Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom
Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom

The Founders Did Not Want to Banish God From the Public Arena

by Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.

Recently I wrote an online column noting that the Bible is being unconstitutionally banned in the public schools far too often—and even being treated like “asbestos,” to borrow a line from Christian attorney Jordan Lorence.

A reader complained about the article, raising the common objection that the founders supposedly intended a secular government, one that was free from Biblical influence.

He wrote, “Once you see that ideas and our capacity for reason are the most important tools we possess, maybe you will understand that the Bible is like ‘Asbestos’ in the public school.”

The claim that the founders intended to banish God from the public square is made often enough that it begs some further analysis. Indeed, it is ironic since the founders said our rights come from the Creator.

The writer’s assertion implies that Christianity and reason are in conflict. However, the founders didn’t see it that way. They had a great affinity for the writings of John Locke who wrote defending The Reasonableness of Christianity.

Samuel Adams reflected the common notion of the day that “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” were in harmony when he said, “‘Thou shall do no injury to thy neighbor,’ is the voice of nature and reason, and it is confirmed by written revelation.”

In 1793, President Washington wrote to a church in Baltimore: “We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart.” There was no perceived conflict here between faith and rational thought.

Our fourth president, James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, said, “Religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence . . .” Again, faith and reason were viewed as working in tandem.

But what about public schools and the idea that religion—really, Christianity—was unwelcome to our nation’s settlers and founders?

Education for the masses began in earnest in America with the Puritans in Boston in the 1640s when they passed “The Old Deluder Satan Act.”

They said it was one of the chief goals of “that old deluder Satan” to keep people in darkness by keeping them from the Word of God. Therefore, they would establish schools so the children could learn to read for themselves. In one way or another, the Bible was the chief textbook in colonial America.

In 1787 (under the Articles of Confederation) and then reaffirmed in 1789 (under the Constitution), the founders passed the Northwest Ordinance. It set forth basic principles for the new territories, which would later become states. Article III of the Northwest Ordinance mentions schooling. What did the founders think about education or its content? Were the schools to be “religion free zones”?

In their own words, the same men who gave us the First Amendment, which today is often distorted to exclude any Christian expression in the public arena, wrote: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Religion in that context meant Christianity.

The false idea of separating God from the state (in the name of “separation of church and state”) has led us to a nation in which most people are ignorant of God’s laws—and the results are proving to be tragic.