Decline of Religious Faith in America

With yesterday's post about Justice John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, I completed my series of important people in the founding of America.  I chose this subject because I believe we have leaned so far in the direction of political "correctness" that we have rewritten our history.  It seems fashionable to demean those men and women who are no longer here to defend themselves.  People seem to delight in digging for any piece of dirt they can find and interpret it to mean that God and God-fearing men and women had no part in the founding of this nation. Horse feathers!

This nation is in itself a miracle.  We won 2 wars against England that by all human calculations we should have lost.  America's industrial might and brave men and women saved the world during 2 world wars just in the last century. 

Alexis de Tocqueville in his landmark book, Democracy in America, wrote that all of the nations in Europe were caught up in dead religion, state religions both Protestant and Catholic that were something to do on holidays and even Sundays, but that had no part in the daily lives of the people and certainly not in their governments.  America, he said, was vibrant.  It's religious morality was carried into the daily lives of its people at all levels.  My favorite quote is this: America is great because America is good.  If she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. I write about that greatness because I see my beloved country ceasing to be good.

Several of the Founding Fathers stepped back from the organized religions of their day.  Those men called themselves diests.  History has wanted to portray them as atheists.  That is a huge distortion of the truth!  All believed in Jesus Christ.  All believed in Christian principles and in the 10 Commandments.  All of agreed that our Constitutional government could only succeed if America followed moral principles.  Those who were diests chose that path because they could not believe in the concept of the trinity as taught in those days - three gods, one in substance. To be honest, I don't believe in the concept of the trinity as taught by most Christian churches even today.

I believe in a Godhead united in purpose by separate in substance.  There is nothing in the New Testament that describes three-gods-in-one-substance as most of Christianity believes, even today.  As a Latter-day Saint I wonder if those Founding Fathers could have known what I know about the Godhead, if they would have believed.  I think they may have.

 

Faith in America seems to be a dying virtue if measured by church attendance in traditional Christian sects, but it growing with a ground swell among those who believe.  They are the salt and the leaven.  We should thank God for them and join our own faith with theirs to restore a moral nation.

As de Tocqueville once wrote, we can heal ourselves and our nation.

We just need to have the faith in God to do it.  We need to:

• Believe in Jesus Christ
• Believe Jesus Christ
• Live by the example of Jesus Christ               
• (i.e., love God and love and serve our neighbors as ourselves - what Christ considered to be the two greatest commandments.)

For if ye have done it unto the least of these, thy brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Jesus Christ - Matthew 24)

John Jay

John Jay is the last of the Founding Fathers I will discuss for the moment.  Although there were many others who took part in the historical events accompanying the birth of our nation, Jay, like the others honored here, played multiple roles in the founding.  He was a delegate to both the First and Second Continental Congresses and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

He was born in 1745 to a wealthy family and was able to study law.  He became a lawyer and later, the First Justice of the Supreme Court under President George Washington.

Although considered to be a political moderate, he nonetheless was a firm advocate of a unified government under Constitutional Law.  Along with Hamilton and Madison, he wrote the Federalist Papers in support of ratification of the new Constitution.

Treaty of Paris (John Jay is on the far left.)

At the end of the Revolutionary War, John Jay was among the American delegation who signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the war with England

He served on an interim basis as the First Secretary of State and Secretary of Foreign Affairs under George Washington before being appointed to the Court.

The focus of this series of posts has been my belief that the United States was a nation founded by men of strong character and Christian backgrounds and that they were inspired by God in the remarkable work that they did. As such, it is appropriate that I close my series with a biography of John Jay.  Next to Washington, he was the most devoutly religious Founding Father and was an active member of the Episcopal Church.

