Deists or Christians?

Many people today believe that America's founding Fathers were all (or almost all) Deists. There were some prominent men among the Founding Fathers that were Deist. Thomas Jefferson is the most renown of them, but Jefferson kept his religious views concealed from the general public.

No one can see into his neighbour’s soul to see for certainty that he/she knows Christ. This is true today and it is true of the Founders as well. We do know that the great majority of the Founders were outwardly adherents to the Christian faith.
These men understood the union of the United States, which was formed first under the Articles of Confederation and than under the Constitution to be part of what was known as Christendom (Christ Kingdom). The secularised, central government, that exists today and has replaced the federal union created by the Constitution, is not what the Founders had in mind.

The best way for our generation to know what kind of people the Founders were and what they intended is to read their own writings. That is a bit tedious, though I enjoy that kind of reading. I can recommend two books have done much of the tedious work for you. Original Intentions: On The Making And Ratification Of The United States Constitution - and - Founding Fathers: Brief Lives Of The Framers Of The United States Constitution both books are by a renown scholar M. E. Bradford.

Bradford says this of those Judges, academics and others who want to make the framers out as Deists or secularists:
Either these Framers were elaborate hypocrites in being Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian or the justices are confused. Or, better still, they are pretending to be confused... Of course the most unmistakable evidence of orthodoxy comes in references made by the Framers to Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Son of God.

Bradford adds that 95% of the framers were confessing Christians and not deists.
America’s Founding Fathers lived at a time before liberal anti-Christian theologies captured many of the mainline denominations like they have today. I don't believe that the moral, spiritual, cultural and political corruption that is prevalent in America today would surprise most of them. They knew history and Scripture. They understood that human nature, fallen as it is, is bent toward this sort of departure from sound government, religion and morality.

We need to re-learn what has been lost and teach our children; perhaps then (by God’s grace) we will live to see true political, moral and Christian reformation come to our land.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

William Tyndale and the English Bible

We live in a day and time when the Christian liberties that we have inherited from our forebears are being lost, but even in our present state of decline, we still have liberties that are far greater than most people have experienced in either the past or the present. Four hundred years ago in England, parents were executed, some burned at the stake, for teaching their children the Lords Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles Creed in their native tongue. Latin was fine but they dare not teach these things in English to their children.

The English Protestant Reformer William Tyndale was a gifted linguist. He was fluent in seven languages. William Tyndale was a very well educated man, having studied at both Oxford and Cambridge. Young Tyndale, gifted as he was, was greatly burdened because of the fact that the English people did not have access to the Bible in their own language. He determined to fill this need. He determioned to give his countrymen the Bible in English. In order for him to accomplish this burning desire, Tyndale had to leave England. He migrated to Germany, so he could continue translating the Scriptures from the original languages into English. In that day it was illegal to translate the Scriptures in English. Another reason for his going to the continent was to get his English translation of the Bible printed. Then he, and others, began smuggling the English Bibles back to England.

The English king, Henry VIII, had spies looking for Tyndale on the continent. They eventually caught up with William Tyndale and had him arrested. Tyndale was captured in the Netherlands, executed and his body burned was burned by his executioners.

Even though Tyndale didn't live to see it, his translation of the original languages into English became the basis for the eventual what became known as the "Authorized Version" under King James I. Ninety percent of the "King James Version" of the Bible is really William Tyndale's work.

Over the centuries great numbers of people have given their lives for the sake of getting God's Holy Word to people who are forbidden to have it. In the 20th century we witnessed large numbers of the faithful imprisoned and executed for daring to bring the Bible to those that don't have it.

We need to remember those that have suffered, many even unto death, and those who continue to suffer for the Faith of Jesus Christ. We have great peace and prosperity in America. Sadly, we often forget how very much we have been blessed. It is good for us to remember that our own liberty was purchased by the blood of those that went before us. We American Christians are often guilty of forgetting and ignoring the past. We need to remember the past so we can raise our own Ebenezer (I Samuel 7:12) to the LORD and teach our children to do the same.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Kenith

Thoughts on Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November of 1980, I was on a U.S. Navy Frigate cruising off the coast of Iran. Though I did not vote for or against him, he was my favoured candidate. President Carter was very unpopular in the military, and moral was not good under him. Reagan changed all that; with Reagan the military recovered much of its esprit de corp.

