I will write a three-part piece on this topic: one today, one Wednesday, and one on Friday. To answer the question being presented, we must start at the beginning with Jamestown.
A Humble Beginning
In 1606 King James I formed the Virginia Company in which 104 brave souls embarked into the darkness of the New World. The purpose of their mission lay in their charter. From their charter, lay the purpose of such a mission.
We, greatly commending and graciously accepting, of their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of [the] Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility and to a settled and quiet Government.
King James I of England, John de Critz
And so, these daring adventurers stepped forth and after 144 days on the rough seas, they felt the touch of earth beneath their boots. On the sands of Virginia Beach, they erected a little wooden cross and knelt for a prayer.
We do hereby Dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains, and may this Land, along with England, be Evangelist to the World.
Reverent words they were, yet such words would not come easily. Far from a paradise, these colonists had landed in a mosquito-ridden swamp, surrounded by 14,000 fearsome Algonquian Indians led by the powerful Powhatan. By the next year, only 40 of the original 104 men had survived.
However, these people were not alone in such a quest to triumph in the New World. In 1620 the pilgrims in the Mayflower established a similar mission.
– The Mayflower
Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the Northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant, and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick.
In such a manner all thirteen colonies struck the hard rock, and with musket and axe drove back the savage wilderness to be replaced by civilization mirroring Israel of old.
Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron and though they are strong, you can drive them out.
Throw Off the Yoke of Slavery
Such achievement, however, lay at risk. From the depths of Sheol the dead began to beat the drums of war. The chains of bondage, the yoke of slavery were cast from a once glorious fatherland to subjugate such people under tyranny. With noble virtue and great courage these thirteen colonies drove the mighty British out and formed one nation under God. You don’t believe me? Why let us have a look at some of their constitutions starting with Massachusetts.
As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of public instructions in piety, religion, and morality.
– Massachusetts State Seal
I, [Name], do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.
Looking later at Mississippi:
No person who denies the being of a God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.
Such characteristics were true for every state. In fact, in no charter or constitution is there anything to ever suggest that anything other than Christianity is the religion of this country. There is none that is either infidel, agnostic, or anti-Christian.
The Brave Fort of Baltimore
Peace would not be so secure for this fledgling republic, as the engines of war brewed once more from that empire across the Atlantic. In 1812 conflict again commenced with Britain. The first war had been to achieve independence and the second necessary to cement it.
While there were many glorious engagements from the Battle of Horseshoe Bend to New Orleans, no battle sticks greater in the mind than of a brave little fort in Baltimore Harbor: Fort McHenry.
Mere weeks before, the British forces attacked Washington, D.C., burning the Capitol, the Treasury and the White House to the ground. Now their peering eyes were set on Baltimore, with only this fort standing in the way.
The fighting commenced, and for twenty-five hours the British fleet shelled its defenses with a wrath so great that “mother earth has opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone.” In the morning however, that American flag though beaten, battered, and hit directly still flew high.
– Fort McHenry the day after
Thus we gained our “Star Spangled Banner.” The first verse has become our national anthem, yet it is fourth which shall be presented to you today.
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.
And this be our motto— “In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Indeed, “In God is our Trust.”
The Bread of Heaven
Many stories could be included from our past, but for the sake of space, I shall choose one more.
Director of the U.S. Mint James Pollock was assigned the task of branding the two-cent coin. His report was printed by the U.S. Department of Treasury in 1863 as follows:
We claim to be a Christian nation, why should we not vindicate our character by honoring the God of Nations
…Our national coinage should do this. Its legends and devices should declare our trust in God - in Him who is ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’
…The motto suggested, ‘God our Trust,’ is taken from our National Hymn, the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.
What was their final decision? Pull out wallet, take out a dollar bill, and flip to its backside. What more hallowed words do we see than “In God We Trust?”
The Judicial Branch
But Francisco, the courts, what about the courts? Surely, they prove that while the people may have been Christian, the government certainly wasn’t!
Really, are you sure? Well, did you know that over 300 court cases have defended this nation being a Christian one. Shocked? Here is an example:
Our laws are founded upon the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments], not that every case can be exactly decided according to what is there enjoined, but we can never safely depart from this short but great declaration of moral principles without founding the law upon the sand instead of upon the eternal rock of justice and equity.
Of course, who can forget the all-important Supreme Court case Church of the Holy Trinity versus the United States in 1892 where the court declared,
Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law … not Christianity with an established church … but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.
The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice…
We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity.
– Theodore Roosevelt
One of these days we will look in what sense American law was shaped by the Bible.
Every aspect of our country, from the courts to the laws, to our currency, is deeply ingrained with the Lord. How did this all change, where could we have gone so wrong?
The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally —I do not figuratively, I mean literally—impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals—all standards towards which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud—of which our people are proud—almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible.
Slithering Serpent
In this midst of this country’s success, a new ideology has slipped through the cracks putting forward a new doctrine about how this country was.
We are not Christian, we are secular. The founders were not Christians but Deists, driven purely by the Era of Enlightenment. To truly embrace this country’s heritage, we must drive out every presence of the Lord, and then we will be free and safe from that backwards idea of objective morality.
We shall soon see whether the claims of the modern era are truly worth their salt.
The Pain of Love
Here is another piece from the heart. Recently finishing Romeo and Juliet, I must say, I have become quite smitten. What a hopeless romantic. 🥰
A glance at you is worth the slash of whips
A thousand times I die for your soft lips
You fit my broken heart like a new glove
Your tender skin is purer than a dove
Apart from you is like the wreck of ships
Venus no more could she allure the hips
The wrath would I of God face from above
To have a single moment of your love
The pits of Hell could not match such a pain
Whose tempting pow’r is stronger than a Dane
Oh Jove, how cruel you make the world to be
To touch me with the sight of this beauty
Your Humble and Obedient Servant,
Francisco Pereira
Other News
1. I do write poetry every once in a while, and so am debating on having a folder where people can access it. However, I am still in doubt, because I do not know whether anyone would read it.
2. This may be a bit of a stretch for the target audience, but does anyone have pressure washer that I could rent? There is some rough graffiti near my apartment which I would like to clean up. As I have currently not acquired a horse and buggy, any rental store is a little too far to walk to.
Cited Sources
Barton, David. The Founder’s Bible. Shiloh Road Publishers, 2017.
Brewer, David J. The Supreme Court Declares America a Christian Nation. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, n.d.
