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Abington v. Schempp (1963)

Just a year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the daily recitation of a prayer in public schools in Engel v. Vitale, the court extended this prohibition to a daily reading from the Bible by students without comment. This practice had been challenged by the Schempp family in Pennsylvania, who were Unitarians, and by Madalyn Murray and her son in Maryland, who were professed atheists. Although generally using the King James Version of the Bible, both school districts had permitted the use of alternate translations and had exempted students who chose not to participate.

Justice Tom Clark delivered the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court based on the establishment clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the states had argued that the practice of reading the Bible was designed to perpetuate such secular purposes as “the promotion of moral values, the contradiction to the materialistic trends of our times, the perpetuation of our institutions and the teaching of literature” (1963, 223), Clark observed,

Surely the place of the Bible as an instrument of religion cannot be gainsaid, and the State’s recognition of the pervading religious character of the ceremony is evident from the rule’s specific permission of the alternative use of the Catholic Douay version as well as the recent amendment permitting nonattendance at the exercises. None of these factors is consistent with the contention that the Bible is here used either as an instrument for nonreligious moral inspiration or as a reference for the teaching of secular subjects. (1963, 224).

Accepting that the practice of Bible reading might be considered a fairly “minor” encroachment of the First Amendment, Clark feared that a breach “that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent” (1963, 225).

Clark did indicate that the court’s decision was not intended to prevent the teaching of the Bible as part of “comparative religion or the history of religion”: “It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment” (225).

Justice William Brennan’s concurring opinion is frequently quoted. He noted that Bible reading and prayer had long been part of the public school curriculum, but that education had changed substantially as had its religious makeup. He observed that individuals like Horace Mann had once contrasted reading the Bible to what they considered to be more “sectarian” practices (270). However, even though “the religious aims of the educators who adopted and retained such exercises were comprehensive, and in many cases quite devoid of 2sectarian bias . . . the crucial fact is that they were nonetheless religious” (271). Surveying past controversies at the state level that had involved Bible reading in schools, Brennan cited a variety of decisions that had decided to ban the practice. Although he did not doubt that morning devotional exercises might have some secular benefits, he observed, “To the extent that only religious materials will serve this purpose, it seems to me that the purpose as well as the means is so plainly religious that the exercise is necessarily forbidden by the Establishment Clause” (280). He observed that there were even devout Christians who found public readings of the Bible to be offensive and that attempts to excuse children from such devotional exercises often stigmatized them. Like the majority, however, Brennan did not think the decision foreclosed “teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history” (300).

Justice Potter Stewart, who wrote the only dissenting opinion, believed that it should be possible to maintain Bible readings without having them seem coercive or stigmatizing to those who did not participate.

The majority’s decision in this case was consistent with an earlier decision in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), in which the Supreme Court had outlawed use of public school facilities to provide religious instruction. In Zorach v. Clauson (1952), the court had permitted so-called released time arrangements in which public school children were dismissed during the school day for such instruction at off-campus sites.

See also Bible Reading in Public Schools

For Reference and Further Reading

Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 202 (1963).

The Bible in the Public Schools. 1870. Cincinnati, OH: Robert Clarke Reprint; New York: Da Capo Press, 1967. Introduction by Robert G. McCloskey.

Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).

McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).

Zorach v. Clauson, 343 306 (1952).

Abortion

Conflicts over governmental regulations of abortion in the United States have been among the most contentious of any that have roiled American law and politics in the last fifty years. Long the subject of common law decisions and varied state regulations, which had eased in many states, the U.S. Supreme Court entered the area with its path-breaking decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, which allowed most abortions through the first and second trimesters of pregnancy and some during the third. The decision has failed to stop the debate between abortion opponents, who describe themselves as pro-life, and those, describing themselves as pro-choice, who believe the decision is one to be made by a woman and her doctor. A leading scholar of constitutional law refers to this conflict as “the clash of absolutes” (Tribe 1990).

