know, I put together a list of five things that I think are essential for nations that that will, you know, self-consciously and consistently admit themselves to be under God and under the true and living God, not under Allah, not under some polytheistic anomalous thing, but under the true and living God, and then seek his blessing. Because if if if, now this is the if, if God exists and God is a source of authority, and God holds nations to account, and God cares for what nations are doing, for good or for evil in the world, then and God blesses or judges nations as he sees fit, then it seems to me that we should seek God's blessings upon a nation. And this is the way our founders thought all the way into the 1780s, all the way through the Continental Congress through our war for independence. And I can give you many examples of that. But if nations would seek the blessing of God, I think this is what they should do. Number one, acknowledge God as judge and source of law in their founding documents. Draw up this national covenant in the presence of the Trinitarian God and acknowledge God as party and witness to the covenant, which is like a constitution. Number four, declare days of prayer, fasting, humbling, and repentance. Require all leaders at least acknowledge God and the fear of God before assuming office, and then submit to God's law in their legislative and judicial proceedings. Now let me add one more thing. That's not going to happen without a majority of the leaders gathering together in those rooms to subscribe to those five points. You follow me? You're not going to get it without a majority of the representatives of the nation, the leaders of the nation, subscribing to those five points and following through on those five points. That's what makes a Christian nation. And that's why I would say that the Continental Congress representing the people of the United States of America from 1776 until what was it, like 1783, for that period of time, the Continental Congress was most certainly representing a Christian nation. Now, as time progressed, they began to abolish all those days of prayer, fasting, humbling, and repentance. Uh, certainly under Thomas Jefferson, roughly 1802, 1803, uh, they're moving away from that. And they pretty much moved away from that until Gettysburg. So America became a non-Christian nation for the most part until, well, 1863, 1864, when the U.S. Senate again declared a day of prayer and fasting and acknowledged the true and living God. So, in other words, they began to chip away at these things on into the 19th century. And then they, you know, there's some coming back to it too. There's, as I said, there's times at which the nation repents and comes back to its original commitment to the true and living God. So, again, this is kind of something that ebbs and flows in the history of nations, but certainly at the founding of the nation, Danny, it's my perspective that the majority of the members of the Continental Congress, meaning about 60% of them most definitely were reformed evangelical type Christians. They attended reformed evangelical type churches. They were regular members, regular communicate members of those churches. And we would say that the majority of the members of the Continental Congress were God-fearing, Bible-believing, evangelical Christians. No question about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