Reagan was, as is every man, flawed, but he must be credited with toppling the Soviet Union. He saw that they could not compete with the West if the U.S. retooled its military and its economy. So he urged the U.S. forward militarily and economically. The Soviet system collapsed when it could not keep up.

Reagan deserves much credit for accomplishing the demise of the Soviet system and placing it in the ash heap of history. (Pope John Paul II too deserves credit for the Soviet demise).

Reagan had a number of failure, the biggest is the Marine barracks debacle in Beirut, where a suicide Muslim terrorist killed himself and over 200 American Marines. We turned tail and left immediately (we should not have been there to start with) and we have been reaping the consequences for that decision up until this very day.

Reagan was flawed, though he did some great things. Even with his flaws, he was a far better choice than Carter or Mondale. Reagan was viewed as an extreme right wing nut by much of the media. He was not, but when so much of the media is so very left wing, anything right of centre looks extreme to them.

During Reagan’s presidency I left the Democratic Party and registered as a Republican. Like millions of other Southern Democrats, I could no longer remain in a Democratic party that had moved so far to the left on social issues. Economics, though important to me, or not as important to me as are social and states rights issues.

[Note--Today, I am not real comfortable registered as a Republican (I’m not a neo-con). The Republicans look upon Evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics as their private whore. They don’t want to be seen in public with us, but when they call on election day, they want us to show up and vote for them.]

Reagan was certainly the best and most important president in my life time. He lifted America from the morass that she had fallen into following Vietnam, Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, and Carters presidency. For that he deserves much credit. He also gave the teetering Soviet Union just enough of a push to shatter it to pieces. He will be remembered for these good things.

In memoriam,
Kenith

James Stuart

The name James Stuart may not sound familiar to most Americans today, but it is a name of someone who we have all heard. James Stuart was King James VI of Scotland; at the death of Queen Elisabeth, he became King James I of England. Today his name is well known throughout the English speaking world, because he is the one who authorized the translation of the Bible we call the “King James Version.” James Stuart is also important in American history in a way that few people realise.

The first permanent English settlement in the New World, Jamestown, Virginia, is named for him. But this is not his greatest influence on America. It is another aspect of his rule that influenced the growth of America’s English colonies. James' policies, religious and civil, in Britain contributed greatly to the growth of English settlements in North America. The Pilgrims were trying to escape his tyranny when they landed at Plymouth. A little latter, the Puritans arrived in large numbers to escape his oppressive reign. James hated the devout Presbyterians of Scotland and the Puritans of England, mostly because they denied the pagan teaching of “the Divine Right of Kings ” and once announced that he would drive them from the land. He did drive the Puritans from England in large numbers.

James had the Bible translated for political reasons. It wasn't done because he loved the Christian faith. He was, in fact, a very immoral man. His personal habits would have been readily accepted by the folks of Sodom, Gomorrah and San Francisco. James was a both a drunk and a homosexual. God, in His sovereignty, used this drunken, sexually immoral and evil king to authorise and publish one of the most important translations of the Bible ever made available to the Church. The Authorized Translation has been greatly used in spreading the Gospel into all parts of the world.

God can, and does, use evil rulers to do his will. God's will and providence shall accomplish good for His people. In the case of the Puritans, they suffered harassment and persecution and God used those trying times to establish the Gospel solidly in the New World.

It is vital to remember that the most evil act ever performed by men, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is also used of God to accomplish the greatest good in all of history. It is through this greatest act of human evil that salvation is made possible in Christ Jesus.

God, in his absolute sovereignty over His creation, uses even the evil acts of men to accomplish his will. Man's feeble actions can not thwart God's plans for the present or the future. King James, though an evil ruler, laid the base for America’s Christian foundations. He persecuted the Puritans because of the evil intentions of his heart, but God used it for good. James also gave us the most important translation of the Bible in history.

When things look badly, we must remember that God’s reigns and rules all of His-story. All that takes place in space, time and history is leading to his predetermined holy purposes and will bring glory to the True and Living God.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Kenith