Striking down a Texas law limiting abortion, the court, in an opinion authored by Justice Harry Blackmun, noted that there was wide disagreement over the status of a fetus, but that the reference to persons in the Fourteenth 3Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (“all persons born or naturalized in the United States”) appeared to refer to postnatal life. In examining abortion laws in U.S. history, Blackmun concluded that most had been enacted to protect the lives of expectant women at a time prior to antiseptics, when the risk of abortion was often greater than the risk of childbearing. Conceiving of the protection of women as the primary goal of such laws, Blackmun thought that modern science now made abortion much safer. In a complex ruling, he thus ruled that a woman should have an unfettered right to abortion during the first trimester (three months) of pregnancy, that the state could enact legislation to ensure that women’s health was protected during such procedures during the second trimester, and that only in the third trimester (the point during which a fetus would be viable outside the womb) would the state be able to limit abortion, albeit with exceptions for cases involving the life or health of the mother.

In subsequent decisions, however, most notably Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the court, while affirming the central holding in Roe, has enabled states to add waiting periods and other restrictions, the limits of which states have begun to test.

The Roman Catholic Church has long held that human life begins at conception, and Catholics were among abortions’ most vocal opponents, with mainline and Protestant churches initially taking a far more positive attitude toward the opinion, which most thought avoided outright abortion on demand. In time, however, evangelicals, many influenced by Francis Schaeffer, began to see the abortion decision as a sign of cultural decline, not only because it seemed to provide a way for individuals to deal with the consequence of childbirth outside of marriage, but also because they thought it was a denial of human dignity.

Historically, Roman Catholics have often pitched arguments on social policies in terms of natural law thinking, which they buttress with modern scientific research, and they largely continue to do so. Pope John Paul II’s The Gospel of Life (1995), in which he treats the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, also cites many Scriptures. Fundamentalists and evangelicals tend to resort to Scriptures in treating such issues (Dillon 1995).

As it turns out, however, the Bible does not directly mention the practice of abortion (Luo 2005), and opponents have had to argue from analogous situations or more general biblical principles. One analogous situation, which suggests that a fetus is not fully human, is found in Exodus 21:22–23, where a man strikes another man’s pregnant wife, causing a miscarriage, and he is obligated to pay a monetary penalty to her husband; the Septuagint translation of this passage further distinguished between an “unformed and a formed fetus” (“Abortion in the Bible” 1980, 221).

Both Catholics and evangelicals often cite the commandment against murder in Exodus 20:13 as well as Deuteronomy 30:19, in which God tells Moses that “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” They are also fond of Psalm 139:13–14: “thou has covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” and Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Similarly, the New Testament 4describes both John the Baptizer and Jesus in the womb (Jelen 1992, 141). Those who believe that unborn children bear God’s image further cited the admonition in Proverbs 31:8 to speak on behalf of those who are needy (Rosati 2019, 16).

One evangelical treatment of the subject, which, like corresponding arguments from Roman Catholics, devotes attention to the position of the early church on the subject, suggests that larger biblical themes might be a more important resource for those opposing abortion than specific proof texts. It specifically lists the doctrines of “Creation,” “Incarnation,” “Neighbor love,” “Enemy love,” “Peace,” “Justice,” “Liberation,” “Quality of Life,” and “Freedom, conscience and rights” (Gorman 1982, 97–99).

One of the great difficulties in this area, as in others that touch personal morality, is the recognition that even if abortion is identified as a moral wrong, this does not necessarily mean that it is the government’s responsibility to legislate against it or that it can necessarily do so effectively. Those who favor leaving the decision to women point out that in the years prior to the legalization of abortion, many women sought back-alley abortions that often posed serious threats to their health. A number of politicians, among them Mario Cuomo, one-time governor of New York who was a professing Catholic, distinguished their own personal morality from state policy.

See also Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience; Schaeffer, Francis; Ten Commandments

For Reference and Further Reading

“Abortion in the Bible.” 1980. Social Sciences. 55 (Autumn): 221.

Balkin, Jack, ed. 2007. What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation’s Top Legal Experts Rewrite America’s Most Controversial Decision. New York: NYU Press.

Dillon, Michele. 1995. “Religion and Culture in Tension: The Abortion Discourses of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 5 (Summer): 159–80.

Douthat, Ross. 2019. “The Abortion Mysticism of Pete Buttigieg.” New York Times. September 17.

Gorman, Michael J. 1982. Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Jelen, Ted G. 1992. “The Clergy and Abortion.” Review of Religious Research 34 (December): 132–51.

