Day 185: "America at 250: Why It Matters" An Interview with Historian Ashley Cannon

July 4

Today's Passages is Exodus 12-15. The podcast is a discussion with Gowdy's brother, Ashley, on why American Independence and the celebration of it matter to the Christian. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Welcome you to day number 185 of the Canon Connected. And it also happens to be catch up day number 11. And it also happens to be, if you're caught up on the reading plan, uh July 4th, the 250th anniversary of American independence. And with that being the case, our reading today is the entire Exodus story from the book of Exodus, because I think it's one of those that clearly proves that God cares about freedom and independence. Things I think we can tie into the American Revolution and our current, you know, uh state as a free nation. Um and God proves that many times, but I thought reading Exodus 12 through 15 would be good. And since I am not much of a historian and don't know a whole lot about the importance of the American Revolution, aside from the most basic facts, I've decided to bring in uh an expert who also happens to be my brother, 387 days older than me. So, Ashley, we welcome you. Would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yes, thank you for having me. I am glad to be on the Canon Connected. It's been uh, I should have been on the first few episodes, I think. So, but uh I am glad to be here. I'm glad to be here finally. I am your older brother, as you said. My name is Ashley Cannon. I am a history teacher, and I have taught U.S. and South Carolina history, but primarily U.S. history for 25 years. For the last eight years, I've been teaching at an online virtual school. I've been teaching government and history. Uh, I majored in government at the University of South Carolina, and I actually have run for office, uh, worked in the state legislature, but my passion more even more than government is history. And I've like I said, I've taught that for 25 years, and I'm just really glad to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

So you said you you graduated from the USC. Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

That's right. It's the the USC. That other one is a fake one over in California and the Carolina, the fake one up in Chapel Hill.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yes, as long as uh as far back as I can remember, and that goes way back because again, we were raised together just a year apart. Um, Ashley's always been a history, political science type junkie. And I know he's not gonna promote himself in this way, but before I ask even ask him the first question, one of my memories was in high school, we had a, I don't know if he was really a friend, more of a just uh an associate, classmate type who had a different worldview than we did. And I remember just how when he and Ashley would have discussions and debates about different things about government and religion, he was just, even when he disagreed, he was very impressed with the way Ashley thinks. Ashley's always been a very good communicator as well. He could have easily been a preacher, I think. But uh I'm very, very honored that he's he's decided to do this today. So um, with that said, Ashley, my first question to you is why do you think that the American Revolution independence matters at all? We're gonna get to the Christian side of it because there is there is obviously Christianity in it, regardless of what you believe about politics and current events. But why do you why do you think the American Revolution is just so important?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

It is so important. And and again, thanks for having me. It is America 250 today, America 250. And when I think back at the bicentennial at 200, you know, we had Apollo Creed from head to toe in the American flag, given an unknown a shot at the title, and for 250, America 250, they get the two of us. That is a big drop off. But we're gonna have to we're gonna have to go with what we got. So the two of us will have to be good enough for today. America 250. Why is why was the founding of America so important? Well, I would say first and foremost, it was new. It was the American experiment, is a uh America is a bastion of freedom. We celebrate today, we celebrate 250 because of our freedom. And that freedom as a Christian has allowed the gospel to be proclaimed proclaimed all over the world. Now, we know that the gospel spread in places that where there wasn't freedom, but because we do have that freedom, thank God used that as an opportunity for the church around the world to be able to share the gospel. And and because of American influence, I think that has been the case. Overall, I would say America has been a force for good. Um, that doesn't mean that we gloss over the really, really negative aspects of our history. We don't do that. Uh, they're important to talk about, they're important to learn from, and there are things, of course, even today that we want to do better with. But overall, I think America has been a force for good. Um, and it has been important to study the American Revolution and the founding of America because it really were a group of Christians who started this country.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Okay. And on that note, especially, I know you're a huge John Adams fan. There are John Adams uh quotes I have in my head today because of you. And uh, and I've even read uh who was the man who wrote the book, the John Adams biography?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, David McCullough.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