 

During his life, he served as both the president and the vice-president of the American Bible Society. He firmly believed that the only way to have peace was the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and strong adherence to the Ten Commandment.  In a letter written in 1816, Jay wrote that "Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war. Almost all nations have peace or war at the will and pleasure of rulers whom they do not elect, and who are not always wise or virtuous. Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest . . . [to elect moral people.] [1] 

 

He believed the precepts found in Christianity and the Bible to be necessary for the function of a democratic republican government such as the nation had founded.  He wrote: "No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, we will then, be surely doomed." [2]

Jay was not the only early leader to state that the Constitution can only work for a moral people.  Thomas Jefferson also expressed this concern.  As I look at the many troubling problems in our society, I am concerned that we have forgotten this precept.  We have gone from being moral to being immoral to being amoral.  In my lifetime I have watched morality being attacked on all sides as our society has torn down 7,000 years of Judeo-Christian "fences" around morality without ever considering why those "fences" had been constructed.

I don't want to get on my soapbox here because I haven't the time, space, or energy.  I have enjoyed studying the life and contributions of John Jay as he is the least well known of the Fathers to me.  We don't often include him in the circle with Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, but he certainly deserves to be.  Thank you Mr. Jay for your integrity and morality at a time when our nation needed it desperately

 

[1] Jay, William (1833). The Life of John Jay: With Selections from His Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers.  New York: J. & J. Harper. p. 376. ISBN 0-8369-6858-1  Quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay quote 44

 

[2] Loconte, Joseph (September 26, 2005). "Why Religious Values Support American Values" The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved May 12, 2013 Quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay quote 45

 

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton is another of the Founding Fathers who never became President.  That, however, did not deter his contributions to the new democracy.  As one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton was a firm supporter of the Constitution and was a key figure in its ratification.

Hamilton had been a banker and, as such, was appointed by President George Washington as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.  He was responsible for the being the leader in the financial philosophy of the new country.  He established a National Bank in 1791 and the United State Mint in 1792.

At the time, most coins in circulation were Spanish coins.  Hamilton set the wheels in motion for the minting of a United States coin about the size and weight of the Spanish dubloon.  It was also Hamilton who  designed a U.S. money  system  based  on a the decimal, place-value system we still used today  rather than the more confusing Spanish and British coinage.  That U.S. money was already in a decimal-based system, when the nation moved toward the metric system in the 21st Century, our money was already in a metric system is due to the financial wisdom of Alexander Hamilton

One of the things he did was to allow the national government to assume the state's debts following the war.  He also interpreted the implied powers of the Constitution to include the right of the national government to to incur debt when necessary

Hamilton was adopted by  a staunch Presbyterian family in the Caribbeans where he was born.  As such, he was a believer in Jesus Christ and considered himself to be a Christian. His adopted family saw to it that he received a fine education.  He became a wealthy man as a result.  He, too, came under the influence of the Diest philosophy of his day.  As an adult, he was a nominal Episcopalian who attended services on a sporadic basis.

He is probably best remembered by most people for his famous duel with Aaron Burr.  Hamilton opposed Burr in his run for governor in 1804.  He was very vocal in his opposition which Burr took as a libelous insult.  When Burr  lost the election, he blamed it on Hamilton and challenged him to a duel.

Hamilton was torn between what he felt was his obligation as a gentleman to agree to the duel (which was an accepted practice  for settling disputes in that day) and his Christian convictions against taking another life.  He told friends that he would accept the duel reluctantly, but that he planned to throw away his shot - in other words, he would not aim to kill.

Burr, on the other hand was still so enraged that he did shoot to kill.  The fatally wounded Hamilton was taken to his home where he died the following afternoon.  Would he have gone on to the presidency had he lived, we will never know.  He did go on to be remembered as a good and influential man while Aaron Burr was forever ruined in politics. His behavior in the duel did more to ruin his life than anything Hamilton could have said!   Some historians believe that Burr shot first and early (not at the final count) and that Hamilton fired as he was falling to the ground. His bullet was found lodged in a tree branch over Burr's head.  Whether that was due to shooting while firing is debatable since Hamilton had declared that he would throw his shot away.  He did.

As he was dying, he sent for the Episcopal priest, asking for communion. At first the priest refused since Hamilton had willing taken part in the duel, but after  sewearing repented of his part in the duel, the priest grave him communion.  He died at peace, although most painfully, with his God.