And I think Psalm 2 is a really helpful, clear scriptural mandate for this kind of submission to God in the civil sphere. You have leaders who, on the one hand, say, let us break their, referring to God, the triune God, their bonds in pieces, let us cast away their cords from us. This would be God's claim upon civil leaders through his law. Civil leaders that dishonor God want to reject that claim, cast away those cords, versus leaders who, as it says in the end, uh, now therefore be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way. When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all those who put their trust in him. So apparently, nations can either trust in the Lord and be blessed, or cast away his cords upon them and be destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Right. They'll either bind themselves to the obedience of his law, which is what the cords are, right? They're constitutional cords that bind us to the obedience of the law of God as communicated in the old and new testaments. Or they cast forth the cords and they submit their nation to the judgment of Almighty God. On the other hand, they can kiss the sun, lest he be angry, which to kiss the sun means you you're under the sun. You're acknowledging yourself to be under the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and you're effectively kissing his feet. Yes. In submission to his rulership. And that doesn't happen very much, but it's interesting again that that passage absolutely applies to any king, any ruler of the earth from roughly AD 33 to where we are today. And the apostles applied that, no question about it, to the Roman and Jewish leaders in Acts chapter 4. They applied Psalm 2 in Acts 4. If they can do it, we can do it. So the question is, are we going to bind ourselves to God? That's the big question. Will we be bound by covenant? And so I believe that these vows and these commitments, these signed documents, matter. Covenantal commitment to God by vows is important. It acknowledges us to be bound to obedience to the laws of God. And I think nations can do that. Now, nations can bind themselves to revolution against God by covenant, by constitution, and many do that. How does that show up in the French Revolution occurring at roughly the same level? There's no question about it. The French Revolution just tossed off all of Christian law and effectively presented man as God, right? The voice of the people is the voice of God. That's the mantra of the French Revolution. And that was would be the beginning of the humanist revolutions that have destroyed the Western world and destroyed so much of the world since then.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah. Kevin, let's talk a little bit about the way that America respected God's laws in the subsequent years. You mentioned some of the early founding documents of some of the various colonies, but uh at the beginning of the nation, uh, how did America respect God's laws in the 1770s and uh later on in the years following? Kevin Kevin.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Well, one of the key components of American judicial law was William Blackstone. And I Blackstone was everybody read. Okay, any anybody who was studying for law, Patrick Henry studied for law, John Adams, all the others is studying for law, right? And they studied William Blackstone. William Blackstone was a homeschool dad, I can't remember, seven or eight kids, seven children. He gave them a Christian education, very important, uh, worshiped God, acknowledged God, systematized and coded English common law. And these laws, this English common law, I mean, it's easy for him because English common law was based on a thousand years of legal traditions based in biblical law that date back to Alfred and his grandson, Athelstan. So these are the first kings of England. So, and and you just read their dooms. They have chapter and verse two. They go right back to the word of God. I mean, this is what Christian countries have done. This is why the freedom and liberty we've enjoyed since the Magna Carta. This is why uh Christ has changed the world. He's transformed nations. Praise be to God for the for the amazing impact that Christianity has made upon the entire world. Well, Blackstone's laws were based upon God's law. Here's what he wrote: He said the law of nature, dictated by God Himself, is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times, no human laws are of any validity if contrary to God's laws. And so when it comes to murder, for example, and I take murder because one of the most basic laws, so I throw that out here. Uh, he writes, we are next to consider the crime of deliberate and willful murder. Okay. A crime at which human nature starts, and which I believe is punished almost universally throughout the world with death. The words of the Mosaical law, over and above the general precept to Noah, that whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, very emphatical in prohibiting the pardon of murderers. And then he quotes moreover, you shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death, for the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Genesis 9, 6 and Numbers 35, 31. And therefore, Blackstone says, Our English law has provided one course of prosecution that by appeal of which hereafter, wherein the king himself has excluded the power of pardoning murder, meaning the king cannot pardon it. Nobody can, because of God's law. So Blackstone quotes God's law. Blackstone says this is the source, this is the authority, this is the basis upon which our governments will make decisions and prosecute this crime and that crime. Now, the U.S. Continental Congress came together in 76 and 77, 78, 79, and they did a lot of things. They approved the printing of 10,000 Bibles in 1777. They brought a ton of various resolutions to bear. Um, you know, one of the classic is March 20th, 1776. They resolved that it'd be hereby recommended to several states to appoint Thursday to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, that we may have united hearts to confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life appease God's righteous displeasure. And through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, yes, I said the word, I said the name. They said it. They wrote it, they have it in the proclamation, that by the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ we may obtain his pardon and forgiveness, that it may please him to inspire all rulers and the people at large with a more fervent zeal for the pure doctrines and practice of the gospel, for the preservation and success of the United States, and for bringing to naught the preservation or the devices of our enemy, that it may please him to bless the schools and seminaries of learning and every means of instruction, education, to cause virtue and true religion, the Christian faith, to flourish, to give peace to all our borders, to grant to us and to all nations the blessings of liberty and peace. These are the foundations of our nation. This is why God blesses a nation to 250 years, all the way to the year 2026. That's it. These are the roots of the nation. They acknowledge Jesus Christ. They acknowledge the Christian faith. They acknowledged God's laws and they repented to it. And they did it by majority vote in the Continental Congress.

unknown 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Any questions? You know, any questions, right? Any questions here?

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Hey, Kevin, I'm I'm I'm sitting here as a you know young homeschool dad of five kids in a very secular age. Um, and and I I went and spoke, you know, most of my time now is with generations. I spoke at a business event yesterday. And as I was getting up, I just felt this impulse that I needed to pray, right? Because that's what I what I do in all of my generations meetings and conferences and whatnot. Of course, that would have been heresy to do that in that context, and it wasn't my event. But what I am sensing here is that this story is a story of men who were raised to be God-centered men of faith. They came together and they said, we just want more God and more Christianity in our lives. We want God to bless us. And so the lesson I'm taking away is that's what I need to do for my kids. I need to raise them with this outrageous courage uh that basically says it's God in all of life or bust. And we're gonna go and find a bunch of people that we can bind ourselves together with to God to serve him with all of our heart. And whether that's in a family, a church, a community, wow, we can start doing this today.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

