Jesus Christ Is America's Greatest Founding Father

Jesus Christ Is America’s Greatest Founding Father

I greatly appreciate George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others who founded the United States of America. But by far the greatest founding Father was Jesus Christ. I’ll explain in this video.

A number of years ago the great Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington said Christianity was just as important to the development of America as Islam was to Saudi Arabia. No sentient being would deny the role of Islam in the Middle East and yet American intellectuals, educators, and our public school system not only deny the role of Christianity in American history they attack it. This is absurd. Let me give you five ways Jesus Christ created America. And yes, you heard me right, America would not exist if it weren’t for the Jesus Christ and His followers.

First, the United States is founded on the principle of equality and they got that idea from Jesus Christ and nowhere else. In Gal. 3:28 the Apostle Paul said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. All are

one in Christ. Do you have any idea how insane this statement sounded to people in the Roman Empire in 50 A.D.? No one on earth believed this. Yet America was built on that doctrine. Every modern social justice movement is dependent on it; Black Lives Matter is dependent on this Christian doctrine of the equality of all people; every group that claims to be fighting racism begins with a doctrine taught originally by Jesus Christ, and only by followers of Christ. Every human rights crusade is dependent on this belief.

Today America has a giant grievance industry telling you the most important thing about you is your tribe, not your individual standing before God. It is pitting Americans against each other, promoting behavior that has been so destructive throughout history and around the world. Christ and His followers stand against this. You rise or fall depending on your individual relationship with God, not any label attached to you or that you attach to yourself.

Second, Jesus is our greatest founding father, because from Him we get the idea that the individual is more valuable than the government. Governments aren’t God. One of today’s greatest dangers is deification of the state—this is because people have stopped believing in God. Still needing something to believe in they have come to worship government. Eighty years ago C.S. Lewis said one reason Christians believe the individual is more valuable than the state is because the individual lasts longer. Government is temporal, your soul is immortal. This belief calls for limited government; limits on its power and reach; limiting the danger it poses to individual life and liberty.

Third, Christianity changed the definition of the heroic. In a recent essay in National Review, the historian of culture, George Weigel, noted in ancient times a hero was a military leader or member of the aristocracy. Christianity changed all that by making martyrs the true heroes. Anyone could be a martyr. In his brilliant book, Dominion, Tom Holland tells the story of a second-century slave girl, Blandina, who was tortured and suffered horribly for her faith, but refused to renounce Christ, dying a martyr. Holland observes,  “That a slave, ‘a slight, frail, despised woman’, might be set among the elite of heaven, seated directly within the splendour of God’s radiant palace, ahead of those who in the fallen world had been her immeasurable superiors, was a potent illustration of the mystery that lay at the heart of the Christian faith.” Weigel says, “Martyr-heroes democratized heroism — their witness was available to everyone, and their sacrifice embodied a new form of self-respect that was not a function of class or sex.” Once again, Christ makes individual virtue central and America is built on that.

Fourth, Christianity rejected the idea that the natural world was indwelt by demons or demi-gods. It was a natural order, created by God, and governed by fixed laws. This made science possible. All scientific and technological progress, for which America is famous, depend on this belief taught and promoted by the followers of Christ.

Fifth, Jesus is our greatest founding Father, because he taught the separation of church and state, to the benefit of both. The eminent Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, observed that Christianity teaches that separation, and it is the only religion that does. Why is this important? Because Christianity rejects totalitarianism in all its forms. Dictators and their kin are rejected by Christianity. Christianity is the basis for limited government and self-government.

Weigel concludes with this question: “Is it possible to imagine what we know as “the West” and “democracy” today without these biblically rooted ideas, as they were developed in Chris­tianity? It seems very unlikely. The democratic project as we know it did not develop in Hindu, Mogul, Confucian, or African cultures, nor had it developed in the cultures Europeans found in the Western Hemisphere in the 16th century. The West — its science, its economics, and its democratic project — developed in cultural soil enriched by biblical and Christian ideas, convictions, modes of life, and practices.”

America is no lucky accident. Our culture came about because of ideas it received by direct revelation from Almighty God, and were then spread around the world by the followers of Christ.  Every blessing we enjoy in modern life we owe to Him. He is our greatest founding Father.

More Resources: George Weigel’s essay: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/12/27/the-difference-christianity-made/

The link to Seven Ideas that changed the world: https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-That-Changed-World-civilizations-ebook/dp/B085MM79ZB/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=seven+ideas+that+changed+the+world&qid=1584653313&sr=8-1

I strongly recommend Dominion, by Tom Holland: https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Tom-Holland-audiobook/dp/B07YXDBGQ3/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1QAJSOVNOL1SR&keywords=dominion+in+books&qid=1642180141&sprefix=dominion+in+boo%2Caps%2C327&sr=8-5