John Paul II. 1995. The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae). New York: Random House.

Luo, Michael. 2005. “On Abortion, It’s the Bible of Ambiguity.” New York Times. November 13.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Rosati, Kelly. 2019. “Today’s Abortion Conversation: Where Do We Go from Here?” Evangelicals 5 (Fall): 14–17.

Tribe, Laurence H. 1990. Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes. New York: W.W. Norton.

Adams, Jasper

Although America is often called a Christian nation, it is also said to have a “godless Constitution” (Kramnick and Moore 1996). The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly prohibits Congress from adopting an “establishment of 5religion,” while also protecting its free exercise. The first clause did not initially prohibit the continuation of the remaining state establishments, and controversy remained over how state establishments fit with the absence of a national one.

To this confusion was added a dispute, chiefly between Joseph Story (1779–1845), a Supreme Court justice, Harvard law professor, and legal commentator who, with some other judges, had contended that Christianity was part of American common law, and Thomas Jefferson, who just as emphatically believed that it was not. At about the same time, controversy developed over whether it was appropriate for Congress to allow processing and delivery of mail on Sundays, which is the traditional Christian Sabbath.

This provided the context for a widely disseminated sermon by Jasper Adams (1793–1841), a South Carolina pastor and president of the College of Charleston, which he delivered before the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of South Carolina on February 13, 1833. It was entitled “The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States,” and, it addition to being printed that same year, it has been reprinted in a book edited by Professor Daniel Dreisbach (1996).

Adams prefaced his sermon with three biblical texts: 1 Peter 3:15, which urged believers to give an account of themselves; Proverbs 14:34: “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people”; and Revelation 9:15: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” Anticipating that Christianity would one day become universal, Adams observed that “there is no possible form of individual or social life, which it is not fitted to meliorate and adorn” (Dreisbach 1996, 39). Noting that the Hebrew nation had combined church and state, Adams viewed Constantine’s elevation of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire as the fulfillment of Isaiah 49:23, which had predicted a time when kings and queens would become nursing fathers and mothers. In contrast to many Protestants who saw this as the beginning of what they considered to be the despotism of the Roman Catholic Church, Adams believed that the problem was not governmental recognition of Christianity per se but a recognition of one particular form of Christianity over another.

Adams proceeded to muster evidence to show the connections between governments in America and Christianity in defense of the argument that the Constitution did not intend “to renounce all connexion with the Christian religion,” but simply “to disclaim all preference of one sect of Christians over another” (Dreisbach 1996, 43). He further posited that this demonstration “has become important to the religion, the morals, the peace, the intelligence, and in fact, to all the highest interests of this country” (Dreisbach 1996, 43).

Adams began by looking at colonial charters and related documents, which he believed demonstrated that colonists had come to America in pursuit of religious freedom and that their success had largely depended on the spread of churches. He discerned the same pattern in the development of state constitutions and even the U.S. Constitution. As to the former, he observed that many of them specifically recognized Christianity, and that they provided for the observance of Sunday as a day of rest and worship. As to the U.S. Constitution, it not only exempted Sunday from the days that the president had to veto a bill but had, in its 6attestation clause, specifically referred to “the year of our Lord, 1787” (Dreisbach 1996, 63). Adams thought this clause was especially significant: “In the clause printed in Italic letters, the word Lord means the Lord Jesus Christ, and the word our preceding it, refers back to the commencing words of the Constitution: to wit, ‘We the people of the United States’” (Dreisbach 1996, 63). He therefore concluded that, while providing for the free exercise of religion, “THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE RETAINED THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AS THE FOUNDATION OF THEIR CIVIL, LEGAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS; WHILE THEY HAVE REFUSED TO CONTINUE A LEGAL PREFERENCE TO ANY ONE OF ITS FORMS OVER THE OTHER” (Dreisbach 1996, 46).

