he hope of lasting liberty unfolded in the wilder-ness of North America—3,000 miles from the

power-hungry rulers of Europe. Heroes of liberty hadcome to the New World without an army, in search ofreligious and political freedom. For the first time inhistory since the days of ancient Israel, a nation was tobe created following the bottom-up, divine blueprintof a constitutionalrepublic as taught inthe Scripture. Instark contrast, top-down systems oftyranny had domi-nated the entireworld. The colonistsrealized that “thehistory of govern-ment on this earthhas been almost en-tirely the history ofthe rule of forceheld in the hands ofa few.”1

Sadly, there has beenan educational blackout regarding the true roots ofAmerica’s exceptional freedoms. Few Americans todayknow the foundations of freedom that were built incolonial America. Modern histories of America, almostuniversally, neglect the century and a half of colonialhistory (1607-1776). Instead they have taught themyth that America was dreamed up by our Foundersor by great thinkers of the European Enlightenment.But the truth is, the biblically literate, politically astutecolonists set the trajectory for America’s future suc-cess. They wrote their own brilliant, biblically-basedconstitutions and agreements long before the found-ing era.

The colonial writings reveal a world that has been for-gotten by historians and political scientists. Aftertwenty years of research on America’s forgotten ori-gins, Professor Donald Lutz documents that the rootsof America’s freedom and prosperity did not comefrom the Founding Fathers or the Constitution. Hesays, rather, that “local government in colonial Amer-

ica was the seedbed[roots] of AmericanConstitutionalism.”2In his importantbook, Lutz compileseighty of these localconstitutions, agree-ments andcovenants written bythe early coloniststhemselves.

Nearly all of thecolonists who set-tled the east coast ofAmerica were Chris-tians deeply influ-enced by the

Reformation. They were part of what historians havecalled the “Biblical Century” (the 17th century). Dur-ing that pivotal span, millions of Europeans were ableto own and read the Bible in their own language forthe first time in history. Harvard Professor Eric Nel-son says that during this period Christians began toregard the Hebrew Bible as a political constitution.He says that “readers began to see in the five books ofMoses not just political wisdom, but a political consti-tution … No longer regarding the Hebrew Bible asthe Old Law—a shadowy imitation of the truth,which had been rendered null and void by the NewDispensation—they increasingly came to see it as a set

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Join, or Die. This political cartoon attributed to Benjamin Franklin was originally published onMay 9, 1754. It is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union in America.

financial depression which swept into the colonies. At thesame time France (with its army in Canada) threatened amassive invasion to burn and destroy the colonial citiesand enforce military rule. Religious and civil liberty werein great peril.

Suddenly, in the dark days of the 1730s, a Great Awaken-ing thundered up the coast of the colonies. Jonathan Ed-wards and other pastors planted a fire for faith andfreedom in the hearts of the people. George Whitefield, afamous English evangelist, fanned the flames of revival in1740, as he began the first of seven speaking tours thatwould stretch out over the next thirty years. Tens of thou-sands of colonists up and down the coast gathered on hill-sides to hear him preach up to five times a day. One thirdof the people of New England and one half of the peoplein the southern colonies were brought to personal faith inChrist. This spiritual awakening lasted a generation.

The impact of the Great Awakening was enormous. TheColonies, each independent, recognized “God’s sover-eignty over all, including kings; they strove for holiness ingovernment as well as in their own lives …. The GreatAwakening, therefore, created the potential for a politicalawakening.”4

The clergy were the intellectual, cultural and spiritual lead-ers of the colonial era. They were the pillars of communi-cation. Their influence in colonial America was comparableto the impact of today’s social media, educational estab-lishment and the entertainment industry all combined.

Yale historian Harry Stout writes: “Over the span of thecolonial era, American ministers delivered approximately

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of political laws that God Himself had given to the Is-raelites as their civil Sovereign.” He says that politicalscholars would now have to look “to the perfect constitu-tion designed by the omniscient God.”3

As the American colonists formed their towns andcolonies, they created models of limited self-government,based upon the Hebraic, biblical model. What developedover time in colonial America was not a theocracy, or“state church” dominance of society. The colonists hadcome out of Europe with its forced religion or irreligion.They knew that Christianity could not be forced. But theydid, as Christians, apply their faith to the choice of theirleaders and to the political affairs of their republic.

