Was America Founded to Be Secular?

Was America Founded to Be Secular?

Did the Founding Fathers want American society to be religious or secular? Joshua Charles, author of Liberty's Secrets, explains. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h Follow Joshua Charles and visit http://ift.tt/2sik43C Have you taken the pledge for school choice? Click here! http://ift.tt/2pAxgjJ Get PragerU bonus content for free! http://ift.tt/2odSvu3 Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! http://ift.tt/29ugQ4e Do you shop on Amazon? Click http://ift.tt/1aWn6xc and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: http://ift.tt/R8ZQWT Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: http://ift.tt/1PGD6Ia PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9 Script: What role should religion play in a free society? More and more people today would answer: none. That would not have been the answer of the Founders of the United States – the men who fought the American Revolution and wrote the country’s Constitution. To them the issue of religion and freedom were inextricably linked. You couldn’t have freedom without religion. In fact, the political philosophy of the Founders necessitated a divine foundation. Thomas Jefferson makes this clear in the Declaration of Independence when he writes that “all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The purpose of government, Jefferson and his compatriots believed, was not to bestow rights; rather, it was to protect those rights already endowed upon human beings by God. But government isn’t enough for a free society. A moral people is also required; that is, a people moral enough to police itself. “Virtue or morality,” George Washington observed, “is a necessary spring of popular government.” Thus, for the Founders, liberty was not merely the ability to do what one wanted; it came with moral demands and boundaries. They all accepted the rule of life expressed by Benjamin Franklin: “Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.” The Founders knew that the absolute enemy of freedom was – ironically – freedom that was absolute and unrestrained. And where was this restraint going to come from? Their answer was religion, which for them – because of when and where they lived – was some variety of Christianity. “Let Divines, and Philosophers, Statesmen and Patriots unite,” Samuel Adams wrote, “[in] instructing [citizens] in the Art of self-government…in short, of leading them in the Study, and Practice of the exalted Virtues of the Christian system.” The Christian system to which Adams refers is composed of Judeo-Christian values – the values rooted in the Old and New Testaments, both of which were referred to by the Founders with equal conviction and frequency. Jefferson – yes, the very same Thomas Jefferson who is so often portrayed as anti-religious – confirmed this sentiment in his Notes on the State of Virginia, when he asked: “[C]an the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? [And] that they are not to be violated but with his wrath?” James Madison likewise affirmed the essential connection between religion and morality: “The belief in a God All Powerful, wise, and good is. . . essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man. . . .” John Adams believed that “the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe,” a doctrine he credited to Judaism, was the “great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.” And he applied this thinking specifically to the new nation he helped to create: “Our Constitution,” he said, “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” For the complete script, visit http://ift.tt/2tB9mJj
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