Recognizing that the U.S. Constitution was primarily concerned with civil matters and that the First Amendment had recognized the free exercise of religion, Adams argued that it had otherwise left the prior relationship between church and state where it had been under the colonial charters and state constitutions. In a footnote, he likened this connection to that between the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which were largely found sub silentio within the Constitution (Dreisbach 1996, 47). Moreover, he pointed to a variety of congressional laws providing for days of prayer and thanksgiving, providing chaplains for the military and the like that showed such continuing church–state associations. Such cooperation was consistent with the admonition in Psalm 127:1 that “except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it” (Dreisbach 1996, 48). In his notes, Adams argued that the recent congressional act requiring postal employees to deliver mail on all days of the week was “unconstitutional, and ought to be rescinded” (Dreisbach 1996, 65). Concluding that “Christianity is the established religion of the nation,” Adams noted in a footnote that “the term ‘established’ is here used . . . in its usual and not in its legal or technical sense” (Dreisbach 1996, 49, n. 27).

Contesting the notion that there should be no connection between the government and Christianity, Adams pointed to its varied social benefits and concluded that “no nation on earth, is more dependent than our own, for its welfare, on the preservation and general belief and influence of Christianity among us” (Dreisbach 1996, 51). Men will either be governed by “physical force” or “by religious and moral principles pervading the community, guiding the conscience, enlightening the reason, softening the prejudices, and calming the passions of the multitude” (Dreisbach 1996, 53). It was thus logical to conclude, “We must be a Christian nation, if we wish to continue a free nation” (Dreisbach 1996, 52). Those who allowed the demise of Christianity through indifference would be culpable of sin and would be responsible for the rise of infidelity, whose political fruits were well known. Christianity had saved newborns from exposure, had secured society by establishing family ties, had provided for a day of rest, had ameliorated the tyranny of masters over the slaves, and had been responsible for the establishment of hospitals and asylums. “By excluding a Supreme Being, a superintending Providence, and a future state of rewards and punishments, as much as possible, from the minds of men, it [infidelity] will destroy all sense of moral responsibility” (Dreisbach 1996, 56).

Adams sent copies of his sermon to a number of contemporary political luminaries whose responses are interesting in their own right. Chief Justice John 7Marshall thus noted, “The American population is entirely Christian, & with us, Christianity & Religion are identified” (Dreisbach 1996, 113). Justice Joseph Story was pleased to see that Adams had agreed with his view that Christianity was embedding in the common law. Although James Madison continued to insist that religion did not need any state support in order to flourish, rather than citing Jefferson’s noted metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state, he observed that “it may not be easy in every possible case, to trace the line of separation, between the rights of Religion & the Civil authority, with such distinctness, as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points” (Dreisbach 1996, 120).

The most extended response to Adams’s essay was a review essay entitled the “Immunity of Religion” that was initially published in the American Quarterly Review and was probably authored either by Thomas Cooper, a resident of Philadelphia, or Randell Hunt, who had been among Adams’s students. Although complimenting Adams on his scholarship and probity, the author argued that Adams “has endeavoured to overturn one of the main pillars of our liberty” by invading and attempting “to destroy freedom of conscience, and on its ruins to erect intolerance and odious discriminations for religion’s sake” (Dreisbach 1996, 127). Curiously, however, the essay begins with a defense of “the truth of the Christian Scriptures” (Dreisbach 1996, 127).

The main argument of the essay, however, was the danger of combining church and state, which the author believed would inevitably lead to “discrimination in civil rights” and the allocation of benefits and punishments based on beliefs (Dreisbach 1996, 128). The critic argued that there was no real difference between preferring Christianity to other religions than there was to preferring Protestantism to Catholicism, or to Unitarianism. The role of government was limited: “Civil government is intended for the regulation of social man—for the promotion and security of human happiness here on earth. It is intended for this world—not the next. It should protect us in the enjoyment of our personal rights and property. It should not interfere with our opinions and faith. Its business is with our temporal or present interests, not with our future or eternal welfare” (Dreisbach 1996, 131). The author further argued that because humans cannot help what they believe, they should not be accountable to government for such beliefs. Moreover, “Christianity stands in need of no unequal protection” (Dreisbach 1996, 123).

Reviewing Adams’s arguments individually, the author argued that colonial charters had little relevance to the issue of a national religion, although colonists did demonstrate the dangers of religious persecution. Moreover, most states had eliminated their religious establishments. Perhaps seeking to answer Adams’s capitalizations with his own, the writer concluded that “THE PEOPLE OF THE SEVERAL STATES—ALTHOUGH A VAST MAJORITY OF THEM WERE CHRISTIANS—RESOLVED, IN FRAMING THEIR CONSTITUTIONS, TO DESTROY ALL CONNEXIONS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” (Dreisbach 1996, 140).

