The Role of Pastors and Christians Part Five by David Barton

Clearly, John Locke had a powerful political influence on America and the Declaration of Independence. Interestingly, critics today classify Locke as a deist or a forerunner of deism, but this is completely erroneous. Not only was John Locke considered a theologian by previous generations, but he even wrote a verse-by-verse commentary on Paul’s Epistles and also compiled a topical Bible, which he called a Common Place-Book to the Holy Bible, that listed the verses in the Bible, subject by subject. When anti-religious enlightenment thinkers attacked Christianity, Locke defended it in his book, The Reasonable-ness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures. And then when he was attacked for defending Christianity in that first work, he responded with the work, A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity. Still being attacked two years later, Locke wrote, A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity. No wonder he was considered a theologian by his peers and by subsequent generations! However, the writing of John Locke that most influenced the Founders’ philosophy in the Declaration of Independence was his Two Treatises of Government. In fact, signer of the Declaration Richard Henry Lee declared that the Declaration itself was “copied from Locke’s Treatise on Government.” Even though that book is less than 400 pages long, Locke refers to the Bible over 1,500 times to show the proper operation of civil government! This is the primary work influencing the Declaration of Independence; no wonder the Declaration has been such a successful document! Our Constitution has also been successful – so successful, in fact, that America is the longest on-going constitutional republic in the history of the world. Significantly, our Constitution was an original and uniquely American document; it was not a compilation of the best clauses of other constitutions from across the world. It contained simple ideas that had never before been embodied in written constitutions – politically new and novel practices such as the separation of powers, checks and balances, and full republicanism. Where did the Founders get their specific ideas for this most successful of all constitutions?

In an attempt to answer this question, political scientists embarked on an ambitious ten-year project to analyze some 15,000 writings from the Founding Era. Those writings were examined with the goal of isolating and identifying the specific political sources quoted during the time surrounding the establishment of American government. If the sources of the quotes could be identified, then the origin of the Founders’ political ideas could be determined. From the 15,000 writings selected, the researchers isolated some 3,154 quotations and then documented the original sources of those quotations. The research revealed that the single most cited authority in the writings of the Founding Era was the Bible: thirty-four percent of the documented quotes were taken from the Bible – a percentage almost four times higher than the second most quoted source. In fact, signers of the Constitution George Washington and Alexander Hamilton acknowledge that the principle undergirding the separation of powers was the same principle found in Jeremiah 17:9 – a principle that had been the subject of numerous sermons during the Founding Era. Many other Bible verses and principles also found embodiment in the Constitution. For example, compare the Art. I, Sec. 8 provision on uniform immigration laws with Leviticus 19:34; compare the Art. II, Sec. 1 provision that a president must be a natural born citizen with Deuteronomy 17:15; the Art. III, Sec. 3 provision regarding witnesses and capital punishment with Deuteronomy 17:6; and the Art. III, Sec. 3 provision against attainder with Ezekiel 18:20. And notice that Isaiah 33:22 defines the three branches of government, and Ezra 7:24 establishes the type of tax exemptions that the Founders gave to our churches (that still exist today). The concept of republicanism set forth in Art. IV, Sec. 4 – that is, of electing our leaders at the local, county, state, and federal levels – has its origins in Exodus 18:21. In fact, Noah Webster, the Founder personally responsible for Art. I, Sec. 8, ¶ 8 of the Constitution, specifically cites Exodus 18:21; and John Jay and George Washington also attributed God’s providence as the reason that America elected its own leaders.Since so many of the ideas that found application in our government were taken from the Bible, it is not surprising that John Adams had identified Christians and ministers as being so influential in American independence. Nearly four decades after the American Revolution, he reaffirmed this position, declaring: The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . Now I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.