It's it's a it's the thing that we need to be doing. Um, we need to acknowledge God and be under God in our homes, in our day-to-day exercise. Um, we want to submit to God's rulership. We want to acknowledge Jesus Christ as as Lord and uh and obey his commands and and acknowledge his as a savior, which is precisely what our founding fathers did in that statement from 1776. Um, yeah, and I think we need to bring this back. I do think the heritage matters. I think realizing uh, you know, this that what they believed, uh what they understood to be true, and that God is sovereign over all. Remember, was it uh John Adams sitting next to Benjamin Rush, his buddy at the Continental Congress? And Rush asked him the question, will we win this war against England? This was in 1776. And uh John Adams replied, if we repent of our sins and fear God. And that's because these guys understood that God is sovereign, God is over all, that God will determine the outcome of nations. Benjamin Franklin said the same thing at the Constitutional Convention that not a sparrow falls and not an empire rises or falls without God's sovereign direction. So, you know, these founders of our nation understood these things, and uh, and we need to teach our kids uh these things that God is important, God is sovereign, God is over all, God is merciful as well. I'm amazed at the mercy of God over the nations. That in fact, I was reading recently about Manasseh. Manasseh said, sorry about that, and God brought him all the way back from Babylon, put him back on the throne. Incredible, incredible. Ahab. I was reading about Ahab just the other day. Can you think of anybody worse than King Ahab? Pretty bad dude. He gets the F minus. Yeah. All kings. Well, after the Naboth thing, you know, Elijah came to him in Naboth. Do you remember what happened? Ahab said, You got me. Sorry about that. Now, okay, if he had said that to you, what would you have done? He's not being sincere. He's not being sincere, exactly. You would have backhanded him and said, See you, guy. You know what God did? God said, Well, okay, since you said sorry about that, I'll put off the demise of Israel for another or your dynasty for another generation or two, just because you said that. But that's the kind of mercy that God has on nations. What would happen if Donald Trump, our president, would bow the knee to Jesus? I mean, even for 10 seconds. 20 seconds. Acknowledge Jesus, King of Kings. It's interesting. At one point he did point up and say he's the Lord, which is interesting. So but you know, what would happen if our leaders would bow the knee to Jesus? Or any of us, our churches, yeah, that's our families. What if we did that?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah. What what what are some ways in which we need to recapture this idea of binding ourselves covenantally as certainly individuals, but we that that's that's talked about all the time, how we do this as individuals, but as groups of people, as bodies. Um, I'm just thinking, like, you know, could a neighborhood do this? You know, could a county do this? It would be nice if a church would do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Yes, start with a church, political church. Uh we don't take vows very much, we don't take our commitments very much, and we don't treat our commitments very seriously. I would say it starts with a church. And I know there are church churches that have these basic covenants, we do. And and we covenant one with another under God before Jesus. And uh sadly, people don't take that very seriously. We call them vows, we call them oaths and commitments, but people don't take commitments very seriously. So I think starting with your marriage commitment, starting with your church, and I think we may one day be able to work out to uh to neighborhood by covenants. We actually do have covenants in neighborhoods, but they're not really taken under God. No. Uh, but I think we could bring this back. But boy, until the church acknowledges its commitment and its vows before Jesus Christ, I just don't think we can see much reviving or restoration of nations. The church has got to be revived first. We have to keep our commitments and our convictions and our vows in the local churches in order for this uh to eventually work its way into uh states and countries and nations. It's interesting that almost every state in America acknowledges God. Every state constitution in the United States of America acknowledges God. I point out in my book, Under God, that the United States did not. The United States Constitution, and that's why I say America was a Christian country until roughly 1789. And then we begin to compromise. Now, I know that's a little bit controversial because there is some mention to the year of our Lord in the Constitution, but I just don't take that as enough. Everybody was saying that at that point. So that that shift occurred in the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment had a horrible effect upon the United States of America and every country, and we're still trying to get out from under that to this day. Now, again, I think we have an opportunity for this, and that's why I wrote the book Under God. As we approach the end of the secular age, Danny, after humanism and political derivatives of socialism and communism have just proven miserable failures. I mean, they have done their damage to our nations. Uh, Cuba, Venezuela. Isn't communism amazing? I mean, wow. So we say, wow, wow. Okay. After they've pretty much devastated Russia and Eastern Europe, they pretty much devastated Cuba. Cuba has the lowest GDP per capita by a long shot of all of South America. I mean they're the poorest nation on earth. I think they're right down there with Haiti, but I I think they're even lower than Haiti at this point. It's terrible. Communism has devastated the world. Humanism, socialism, communism have been abject failures. After the bankrupted systems of John Maynard Keynes, uh, Karl Marx, etc., once they finish this ruinous course, and after all these revolutions and stuff have scorched the whole earth, here's my question. What comes next? And I write that in the back of my book under God because I'm asking the question what comes next? We're next. Your children are next. Moms and dads, you're raising the next leaders of this country in the kitchens and living rooms across this nation. And yes, the salt and the light will matter in the year 2040, in the year 2060. It will matter. So this is my appeal is let's be sure we're raising our children in the nurture and admission of the Lord Jesus Christ with this vision in mind, Danny. I mean, this this new book under God, I mean, I deal with America's godly heritage, God's law versus natural law, the relationship of church and state, Christian nationalism. But I also get into things like conspiracies and prepping and some of the things that actually tear us down, distractions, diversions, don't do us any good. I mean, come on. Civil disobedience, biblical principles for courts. You know, if you happen to be involved in courts, uh, we need to understand how we're going to be involved. And if you're a member of a jury, how do you impact the jury for Jesus? Sphere jurisdiction, social justice, God's law, tyranny, anarchy, multiculturalism, that's huge today. Marxism, libertarianism, pornography, prostitution, drugs, pro-life strategies. We have a lot of debate on pro-life strategies today. Um, Christ and culture, dictators and police states. Do we really want to leave our kids in police states and dictatorships? I mean, hey, these things can happen. They sneak up on you. And I give ways in which you can really sniff out the developments of the police state and the dictatorship that can bring untoward tyranny and and very much significant misery upon your nation, upon your families. So, wow, there's just a lot to talk about here. Biblical standards of defense, biblical standards of justice. You know, we we've got to be, I think we've got to raise our kids with a strong understanding of these issues, Danny. And I really came to the point I felt that we need to write a book on it. So that's why under God.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Kevin, uh William Bradford, describing the formation of their church covenant in England uh before they sailed, said this as the Lord's free people join themselves by a covenant of the Lord into a church estate in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all his ways made known, or to be made known unto them according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