The reference to the year of our Lord in the constitutional attestation clause was “a mere mode of speech” and hardly an attempt to establish Christianity, as is evident by the First Amendment (Dreisbach 1996, 141). The author further 8disputed Adams’s interpretation of the Constitution of South Carolina and noted that many common law doctrines were developed at the time when the Roman Catholic Church, whose doctrines were later pronounced “idolatrous and damnable,” was dominant (Dreisbach 1996, 147). The essay concluded with the observation that “Christianity requires no aid from force or persecution. She asks not to be guarded by fines and forfeitures. She stands secure in the armour of truth and reason. She seeks not to establish her principles by political aid and legal enactments. She seeks mildly and peaceably to establish them in the hearts of the people” (Dreisbach 1996, 150).

See also Common Law; Madison, James; Sunday Mail Delivery

For Reference and Further Reading

Dreisbach, Daniel L., ed. 1996. Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the Church-State Debate. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Laurence Moore. 1996. The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness. New York: W.W. Norton.

Adams, John

John Adams (1735–1826) was among the most important of America’s Founding Fathers. Born in Massachusetts to a long line of Puritans, Adams might well have gone into the ministry had he not attended Harvard University and decided instead to pursue law. He married Abigail Smith, the daughter of a preacher, and established a practice but, despite his defense of the British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre, he quickly became one of America’s leading advocates of independence from Great Britain.

One of the most active members of both the First and Second Continental Congresses, Adams served on the committee charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence but left the primary task of writing to Thomas Jefferson, with whom he would remain friends throughout much of his life, until they later joined opposing political parties. Adams would go on to serve as an American diplomat in France during the Revolutionary War, as the nation’s first vice president under George Washington, as a leader of the Federalist Party (where, however, he was often at odds with Alexander Hamilton), and as the nation’s second president, where he successfully avoided a shooting war with France but was defeated for reelection by Democratic-Republicans lead by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Norman Cousins observed that Adams has been variously identified as “a Puritan, Deist, Orthodox Christian, and Humanist” (1958, 75). His Puritanism was perhaps most evident in his moral earnestness, his view that human nature was sinful, and in his desire not to waste time (Fielding 1940, 40). Like both Christians and Deists, Adams believed that God created the world. With Christians, he extolled the Bible and believed in the miracles of Jesus, but with Deists, he did not believe that his death on the cross secured individual salvation. Although Adams believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead, he did not believe that this proved him to be divine (Frazer 2012, 109). Gregg Frazer (2012) believes that he was what he described as a “theistic rationalist,” who honored both reason and revelation but considered reason the superior of the two.

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Adams believed in the importance of virtue to the success of republican government, and he believed that the teachings of the Bible promoted such virtue. In an entry in his diary dated February 22, 1756, Adams thus wrote,

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law-book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged, in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry; to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence towards Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust; no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards or any other trifling and mean amusement; no man would steal, or lie, or in any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men; no man would blaspheme his Maker or profane his worship; but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a Utopia; what a Paradise would this region be! (Cousins 1958, 81)

Adams’s argument for biblical miracles had a rational basis: “The great and Almighty author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the World, can as easily Suspend those Laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles” (Frazer 2012, 109).

Acknowledging in a letter to Samuel Miller dated July 8, 1820, that his immediate ancestors had all been Calvinists and that “I have never known any better people than the Calvinists,” he further said that “I must acknowledge that I cannot class myself under that denomination” (Cousins 1958, 111). He believed the doctrine that God elected some to salvation and others to damnation was pernicious because it undercut “the practice of virtue” and rendered “all prayer futile and absurd” (Frazer 2012, 116–17). He extolled the Puritan framers, however, for eliminating the religious hierarchy that had characterized the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. Citing an anecdote that he attributed to George Whitefield, Adams said that he joined company with all of those, identified in the words of Peter to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, in Acts 10:35: “He who feareth God and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted of him” (Frazer 2012, 120).