David McCullough, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

He passed away several years ago, yeah. But he he was the premier guy for John Adams.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, so and I'm sure there are more than that, but I know that's the one you recommended to me, and I actually read. So tell me a little bit about like John Adams, then especially. I know Thomas Jefferson, I mean, you can speak to that, but I know you're really a John Adams uh expert. I mean, he wrote this, you know, Jefferson wrote the yeah. And but tell me about like John Adams' thinking, why you respect that, and how how his influence and in our our founding uh is is is relevant.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Absolutely. John Adams is my favorite founding father. You can see him, he's my background there. Um John Adams is I just had a connection with him when I started learning more about him. And actually, I didn't stop doing that until I started teaching U.S. history of 23, 24 years old when I did that. Um, but John Adams, like all the other founders, were a product of both the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. Now we don't have time to really get into all of that, uh, how that influenced both the founders and the founding, but just a very short synopsis: the Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals. Uh, men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, they went around and preached the gospel. We had an awakening, a spiritual revival in America, and the founding generation was a part of that. And Adams is a perfect microcosm for that because he is uh both a man of the Enlightenment, a man who, with the age of reason and the thinking that came from that, and also a belief would say he was a believer. We're going to give a little bit of that later, uh, some of his beliefs, but uh a believer who was definitely a product of that great awakening and and those views. Um, John Adams said of the American Revolution, just to give an example of how important that Great Awakening was, he said, Adams did, that the revolution actually started in the hearts and minds of the people. He said it was a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. So that lets us know very clearly that the American Revolution really was, it's not a religious movement, but there was a religious aspect to it. Um, he goes on to say that the radical change in the principles, sentiments, and affection of the people was the real American revolution. And finally, he says, by what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of the 13 colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other, was begun, pursued, and accomplished. It is surely interesting to humanity to investigate and perpetuate to posterity, which all that means is you had all these people that were very different from one another, but they came together with one common goal and one mind. And where did that come from? I think he would argue it comes from our belief in God, the the belief that we have no king but Jesus that was proclaimed throughout the colonies during this period, including by Adams himself, um, and the belief in freedom, which they would say, and I think John Locke, who they got a lot of their ideas from, John Locke was an English philosopher, um political philosopher, that those things do come from God, and the I the concept of freedom comes from God.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Good. And that that kind of can segue into this next part because I know there's more you can say on this issue, because I know there's there's debate and discussion about, you know, our founding forefathers and Christianity, and not all of them believed everything that we believe as far as you know what would be crucial truths. And yet I don't think it's unsafe to say that Christianity was a heavy influence, you know, in the founding of America. So beyond what you just said, can you speak to that some more?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Absolutely. I would love to talk about this for the majority of the rest of our time, if that's okay. Yes. Um there's so much here. What I would like to say to when I, you know, would talk to my students, especially when I was in brick and mortar, is America was not founded as a Christian nation, but America was a nation full of Christians. And I know that is a semantic issue, but it but it's an important issue. The founders themselves are sort of an example of this. So just to give you an example, you know, we talked about John Adams, but let's go to the most important founders. We've got George Washington, we've got John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin. Well, the first three I mentioned are also the first three presidents of the United States. That tells you how important they were to the founding of America. So I just kind of want to go through and talk about those guys and then some of the other guys. Well, let's take George Washington first. So George Washington had a prayer journal when he was younger. And in his prayer journal, I don't know if he wrote this prayer or if he got it from somewhere else, but it was in his journal. And here's what he said: he said, Direct my thoughts, words, and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the Lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may, with more freedom of mind and liberty, will serve thee, thy everlasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day and all the days of my life. Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the gospel. Give me repentance for works. Those are Washington's own words. Very clearly, that's a those are Christian expressions. So we have him there saying those things, writing those things, excuse me, whether they were his or whether he got them from somewhere else, they were part of his prayer journal. And at the same time, we know that after the revolution, George Washington stopped taking communion. Now, that's outside of even the slavery question, because we know that that's an issue, but we're gonna put that one to the side, okay? But him not taking communion is a big deal as well. So, why did Washington quit taking communion? And the truth is, we don't know. We we there's speculation about why he did. Uh, I think the premier historian at Mount Vernon would say that it wasn't, it did not have to do with his beliefs in the Lord changing, his beliefs in faith changing, it had to do with some other things more likely. But either way you look at it, that's an example of there's something going on there. Even greater would be somebody like uh Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who had a series of back and forth in their letters over uh issue of faith. Um, and just as a side note here, talking about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, much of what we know about this period comes from those letters towards the end of their life, the last 12 years of their life. And the reason they started writing those letters is because these two men became very close friends at the Continental Congress when the declaration was written. Jefferson writes it. It's Adams who really, by the force of his argument, gets the declaration passed in the Continental Congress. Well, that friendship is going to splinter early uh in the 1800s after a couple of elections, but the election of 1800, Jefferson defeats Adams for the presidency. There was some nastiness said, and the two men didn't talk to each other for a long period of time, for years. And it was one of their mutual friends, um, Warren, who let me get his name, actually, let me get his name fully correct. Benjamin Rush, not Warren. Benjamin Rush, Dr. Benjamin Rush, um, who helped these men come back together, renew their friendship. And in that renewal of their friendship, they wrote dozens and dozens of letters to each other where we know so much about that period of time, including their beliefs about Jesus. And in their in their letters, we very clearly see that Jefferson was a deist at best. He viewed Jesus not as a Lord and Savior, he viewed Jesus as sort of just this good man. Adams, a little bit different. Adams did deny the divinity of Jesus, but he referred to him as his savior. He was part of a sect of Unitarianism. Um, he started as a congregationalist, everybody in New England did, but by this period of time, in the in the you know, early 1810s, he's a Unitarian, but he's not a Unitarian like we think of today. You really have to study that period of time to understand what a Unitarian was. But in his version of Unitarianism, which, like I said, doesn't exist today, in that version, they viewed Jesus as the Son of God, but not God Himself. So then we get into okay, can you believe that and still be a believer, still be a Christian? Um, you know, that's a very important part of the faith. And yet Adams would also have said that Jesus died and rose again to save us of our sins. That's why he called him savior. So just I uh I bring all that up just to show you that you know, these are some of the most important founders, and yet they had very uh complex views when it comes to Christianity. Now, some of the founders did not, like Patrick Henry, for instance. Patrick Henry was clearly a Christian. It was Patrick Henry who wrote the uh famous or who get delivered the famous speech, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death. He gave that speech at the Virginia Assembly in 1775, where he's trying to convince Virginia to join up with the New England brothers. Um, but he says in that speech, uh, he uses very biblical language, he says, Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not and having ears hear not the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? So he's using biblical imagery there, something he would have known very much about. And then at the end of the speech, he says, There's a just God who presides over the destinies of nations who will raise up friends to fight our idols for us. He's talking about France here, but that actually did happen. Um, so Patrick Henry, an example of somebody whose faith isn't very complicated. He he was definitely a Christian. Um John Quincy Adams, who was John Adams' son, John Quincy Adams is going to become a president himself. John Quincy Adams differed from his father and in fact wrote letters to his father where he clearly disagreed with him about the divinity of Jesus um and about the who Jesus was. Um, I have one of these letters right in front of me here. I won't read, I won't read it, but needless to say, there was a serious disagreement there. And then you have uh men like Ben Franklin. So Ben Franklin, also a very important founding father. He was one of only six men to sign both the declaration and the constitution. Ben Franklin was a deist, and yet Ben Franklin also was a very good friend to George Whitfield. Um, and in fact, Franklin wrote about Whitfield. He said, He used indeed sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a friendship sincere on both sides and lasted to his death. Now we know that Franklin at the end of his life, his deism changes because he says at the Constitutional Convention, he's an old man in his 80s, he says that he's very convinced that God governs in the affairs of men. Well, that's not a deist, so he clearly has changed his views. Maybe it was Whitfield who helped him change his views, but Whitfield didn't get to see that. Whitfield died, and on his death, as Franklin said in that quote, uh, you know, he never got to see me convert to becoming a Christian. Did Franklin ever convert? I don't know. It's doubtful that he did. We don't have any record that he did, but our hope can be that he did. Um, so that's Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, very uh complicated view of Jesus and the faith. And then we have guys, like I said, Patrick Henry. We have Dr. Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and he said, Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the moral principles of mankind. He was definitely himself a Christian, and then because he was a Christian, he's brought Jefferson and Adams back together. We've got Roger Sherman, who said, I believe that the scriptures of the old and new testaments, which we call the Bible, are a revelation from God and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him. That's pretty clear. Richard Henry Henry Lee said, It's true we are not disposed to differ much at present about religion. He's clearly saying that the founders had a pretty good agreement about religion. But we when we are making a constitution, it is to be hoped for ages and millions yet unborn. Why not establish the free exercise of religion as a part of the national compact? So they also had differences in uh what that would actually look like. Uh, Richard Henry Lee was more uh libertarian in that, uh, wanted to see more freedom of religion there. And ultimately that's what we got in the First Amendment. Um so in looking at these founders, I just I think it's important for us to understand that they some of them were clearly believers, and I think the majority of America definitely back then were believers, but some of the most important founders, there are questions about that. Uh, some of them weren't believers, and some of them, I even with John Adams, I think we'd have to have a question, question there, even though I love John Adams and I don't want to have a question about that. Um, I think we we have to. Overall, though, it's also important for us to know that these founders were dynamic, real human beings whose vote changed over time. And in order to contextualize them, it makes it very difficult if we don't understand not only do their views change, but what like I talked about Unitarianism, what actually was that? Because Unitarianism back then is different than it is today, and we also have to understand that our perspective changes with the real world and our own experience. So John Adams' letters to his son, John Quincy. I read them when I was in my 20s, they had a much different feel to me now than I have my own sons. Think of my three boys, knowing that John Adams had a son, his son Charles, who died an alcoholic. How I viewed that in my 20s is very different today, knowing that he had one son who could seem to do no wrong, and then another son who was a disaster and was an embarrassment to him, and who died um in that culture was considered a great shame and embarrassment. So it didn't really talk about it that much. But as a parent now and as a father now, I see that very differently. I say all that because it's very important that we not only contextualize the time period, but that we also understand that our views of things change over time. Uh, truth doesn't change, but our views of things change over time, and we have different perspectives. So we don't want to get set in something that we learn maybe when we're 18 or 25. We want we don't want to get set in that and forget about it. We're talking about history. We want to understand these are real people, real men and women, and we want to continue to learn about them, I guess is what I'm getting at as we age.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah. That's good. And so I guess, and and then in closing, or I mean, again, you uh you could feel free to add to this whatever you want to based on what you've studied and how you how you you've come prepared. But the the the the Christianity. identity of those of those men that did happen and the ones that that sort of had it but then it sort of didn't whether or not you know they were in heaven or not it definitely does seem clear to me though that that it really just it just helped form I mean so much of what what we what we have today as far as freedoms and everything.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Is there anything else that you would you would add to that though I mean and or or expound upon I would just say again kind of what I said at the beginning America 250 this is a big deal we you know no one believed this was going to last this I say no one a lot of people especially europeans didn't believe it was going to last this long they called it the great experiment thought it would fail and it almost did fail thankfully the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution and we've lasted for 250 years overall like I said this is a day of celebration we do have to deal with our failures and should never forget those. But overall we look at America on our birthday today it's a it's a time of celebration and looking at what we've done well where we came from and how we can move into the future even better.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Okay that's good so um I I really appreciate you uh you coming on and and helping us understand that and for not draping yourself in in a big flag like Apollo Creed.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

It looks like a big flag and yes my humblest apologies for not having you on during the first six months of the year if you if you need me to come back on and discuss how Tom Brady's overrated as part of a connection to something who's overrated in scripture I'll be glad to do that. I can do that for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I always thought Peter was kind of overrated among the apostles he's probably the Tom Brady of the of the 12 he definitely was slower slower than John we know that yes yes absolutely all right for real though we will we will have you back on about for something and we we may even do something theological next time because even though Ashley's main area of expertise is is is history he he definitely is a student of of the word as well so but again though sincerely all joking aside thank you so much for coming and again I I do hope that your July 4th is is wonderful when this airs come back and be with us again tomorrow then as we continue to read the connections see the connections stay the connections thank you