And I'm thinking Life, liberty.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

That's that's for us.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

It's all the lane, it's on the line. So now it's let's dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor uh to this cause. It's worth it. It's worth it. Think about how few people plant the seeds for liberty, and yet so many people enjoy the fruits thereof. Think about that. I don't think it takes that many. I think just five, eight, nine percent. That's why I think, hey, we're seven percent homeschool, maybe half of that are Christians. So three and a half percent of America, can we make that six percent? Could we make a difference in the next generation? Friends, in all of human history, the United States of America serves as the best example of a nation formed on Christian foundations. By the grace of God, America's Christian heritage has contributed serious concrete and rebar to the nation's foundations after the Great Awakening between 1763 and 1783. I think it was the Great Awakening that probably added to this and enabled it. If it wasn't for the Great Awakening, wouldn't have had an impact on Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, who were the two absolutely most key leaders of this nation in the 1760s up to about 1776. So by the grace of God, it happened. Now again, we had spiritual decline. Spiritual decline has happened into deism, atheism, transcendentalism, on and on and on. It was terrible. Yes, we've had a hard time. But America has been a Christian nation, and I think we can restore this. I think it can happen.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

I think the pastor uh John Robinson, uh the the beloved pastor of the pilgrims, leaves us with some fitting words. We are daily to renew our repentance with our God, especially for our sins known, and generally for our unknown trespasses, sin being taken away by earnest repentance and the pardon thereof from the Lord. Great shall be his security and peace in all dangers, sweet his comforts in all his distresses.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

And don't forget the mercy of God. And don't forget that if there was a humbling of ourselves and a repentance before God, God could do amazing things yet for this nation. In spite of our failings, in spite of our moral compromises, the abandonment of the Christian faith, et cetera, et cetera, yet America has been a refuge, a beacon, and an inspiration, positive influence upon the entire world today. I think it can happen again. I do believe it can happen again. I think Christians, actually, Christians can make a difference. And we could find another opportunity to bless the whole world one more time, sometime in the future, I think it can happen by the grace of God. And so uh just want to challenge folks to this. Be encouraged, be strengthened. We will make a difference. We can make a difference. We are, by definition, salt and light. Let's just be sure we don't uh desaltify the salt. Let's make sure we don't put any bushel over the light source either. All right. Well, that wraps up the edition, this edition of the Generations Broadcast. Danny Craig, thank you for joining me. Recommend, folks, the new book, Under God, available at generations.org, right? It's up there right now. Okay, so Under God. So get a copy of Under God, a battle plan for reforming civil government, available at generations.org. And also don't forget America and God's Providence, a two volume, 1,000-page Christian history of the United States of America, also available at our website and American Faith, as I mentioned. Uh 27 vignettes, uh, beautiful biographies of some of the greatest uh Christian influences in America over these 250 years. This is Kevin Swanson and Danny Craig inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.