The University of Houston did a ten year study of 15000 political writings.  They isolated 3,154 direct quotations from our founders.  According to the study the most frequent quoted were: Montesquieu (8.3% of total); Sir. William Blackstone (7.9% of total); John Locke (2.9% of total); but add the top three together and they were bested by the Bible (34% of the total).

             William Blackstone wrote “Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law,”

introduced in 1768.  It served 160 years as America’s textbook on the law. Thomas

Jefferson quoted Blackstone in the Declaration of Independence, using the phrase “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as the foundation to America’s law. 

Blackstone says of the Laws of Nature: “This law of nature is binding over all the globe, in all countries at all times.  No human laws are of any validity if they are

contrary to this... No human law is to contradict this law of nature and nature’s God found in the Holy Scripture.”  [Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England, Vol.1, Clarendon Press, 1765, pp.41-42.]

             This same idea was noted by Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court justice and Father of American Jurisprudence.  He said that, “The Bible itself [is] the common inheritance, not merely of Christendom, but of the world.” [Story, Joseph, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Harbor and Brothers, 1854, p. 259].

             Why did the founders believe that religion was crucial to the civil constitution?  They believed that the freedoms guaranteed within The Constitution could only be used properly by a moral people.  James Madison, Father of the United States

Constitution wrote: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it.  We have staked the future of all our

political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain

ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” [Demar, God and

Government–A Biblical and Historical Study, American Vision Press, 1988, p. 221].

             It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look around the world and see that nations formed under the banner of Christianity allow for the greatest freedom of expression for other faiths.  In America, decidedly Christian from its roots, we have allowed

hundreds and hundreds of religions to flourish and grow. Anchored in Christian

understanding, America once blossomed, becoming, perhaps, the greatest nation in the flow of history.  Yes, Christianity expressed through its institutions, is not perfect.  The teachings of Jesus, however, to minds that are healthy and clear, are clarion calls to love all people, even our enemies.

             If drug abuse, senseless killings in our schools, and the need for more and more laws to control human behavior have begun to stink up the public square,

perhaps we have dropped the rose offered to us by the founders.   Perhaps religion and civics no longer fit together like blossom and stem, forming one graceful flower of strength and beauty within American culture. 

 

    David Paul Anderson

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