Courageous Christianity – How a 19th century revival sparked the Muscular Christianity movement, Y.M.C.A. athletics, and a youth-led race to save the world

It is a pity that American children are not being taught more about the Founding
Fathers of America and what their vision of America was. Even when I was going to
public school back in the 1930’s and ’40’s, very little was taught about our Founding
Fathers concerning their religious and moral beliefs. We learned about George
Washington as a great soldier and a great leader, but virtually nothing about his
religious convictions. The same was true of all the other noted Founding Fathers:
Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, Franklin, Hamilton. They were great revolutionary leaders
who crafted the Declaration of Independence, fought a six-year war against Great
Britain, crafted the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution which is the
basis of our political system. Surprisingly you can teach a great deal about all of that
with virtually no mention of religion.

In fact, we were taught more about the atheist Tom Paine than about any of the great
American religious and intellectual leaders, such as Jonathan Edwards, Timothy
Dwight, George Whitefield, Jotm Witherspoon, John Dickinson, George Mason,
Jonathan Mayhew, Nathanael Emmons, Jedidiah Morse, Noah Webster, and others.
Why was this the case? Because by the 1930’s the progressives had already made
sure that religion was removed from American public schools. Yet, in those days it was
still possible for a school principal to read a psalm from the Bible at assembly. Of
course, that is no longer the case. In fact, the schools have become so anti-Christian
that it is forbidden to even mention the word Christmas.

John Leo in U.S. News & World Report (Jan. 6, 97) wrote that in Fayette County,
Kentucky, school bus drivers were warned not to say Merry Christmas to any of the
children, and in West Orange, N.J. a student was reprimanded by the high school
dean for singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on school property. And the
principal of Loudoun High School in Virginia told student editors to keep the
newspaper as secular as possible and “to be careful that they don’t associate the
upcoming holiday with any particular religion.” One wonders how they were supposed
to do that inasmuch as the upcoming holiday celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ! Talk
about censorship. I wonder what the ACLU or People for the American Way are going
to·do about that.

Some schools now only allow instrumental versions of traditional carols. The words
are too controversial and violate the sacred separation of church and state.
And that’s why the religious convictions of our founding fathers cannot be taught to
American children in our public schools. These poor children no doubt get the
impression — if they are taught at all about the founding fathers — that they were men
with no religious convictions at all and that religion simply did not exist as a vital
spiritual force in America when in reality it was the very force that made America
possible. If they are taught anything at all about religion in early America it is usually
about those mean, bigoted Puritans who hounded the poor witches of Salem.

And yet, what the Founding Fathers had to say about God is so inspiring that I wish
there were a way that American children could be made aware of this. It’s easy
enough for homeschoolers to get this knowledge. David Barton has written books
which deal with this subject, and an excellent book by William J. Federer, titled
America’s God and Country, Encyclopedia of Quotations, is filled with wonderful
quotations from Columbus to the present day, proving that Belief in God and doing
work to fulfill God’s promises is the most important theme in the entire American
enterprise. Christopher Columbus wrote in his Book of Prophecies:

It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to
sail from here to the Indies … .
There was no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit. because he comforted me with rays of
marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures . .. encouraging me continually to press forward. and
without ceasing for a moment they now encourage me to make haste.
In a letter written in 1493 to Spain’s General Treasurer Gabriel Sanchez, Columbus
wrote:

That which the unaided intellect of man could not compass, the spirit of God has granted to human
exertions, for God is wont to hear the prayers of His servants who love His precepts even to the
performance of apparent impossibilities. Therefore, let the king and queen, our princes and their most
happy kingdoms, and all the other provinces of Christendom , render thanks to our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.