The American Colonies were blessed with freedom andprosperity during the 17th century. But by the dawn ofthe 18th century many colonists began to slowly lose theirpassion for the faith. Some came under the influence ofskepticism rampant in the European Enlightenment.

The English, deeply touched by the Reformation, hadcome close to forming a Christian Republic under OliverCromwell. But when Cromwell died, they returned to de-pendence upon a king. They crowned Charles II and heresumed monarchical tyranny in church and state. By the18th century, England was extending its Empire aroundthe world, funded by the slave trade they had created. Thebiblical conscience and constitutional instincts of the Eng-lish were a fading memory. Greed, immorality and arro-gance ruled the day in the English Empire, especiallyamong the ruling class.

Then in 1720, the London Stock Market crash created a

Plimoth Plantation. Built on the site of the first Pilgrim community in the New World, PlimothPlantation is a must-see destination for every lover of liberty.

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eight million sermons …. The average 70-year old colo-nial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 ser-mons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 100,000hours of concentrated listening. This is the number ofclassroom hours it would take to receive ten separate un-dergraduate degrees in a modern university, without everrepeating the same course!”5 These sermons dealt intelli-gently with every issue of culture and averaged 20 to 50pages in length.

The pastors taught the role of biblical religion as theprime interpreter for political matters of the day. “Ratherthan humanism or Deism holding ideological preference… in reality, the Christian doctrines flowing from theReformation were at the forefront during the formationof America. Furthermore, they positively impacted socialand political affairs … Theology was influencing politics.It always will. Likewise, eternal political principles wereproclaimed from pulpits with regularity and vigor.”6

These biblical principles, taught from pulpits in everycolony, proclaimed inalienable rights for each individualwhich had been denied by tyrants through the ages.These rights included, equality before the law, the rightto trial by jury, the choice of leaders by the people, pri-vate ownership of property, the right to life as sacred, theseparation of powers in government, with checks andbalances against corruption. Note that the Word of Godwas the source and guarantor of these “inalienablerights,” not the king or government.

The pastors communicated these truths through ser-mons, books and pamphlets. They taught the people sev-eral hours on Sunday, in weekly townhall meetings, inelection sermonsand sermons ondays of fasting andprayer. The clergywere also the pres-idents of nearly allof the colleges.For example, Har-vard’s rules de-clared, “Let everystudent be plainlyinstructed andearnestly pressedto consider wellthe main end ofhis life and studiesis to know God

and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) andtherefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only founda-tion of all sound knowledge and learning.” The GreatAwakening, the clergy and the colleges prepared theAmerican colonists to withstand the firestorm to come.

It became clear to the colonists, especially during the warwith France in the 1750s, that England had planned tosuppress the liberties of the American colonists. TheBritish sent over royal governors and military officerswho were incompetent, corrupt, immoral and cowardly.The premier English parliamentarian, William Pitt, at-tacked the military leadership of his own army. He spokeof their “… tyranny over the common man, their Extrav-agance, Idleness and Luxury.”7 The colonists were forcedto board English troops in private homes. The soldiersproceeded to abuse families and steal all they could. ABritish commander “sent [hundreds of soldiers] intoNew York in the middle of the night to conduct a house-to-house search for able-bodied men; by the dawn’s earlylight eight hundred men were in captivity.”8 They wereforced like thousands of others, onto warships as nearslaves.

As the colonists thought about the English arroganceand brutality they had just witnessed, they realized asJohn Adams said: “There seems to be a direct and formaldesign on foot to enslave America.”9

Colonial leaders including Samuel Adams, Patrick Henryand John Witherspoon, perceived that unless the inde-pendent colonies could unite, they could never defeatthe British juggernaut. They knew that a house (or a na-tion) divided cannot stand. There were two groups of

patriots thatneeded to merge ifthey were to haveany hope. Onegroup, spirituallyrevived in theGreat Awakening,were infuriated atEnglish attemptsto destroy reli-gious liberty. TheKing had a plan toforcibly imposethe Church ofEngland upon thecolonies. Theother group em-Steeples of New England—picturesque evidence of early America’s strong Christian character.

