Sam Adams

Samuel Adams is one of America's founding fathers from New England. Adams was a descendent of the Puritans that first settled that country, and he was a member of the Congregational Church. At the time Sam Adams lived there was already a move, on the part of his region of America, away from the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.

The seeds of Unitarianism and Deism had been laid in New England during the eighteenth, and they would lead those people into all kinds of anti-Christian "isms" in the nineteenth century.

Sam Adams would have none of that; he held to the historic Christian faith and was, like the great majority of early American Christians, a Calvinist in his theology. Adams knew that true virtue and true knowledge were to be found in the Holy Scriptures. He also believed these things to be vital for both political and religious liberty. He said:

"If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great Security." Samuel Adams to James Warren. February 12, 1779

Samuel Adams understood that liberty was dependent, not on the virtue and knowledge of the leaders only, but of the people themselves. He knew that our leaders would reflect us. If we, as average people, don't live virtuous lives; we will not elect moral leaders. If we are not knowledgeable in things like history, our form of government, sound biblical doctrine, etc...we can be easily tricked by shysters in politics and religion.

In our day, as a general rule, Americans care little for history, political theory, and certainly the study of doctrine is, in many Christian circles, considered boring and "un" if not anti-Spiritual. I think our times bare Sam Adams out as a man that knew what he was talking about. Its ok if some folks think these items unimportant, but when the majority of people think this way then those people are in serious trouble.

We need to work to fix these problems in our own lives, so that we can pass on Virtue and Knowledge to our children.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Kenith