It is fitting that Hamilton's face is on our $10 bill.  

These days, his face is also on Broadway!

©Gebara Education, December 28, 2017 all rights reserved

James Madison `

Historian Richard B. Morris in 1973 identified the following seven figures as the key Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.[1]

The first three of the Founding Fathers – Washington, Adams and Jefferson – went on to become United States presidents, as did James Madison. The remaining three were never president, but had a profound impact on the birth or a young nation.

I thought that today I would talk a little bit about James Madison, the fourth President of the United States and his many roles in the founding of this nation.

Shortly after the Revolutionary War, a convention was held to draft what came to me known as the Articles of Confederation.  This plan had a weak central government and was – in a word – a failure. James Madison was one of the first to recognize the inadequacy of the Articles.  He spoke and wrote for several years and was one of the key movers in setting up a Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.  At the outside, this convention was called to review and edit the Articles of Confederation, but inside the hearts of many, including Madison, was the firm conviction that the Articles would have to be axed and a Constitution drafted and ratified.

It looked like that idea would be doomed from the start because so many states rights advocates didn’t even want to discuss and strong central government.  It was Madison who convinced George Washington to come out of retirement and sit in the Convention.  It wasn’t an easy sell and it was persuasion that stressed Washington’s love of his county that finally got the revered Revolutionary War hero to leave his peaceful farm at Mt. Vernon.

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Madison was the key author of what was then known as the Virginia Plan.  This was the model for the Constitution.  It called for an executive branch – President and Vice-President – a legislative branch – Congress – and a judiciary branch or Supreme Court.  After much debate between the large states and the small states, it was determined that the Congress would have two houses: a Senate made up of two representatives of each state no matter its size and a House of Representatives with representation allotted to states according to the population of the state.  Although it created a much stronger central government, it put in a set of checks and balances that would keep any one branch of government for becoming too powerful.  The Congress drafted the bills and passed them in both houses.  The President could then sign the bill into law or he could veto it and send it back to the Congress.  The Congress could overturn the President’s veto by a 2/3 majority vote.  The Supreme Court interpreted the laws according to the Constitution itself. 

Following its passage, the Constitution as sent to the states for ratification. Madison was approached by another Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, to contribute to a collection of essays explaining the

Constitution and the necessity of ratification.  This collection of 85 essays, written under the pseudonym of Publius, was written over the course of six months by Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay.  To quote Wikipedia, “Historian Clinton Rossiter called The Federalist Papers ‘the most important work in political science that ever has been written, or is likely ever to be written, in the United States.’” [2]

Madison has since become known as the Father of the Constitution.  I believe the Constitution to be a divinely inspired document, although Madison himself made no such claims.  He was born and educated as a Presbyterian, but as an adult did a lot of reading of Diest theology.  There is no consensus as to his religious affiliations as an adult, but according to one source, “Madison accepted Christian tenets and formed his outlook on life with a Christian world view.”[3]

President James Madison sat at the helm during the War of 1812, a decisive win that established the United States as a real and viable nation at last.  Many historians have found Madison to have been a very effective president. 

 I don't know how well James Madison knew God, but I suspect it was more than we know, and most certainly God knew and inspired James Madison.

[1] www.google.com

[2] Rossiter, Clinton, ed. (1961). The Federalist Papers. Penguin Putnam, Inc. pp. ix, xiii. via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison#cite_note-170

[3] Ketchem 1990, pg. 47 via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison#cite_note-44

© December 27, 2017, Gebara Education, all rights reserved.

Benjamin Franklin

"Benjamin Franklin is the only founding father to have signed all four of the key documents establishing the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain (1783) and the U.S. Constitution (1787.)"[1]  According History.com and other sites I researched, Franklin is probably the most influencial of the founding fathers, with the exception of  Washington. 