With many Deists, Adams admired Jesus as a great moral teacher. He further said that “the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion” (Frazer 2012, 118). Like other Deists, Adams rejected the idea of the Trinity and was a member of a Unitarian church (Frazer 2012, 121). Indeed, Adams was so dismissive of the idea of the Trinity that he said he could not believe it even if Moses had brought the news down from Mount Sinai (Frazer 2012, 121–22)!

One of the great ironies of Adams’s beliefs is that many Federalist partisans in the presidential election of 1800 railed against Jefferson because of his alleged heterodoxy, which seems to have been equally shared with Adams. Their correspondence, which they resumed after both had left the presidency, was largely resumed through the efforts of Dr. Benjamin Rush, who often discussed religious matters with them.

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The Adams family was one of the most distinguished in U.S. history. John’s wife urged him to consider the rights of women. Their son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president and a long-term congressman who distinguished himself by his opposition to slavery.

See also Adams, John Quincy; Deism; Jefferson Bible

For Reference and Further Reading

Cousins, Norman, ed. 1958 .“In God We Trust”: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Fielding, Howard Ioan. 1940. “John Adams: Puritan, Deist, Humanist.” Journal of Religion 20 (January): 33–46.

Frazer, Gregg L. 2012. The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Sutter, Richard L. 1976. “The Divine Dimension: John Adams and Religion in America.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 4 (Fall/Winter): 42–46.

Adams, John Quincy

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), America’s sixth president, only one of two who was himself the son of another president, spent a lifetime in public service. Prior to serving as president, he served as a U.S. senator, was appointed to a number of ambassadorial posts, and served as James Monroe’s secretary of state. After serving for a single term as president, he served from 1831 to 1848 in Congress, where he largely distinguished himself for his opposition to slavery. Adams served for a time as the vice president of the American Bible Society (Presidential Inaugural Bibles 1969, 20).

Adams made it a practice to begin reading through the Bible once each year. After finishing the task in September one year, he decided that he would begin again, this time in French (Cook 2013, 217). Beginning in September 1811 and continuing for about two years, during which time Adams was an ambassador to Russia, he wrote a series of nine letters to one of his sons who was at school in Massachusetts. These letters were published on the year of his death and gives one of the most complete views of any U.S. president on the Bible.

In the first letter, Adams reported his pleasure in hearing that his son was reading a chapter of the Bible to an aunt: “for so great is my veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated on, it is of all books in the world, that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy” (Adams 1848, 9). Adams indicated that he read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning and hoped that his son would continue reading it with the goal of improving in both “wisdom and virtue” (11). Observing that he was sometimes distracted from his reading by pain, passion, pleasure, or dissipation (14), he realized that such excuses were inadequate and hoped that his son would learn to govern himself through disciplined reading. Indicating that Scriptures contained world history, the history of Israel, “a system of religion, and of morality” (20), suggested that he would explicate it further in letters to come.

In the second letter, Adams wrote, “My idea of the Bible as a Divine Revelation, is founded upon its practical use to mankind, and not upon metaphysical subtleties” (22). Adams believed its three main doctrines, all of which 11furthered morality, were “the existence of a God,” “the immortality of the Human soul,” and “a future state of rewards and punishments” (22–23). He further thought that “it is possible to believe them all without believing that the Bible is a Divine revelation” (23). The very existence of the world pointed beyond itself to a Creator, the nonmaterial nature of consciousness pointed to its spirituality and immortality, and the goodness of God suggested that there must be justice in the life to come (23–24). Adams believed, however, that Scripture presented such ideas with much greater clarity. The opening words of Genesis portray a God far above any conceptions of prior civilization. Noting that there had always been those “who cavil at some of the particular details of this narration” (28), Adams acknowledged both that “much of it is clearly figurative and allegorical” and that it is difficult “to distinguish what part of it is to be understood in a literal and not in a symbolical sense” (29). He thought it clear, however, that the Bible taught that obedience to God and His will was a virtue that humans should pursue.