In June of 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, Gov. John
Winthrop landed in Massachusetts Bay with 700 people in 11 ships, thus beginning
the Great Migration, which lasted 16 years and saw more than 20,000 Puritans embark
for New England. In a sermon aboard the ship Arbella before disembarking on the
shores of New England, Winthrop said:

We are a Company, professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, and thus we ought to account
ourselves knit together by this bond of love .. ..
Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We
have taken out a Commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles … .
We must hold a familiar commerce together in each other in–all meekness, gentleness, patience, and
liberality. We must delight in each other, make one another’s condition our own, rejoice together, mourn
together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in this
work, as members of the same body .. ..
We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our
enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding plantations shall say, “The Lord
make it like that of New England.”
For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.

That’s the kind of religious fervor and covenantal love that permitted the Puritans to
create a Christian civilization in the wilderness of the new world. And from that
community came some of the most learned men of God that Christendom has ever
known. Harvard College was founded in 1636 for the purpose of training up a learned
clergy. And indeed it did. Increase Mather, who became President of Harvard, was
one of the first to criticize the British monarch, Charles II, for demanding in 1684 the
return of the charter which had given the colonists the right to govern themselves. He
wrote:

To submit and resign their charter would be inconsistent with the main end of their fathers’ coming to New
England.. .. [Although resistance would provoke] great sufferings, [it was] better to suffer than sin. Let
them trust in the God of their fathers, which is better than to put confidences in princes. And if they suffer,
because they dare not comply with the wills of men against the will of God, they suffer in a good cause.
Already you can see the seed of the War for Independence being planted in the soil of
New England.

Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian whose preaching began the revival known as
the Great Awakening, was the third President of Princeton University. Concerning the
Great Awakening, he wrote:

And then it was, in the latter part of December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to … work
amongst us . . .. In every place, God brought His saving blessings with Him , and His Word, attended with
Spirit … returned not void.

George Whitefield, the famous dynamic evangelist of the Great Awakening, preached
up and down the Eastern seaboard of America. Benjamin Franklin wrote that he was
able to hear Whitefield’s voice nearly a mile away. Whitefield wrote:

Those who live godly in Christ, may not so much be said to live, as Christ to live in them … . They are led by
the Spirit as a child is led by the hand of its father ….
They hear, know, and obey his voice . … Being born again in God they habitually live to, and daily walk with
God.

Sarah Edwards, wife of Jonathan Edwards, wrote of Whitefield:

It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible .
. Our mechanics shut up their shops, and the day laborers throw down their tools to go and hear him
preach , and few return unaffected . Franklin wrote:

It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless
or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if ali the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk
thro ‘ the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.

On matters of education, in 1750 Franklin wrote to Dr. Samuel Johnson, the first
president of King’s College (now Columbia University):
I think with you , that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in
wisdom and virtue .. .. I think also, general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the
education of youth, than from the exhortation of adult persons; bad habits and vices of tt’,e mind being,
like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured.
I think, moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are
bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly called as if heard a voice from
heaven.

Franklin wrote in his Autobiography this prayer that he prayed every day:
o powerful goodness! Bountiful Father l Merciful Guide l Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my
truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to
thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me.

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful nonsectarian prayer for school children to recite each
day? It is said that Franklin was a Deist. He had been brought up and educated as a
Presbyterian, but he rejected many of the doctrines of the Presbyterian faith. But he
writes in his Autobiography:

I never doubted , for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world , and governed it by his
Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are
immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.

In July 1776, Franklin was appointed to a committee to draft a seal for the newly
formed United States. He proposed:
Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the red sea,and pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the
waters. This motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”

In 1787 Franklin wrote in a letter:
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more
need of masters.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin, disturbed by the bitter debates
among the delegates, said in a speech to the convention:

I have live, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth–that God
Governs in the affairs of men . .
We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in
vain that build it.” . .
I therefore beg leave to move–that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its
blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business,
and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

It should be noted that prayers have opened both houses of Congress ever since.
It would take a full day to talk of the religious character of George Washington who was
so deeply conscious of his Christian faith. He believed that he was miraculously
saved from death after a battle in 1755. He wrote to his brother:

But by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability
or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt,
although death was leveling my companions on every side of me’

As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army Washington often prayed and fasted,
invoking God’s protection and providence during the entire War of Independence. He
appointed chaplains for every regiment. In 1789, at his inauguration as the first
President of the United States, Washington said :

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the
present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to
the Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose
providential aids can supply every human defect,
that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a
Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes; .
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men
more than the people of the United States.
Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been
distinguished by some token of providential agency .