He was perhaps the most original genius of his age.  In addition to being a statesman, he was an author, a publisher, a brilliant negotiator, an ambassador, a scientist, an inventor, and the first Post Master General of the United States.  His experiments and inventions include:

The stove which was a major contribution to the warmth and comfort of colonial homes.  Most homes were heated by a large, open hearth fireplace.  Most of the heat went up the chimney flu.  The Franklin stove concentrated the heat within the stove from when it radiated about the room.

The famous experiment with electricity using a kite, a string, a key, and a thunderstorm.  Quite frankly, it is amazing that both Franklin and his assistant were not both electrocuted!  I’ve always thought that God was watching over him so that he could live to play his most pivotal role in history!

The armonica, a musical instrument made of glass which, when played, rivaled the sound of a harpsichord of the day.

An odometer, which he invented to calculate the milage between towns and villages for the colonial and later national postal services.

Franklin and Religion

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Many people today try to portray Franklin as an immoral, if not amoral, womanizer and anti-Christian.  He was sometimes referred to as Bawdy Ben. But as for being anti-Christ, nothing could be further from the truth.  He was highly moral, particularly when it involved social issues.  

As a young man, he wrote articles under the psuedonym of Silence Dogood, which criticized the British government's handling of the American colonies.  Later, under the psuedonym of Richard Saunders, he wrote Poor Richard's Almanack. 

While he owned slaves himself as a young man, he grew from being a "silent abolitionist" to being quite vocal.  He didn't argue against slavery at either the writing of the Declaration or the Constitution, primarily because he knew that it was not yet the time.  Had they pushed the anti-slavery clauses, the South would have refused to sign and there would have been no liberty, no nation, and no Constitution.  Pragmatic, Franklin believed in first things first.

He was born to Puritan parents and was baptized as an infant.  The writings of the great Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather, influenced his inate sense of social morality.

Franklin, like many others of his day, became disaffected by the religious sects of traditional Christianity.  This did not mean that he reject Christ or His teachings.  Franklin defined himself as a Diest, along with men like Thomas Jefferson.  Diests rejected much of the authorized canon of the day such as the concept of the trinity and in infallibility of the Bible and the closed canon of traditional Christianity.  Franklin described his religious views this way:

... Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter." [2]  

Benjamin Franklin was among those founding fathers who believed that a republican form of government and a constitutional government could only succeed if there were a moral people.  As I have watched our nation move more and more away from the morality of its founders, I have observed its trials and failures as a result.  Franklin himself sought personal moral improvement his entire life.  He wrote what he called his Plan for Developing 13 Virtues:

1.   "Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."

2.   "Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."

3.   "Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."

4.   "Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."

5.   "Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."

6.   "Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."

7.   "Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."

8.   "Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."

9.   "Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."

10. "Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation."

11. "Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."

12. "Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."

13. "Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."[3]

We could all learn virture from him.

[1] http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/benjamin-franklinwho believed that a republican form

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Virtue,_religion,_and_personal_beliefs

[3] Ibid

Love Came Down on Christmas

May your Christmas be filled with Joy, Peace, & Love.  

Merry Christmas from the Couch.

Another Perspective on the Nativity - An American Christmas Story

 

Most people are aware of the story of the Nativity from Luke 2 in the Bible.  However, unless you are LDS, you may not be aware of the Nativity as it was experienced half a world away in ancient America.

Samuel, the Lamanite prophet, had testified of the coming of Jesus Christ to atone for the sins of the world.  He was an interesting prophet because he was called to preach to the Nephites rather than his own people.  The group of converted Lamanites had stayed true to their covenants with God, but their brethren, the Nephites, had not.   Samuel called them out on their wickedness and promised them the Savior would come.  He gave them a sign of a day and a night and a day in which there would be not darkness and a new star would appear, brighter than any star in the heavens.

Those who were Believers clung together in worship and in anticipation of the great day in which the sign would be given.  The prophet to the Nephites was a man named Nephi, a descendant of the original Nephi who was led out of Jerusalem and into the new promised land around 600 B.C. Now, 600 years later, the majority of the Nephites no long worshiped God.  In fact, they had become so wicked that they began to persecute that handful of faithful who did. There were many examples of violence and persecution against the Believers, who fasted an prayed that the sign would be given and that their brethren would cease to oppress.