Drawing from the language of 2 Timothy 3:17, Adams urged his son to read the Bible so as to be “thoroughly furnish[ed] . . . unto all good works” (34). Adams then further distinguished the universal history found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis from the history of Abraham and his family that followed, promises that Adams believed were fulfilled in Christ (38). Believing that it was “immaterial” whether the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis was “literal or allegorical” (40), Adams believed that its central theme was the necessity of obedience to God. Whereas Adam and Eve were initially told simply what not to do, Abraham faced a greater task in obeying God by leaving his family and even being willing to sacrifice his son.

Adams’s fourth letter continued his understanding of the connection between Abraham and his family and its role “as the means in the ways of God’s providence, for producing the sacred person of Jesus Christ, through whom the perfect sacrifice of atonement for the original transgression of man should be consummated, and by which ‘all the families of the earth should be blessed’” (Adams 1848, 48, repeating a biblical phrase found in both Genesis 12:3 and 22:18). Whereas his father is generally considered to have been a Deist, John Quincy Adams even suggested that there might be intimations of the Trinity in the book of Genesis (49). In addition to obedience, Adams believed that the story of Abraham evidenced God’s justice, which was tempered with mercy (50–51). Continuing with the story of Joseph, Adams indicated that biblical stories “have an air of reality about them which no invention could imitate” (52) and pointed to the need for the law of Moses, which would continue to guide the people through Joshua and subsequent judges and through Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.

Adams’s fifth letter focused on Moses. Noting that “human legislators can undertake only to prescribe the actions of men: they acknowledge their inability to govern and direct the sentiments of the heart,” Adams observed that one of the strengths of the Ten Commandments is that they sought to govern both (62). Recognizing that the law of Moses was directed to a particular people, he believed that “it was destined to be partly suspended and improved into absolute perfection many ages afterward by the appearance of Jesus Christ upon earth” 12(64). He attributed the longevity of the Mosaic law to its excellence, observing that “the first four commandments are religious laws, the fifth and tenth are properly and peculiarly moral and domestic rules; the other four are of the criminal department of municipal laws” (69).

In Adams’s sixth letter, he tied the Jewish law to the idea “of a covenant or compact between the Supreme Creator and the Jewish people,” which he furthered noted was sanctioned “by the blessing and the curse” with which the commandments had been accompanied (75). Adams further attempted to outline the rest of the Old Testament, even mentioning the apocryphal books in the process (83).

Adams’s seventh letter pointed to some defects in Mosaic institutions, namely, “the want of a sufficient sanction,” their lack of “universality,” “the complexity of the objects of legislation,” and the overemphasis on religious rites (85–89). Jesus perfected the law by introducing a more universal law with divine sanction that separated his kingdom from that of the world, and nailed ancient rites to the cross (89). Adams preferred to address the contribution of Jesus “not as the scheme of redemption to mankind from the consequences of original sin, but as a system of morality for regulating the conduct of men on earth” (89). He believed this moral system sought to strive for absolute perfection, like that which he believed Jesus had himself achieved (90). In contrast to some religious writers, Adams believed that Christ had proclaimed new standards of morality which “as far exceeds any discovery in the physical laws of nature, as the soul is superior to the body” (94). He believed that Christ had exercised authority such as only a “Redeemer” could do (95).

In his eight letter, Adams proceeded to discuss the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew 5–7. Again differing from some who believed that Jesus had presented a religion of weakness, Adams observed Jesus’s own assertiveness and courage, which was subsequently reflected in the acts of his disciples. He gave particular attention to how “bold, inflexible, tenacious, and intrepid” St. Paul was and to how Peter was known as a rock (107).

In his ninth and final letter in the series, Adams addressed the Bible as literature. In the process, he discussed the five books of Moses (some of which he thought may have originated from Egypt), the poetry and wisdom literature of the Old Testament, the gospels, the book of Acts, the epistles, and the Apocalypse of John (the book of Revelation). Doubting that the style of the Bible could be easily copied “without great affectation,” he observed,

But for pathos of narrative; for the selections of incidents that go directly to the heart; for the picturesque of character and manner; the selection of circumstances that mark the individuality of persons; for copiousness, grandeur, and sublimity of imagery; for unanswerable cogency and closeness of reasoning; and for irresistible force of persuasion: no book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. (Adams 1848, 118–19)

Again recommending the reading of the Bible, Adams warned, “Be careful of all not to let your reading make you a pedant, or a bigot; let it never puff you up with pride or a conceited opinion of your own knowledge, nor make you intolerant of 13the opinions which others draw from the same source, however different from your own” (121). He further hoped that “the merciful Creator, who gave the Scriptures for our instruction, bless your study of them, and make them to you ‘fruitful of good works’” (121).

