Was America Founded on Christian Principles?

If you don’t know where you’ve come from, it’s pretty hard to determine where you’re going.

The history of America is an awesome drama. Our nation is no accident. For hundreds of years, the dream of liberty was carried across European history to be birthed on these shores, and biblical truth, biblical thinking, played a pivotal role in the birthing of America.

But was America founded on Christian principles? Just read the first words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

From the beginning, America’s founders accepted the reality that basic rights were inseparable from human beings and they recognized that those inalienable rights were not given by government nor acquired by force, but that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the gifts of the Creator.

In 1844, the Court said, “Christianity is part of our common law.”

In 1892, the Supreme Court said this: “No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national because this is a religious people. This is historically true.”

In 1930, the U.S. Supreme Court said this: “We are a Christian people, according to our motto.”

In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.

The question isn’t – Was America founded on Christian principles? The question is – what world view has given birth to and sustained America? The answer to that question is simple: Christianity.

By The American Policy Roundtable (www.aproundtable.org)