Finally, after the prescribed number of years noted by Samuel the Lamanite, the non-believers began to say that the time had passed and since the sign hadn't come, it wasn't true - proof that the believers were deceived and deceivers and deserved a to die!  A day was set apart as their execution day.  If the sign were not given by that day, the believers would be put to death.

The Prophet Nephi was beside himself with grief and the attitudes of the people and at the threat that hang over those who believed and sustained him as prophet.  He went off by himself to pray and cried mightily to the Lord all day. God answered his prayers. and gave comfort that the sign would be given and the believers saved.  The first chapter of the Book of 3 Nephi records the following: 

And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying: Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.  Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfill all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son—of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given.

And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came. (3 Nephi 1: 12-15)

The promise was kept.  The sign was given and even the non-believers fell to the earth with astonishment. Here is a link to a lovely little song written about the new star, sung by three sweet children who might well be descendants of those original people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_JjlI4ImQ 

O Star Star Bright.

May your Christmas Eve be blessed with the peace and assurance that Jesus Christ came and did all that He promised to do.  Through Him, we are saved from both physical death and spiritual death.

© Gebara Education, December 24, 2017 All rights reserved

The Annunciation

When we talk about the Annunciation of Jesus' birth, we usually concentrate on Mary's encounter with Gabriel.  But Joseph was also visited by this Heavenly messenger.  He is often the unsung hero of the Christmas classic. Mary's Uncle Zacharias, met Gabriel in the Temple at Jerusalem while performing his priestly duties.  Gabriel foretold the coming of Elizabeth's son in old age, John, who would go before the Savior as a forerunner.

GABRIEL

Who would announce the coming of the Son of God?  The Angel Gabriel was chosen.  Someone once said that Gabriel was the pre-earth name of Noah. Perhaps he was given this honor  because he lost family and friends in the flood who needed to be saved.

MARY

Mary was a young woman - much younger than we usually want to think.  Some scholars have suggested that she was perhaps 14 years old.  I have wondered if she had been nurtured by spiritual experiences her whole life.  When Gabriel told her she had been chosen to carry the Son of God, her only question was "How can this be seeing as I know no man."  Very pragmatic.  When Gabriel explained, she immediately took that responsibility regardless of any possible consequences.  Without further question, she said, "Be it unto me according to thy will."

Shortly after that, she went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was also pregnant in her old age with her first child, another chosen son to be name John.  When Mary approached her, Elizabeth immediately recognized Mary as being pregnant with the Son of God because her baby leapt in her womb as testimony of the divinity of the child within Mary's womb.

By the time John was born and Mary returned home to Nazareth, she was very visibly pregnant.  How shocked Joseph and the others in Nazareth must have been!  Being pregnant our of wedlock was punishable by death by stoning.

JOSEPH

Joseph must have been a wonderful man to take on the challenge of raising the son of God.  Had Joseph publicly rejected her, she could have been killed.  But Joseph, "being a just man" as the scriptures say, decided to divorce her privately to save her the death penalty.  Instead something remarkable happened. As Joseph was asleep on his bed, Gabriel came to him and told him not be afraid to take Mary to wife as originally planned.  The angel explained the circumstances of the conception and genealogy of the divine child.  Joseph doesn't hesitate and immediately marries his sweetheart.

Matthew gives us his genealogy so that we know that Joseph was a descendant of King David and Judah and Israel and Issac and Abraham.  Mary was a cousin from the same heritage.  Therefore, Jesus Christ was the legitimate heir of David's earthly kingdom.   But He was destined to be more, the Heavenly King of all Creation.  Raised by a mother who knew His divinity from the first and by a good man who loved Him as a father.


The waiting of the world was almost over.  The long-promised Messiah was about the come into the world and alter it forever.

© Gebara Education, December 23, 2017 All rights reserved