Washington’s inaugural address should be required reading in every American public
school. But, of course, all of Washington’s references to God would send the ACLU
and People for the American Way screaming to the Supreme Court that such an act
would be a violation of the separation of church and state. That’s how far we’ve come.

On Oct. 3, 1789, Washington issued a National Day of Thanksgiving Proclamation in
which he stated :

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will , to be
grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor . .
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of l\Jovember next, to be
devoted by the people of these United States .. . . that we then may all unite unto him our sincere and
humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a
nation; for the Signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in thecourse
and conclusion of the late war;
for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enloyed; for the peaceable and
rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety
and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with
which we are blessed

The proclamation goes on for another long paragraph. But it is obvious where the
hearts of the American people turned to for their blessings. Today, our school children
think that the Pilgrims thanked the Indians on Thanksgiving Day. Our children are
being lied to by our educators, and I ask you, what good can come from such lies?
One merely has to read the prayers that Washington wrote in his own personal prayer
book to understand how deeply he was imbued with the Holy Spirit and how deeply
he relied on God for all matters of importance in his life. And it is this aspect of
Washington’s character that is rarely if ever referred to in history textbooks. Even so
great a man as Washington could fall to his knees and pray for forgiveness. In one
prayer, he wrote:

I have sinned and done very wickedly, be merciful to me, 0 God, and pardon me for Jesus Christ sake.
Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me; and has given me assurance of salvation, upon my repentence and
sincerely endeavoring to conform my life to His holy precepts and example

Praise God for such a man as George Washington, the father of our country. Isn’t it a
tragedy that American children are no longer taught about this tower of a man who
should be their hero. I remember when I was in first grade, there was a portrait of
George Washington in our classroom. That portrait looked down upon us children and
we revered him. It was the Stuart portrait, in which the bottom part was unfinished. But
to me it looked as if George Washington were in heaven.
Americans revered George Washington with good reason. But today he is just a figure
on a one dollar bill.

Another great American whose godly influence was felt by millions of children was
Noah Webster, whose blue-backed speller taught millions to read and spell. In 1828,
Webster completed his American Dictionary of the English Language. In this
dictionary are constant references to God and the Bible, for Webster was an orthodox
Christian. He stated:

Education is useless without the Bible.
God’s Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct
He also wrote:
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under
a free government ought to be instructed . … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian
religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free
people
great

This strong American adherance to Biblical religion impressed the French historian
Alexis de Tocqueville who traveled throughout America in the early 1830’s and wrote a
marvelous book about his observations. He wrote:

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, . . there is no country in the world where the
Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no
greater proof of its utility andof its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over
the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be
The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of
freedom .
The Amerians combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is
impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.
It is hard for us to believe that thirty years later this Christian nation would be torn
asunder and plunged into a civil war that took a half million American lives. Men
prayed to the same God on both sides of the conflict. In his second inaugural address
after the defeat of the Confederacy, Lincoln said:

The prayers of both [sides] could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The
Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that
offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” .. .
And then Lincoln concluded with these famous words :

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let
us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Indeed, only Christian charity could restore the United States as one nation, under
God, with liberty and justice for all.

America’s Christian heritage is so rich, so powerful, so sustaining, that even President
Clinton felt compelled to end his second inaugural address, stating:
May God strengthen our hands for the good work ahead, and always, always bless our America.

(The above article was written in the mid 1990s, and comes from the Sam Blumenfeld Archive:

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm

The Blumenfeld Archives