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phasized tax issues, personal liberty, material gain andsmall government.

Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry were committed touniting these two groups. They, as businessmen andardent believers, knew that “the best coalition buildersoften were those who understood both camps becausethey themselves shared the love of God that animatedone side and the dislike for bureaucrats and taxes thatpropelled the other.”10

Sam Adams, the Father of the American Revolution,had worked for decades to teach his fellow citizens inBoston the biblical basis of liberty. In 1773, SamuelAdams created the social media of his day when hebegan the Committees of Correspondence. Within afew months, eighty towns throughout New Englandjoined the Committees. Four hundred more townsjoined by 1774. Adams taught that “the religion andpublic liberty of a people are so intimately connected,their interests are interwoven, and cannot exist sepa-rately.” He said, “It does not take a majority to pre-vail…But rather an irate, tireless minority, keen onsetting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Patrick Henry, the great coalition builder from thesouth, was the first great speaker to inspire both fac-tions of patriots opposed to British tyranny. Henry,who like Adams had been converted to Christ in theGreat Awakening as a teenager, used his great abilitiesto unite people of varied interests around higher prin-ciples. His ability at coalition building was put to theultimate test in his famous speech to the Virginia Leg-islature in 1775. His impromptu speech, the last oneof the day, many believe was the greatest oration inAmerican history. Henry appealed to the Virginia lead-ers and future presidents and called them to sacrifice allfor the “holy cause of liberty.” He asked his skepticalaudience “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to bepurchased at the price of chains and slavery?” His an-swer was clear: “Forbid it, Almighty God! I know notwhat course others may take, but as for me, give meliberty or give me death!” His once skeptical audiencerose to their feet in unison and committed themselvesto fight for their freedom and for that of their chil-dren. The British began the war three weeks later.

Rev. John Witherspoon, president of Princeton Col-lege, knew very well the tyranny of the English. Hewas a Scott and had witnessed the English army rav-aging his homeland, killing thousands of Scots, de-stroying their heritage and condemning thousands toexile or slavery in America. Rev. Witherspoon, a Scot-tish patriot pastor, was recruited to come over toAmerica to be President of Princeton College. In thecoming years he inspired and educated many of thefuture leaders of our country. He taught the biblicalbasis for a self-governing republic and the biblicalmandate to resist tyrannical rulers. Among his stu-dents was James Madison, the Father of the Constitu-tion. Witherspoon was so effective as an educator thatone British officer during the war with England pro-claimed that Witherspoon was “a political firebrand,who perhaps had not a less share in the Revolutionthan Washington himself.”11

John Adams, our second President, when asked aboutthe American Revolution said, “What do we mean bythe American Revolution? The war? That was no partof the Revolution; it was only an effect and conse-quence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of thepeople … a change in their religious sentiments [con-victions].”12 The choice of the colonists to bow toKing Jesus long before the war led to their lasting lib-erty in the founding of the United States in the 1770s.

— Marshall Foster

———————1 Federer, William, Change to Chains (Amerisearch, 2011) p. 19.2 Colonial Origins of the American Constitution (Liberty Fund) Lutz,Donald S. Ed, Indianapolis, 1998) p. xx.3 Nelson, Eric, The Hebrew Republic (Harvard University, 2010) p. 16.4 Olasky, Marvin, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery Publishing,1995) p. 785 Hall, David W. Ed, Election Day Sermons (The Kuyper Institute, 1996)p. 136 Ibid, p. 1087 Olasky, op. cit., p.1018 Ibid, p. 1089 Ibid, p. 12610 Ibid, p. 12111 Ibid, p. 13012 D’Souza, Dinesh, What’s So Great About Christianity (Regnery Pub-

lishing, 2007) p. 72