After Adams successfully secured the freedom of the Mendi people aboard La Amistad, who had successfully revolted against their captors in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and were the subject of a movie by Steven Spielberg, they presented him with a Bible that is on display at the Old House at the Adams National Historic Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. It bears the following inscription:

We are about to go home to Africa. We go to Sierra Leone first, and then we reach Mendi very quick. When we get to Mendi we will tell the people of your great kindness. Good missionary will go with us. We shall take the Bible with us. It has been a precious book in prison, and we love to read it now we are free! Mr. Adams, we want to make you a present of a beautiful Bible! Will you please to accept it, and when you look at it or read it, remember your poor and grateful clients?...

For the Mendi people. CINQUE, KINNA, KALE.

Boston, Nov. 6, 1841. (Preble, “The Mendi Bible”)

See also Moses; Ten Commandments

For Reference and Further Reading

Adams, John Quincy. 1848. Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings. Auburn, NY: Derby, Miller. PDF accessed through Google.

Cook, Jane Hampton. 2013. American Phoenix: John Quincy and Louisa Adams, the War of 1812, and the Exile That Saved American Independence. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Georgini, Sara. 2019. Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family. New York: Oxford University Press.

Georgini, Sara. 2013. “John Quincy Adams at Prayer.” Church History 83 (September): 649–58.

Preble, Peter M. “The Mendi Bible.” http://www.frpeterpreble.com/2014/07/mendi-bible.html. Accessed May 23, 2019.

Presidential Inaugural Bibles: Catalogue of an Exhibition , November 17, 1968 through February 23, 1969. 1969. Washington, DC: Washington Cathedral.

Adams, Samuel

One of the firebrands of the American Revolution was Samuel Adams (1722–1803) of Massachusetts. The Harvard-educated journalist and agitator was an early advocate of independence. He was prominent in the Sons of Liberty and helped organize the so-called Boston Tea Party in protest against Parliament’s tax on tea, and committees of correspondence to communicate with other colonies. The British were actually seeking John Hancock and him when Americans and the British engaged in their first combat at Lexington and Concord.

Adams came from a long line of Puritan forbears but had come to put special value on both political and religious liberty. His sentiments were close to those that would today be identified as evangelical Christianity. As Mitt 14Romney would later note in explaining his own faith, however, when the First Continental Congress was meeting in 1774 and there was concern that the delegates were too religiously divided to invite a chaplain to pray, Adams broke the logjam by stating that he was willing for any man of piety who was a patriot (Romney 2007).

On August 1, 1776, Adams delivered a speech from the steps of the Pennsylvania State House (today’s Independence Hall), where he supported the Declaration of Independence that the delegates would sign the next day. His speech consisted in both appeals to common sense, to history, and to Scripture. Like many Protestants of his day, Adams associated “popery in religion” with “the popery of politics.” By contrast, he observed that America’s founding fathers “opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion.” If “Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity,” how much more should man have control over his own government? He referred to such a development as “the reign of political Protestantism.” Using the language of Hebrew prophets, Adams observed, “We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to, has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone.” In language that reflected that of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, he further observed, “We have this day restored the Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them.” Paraphrasing both Psalm 113:3 and the Lord’s Prayer, he added, “From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.” Shortly thereafter, he utilized another common biblical theme by expressing pity for “those who are yet in darkness.”

Pointing to men’s “equal right to happiness,” Adams questioned why God would bestow greater value on tyrants than on those, identified in Micah 6:8, “who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.” Professing that he had previously venerated the subjects of Britain “as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws,” he believed that all that was left was a lifeless body. He went on to detail how the British had involved Americans in their wars, and how these had become destructive to “political right and public happiness.” He further detailed how it had been overcome with the corruption of “venality, luxury, and vice” at a time where America remained “an asylum on earth, for civil and religious liberty.” Using another biblical analogy from Isaiah 33:2 and 40:10–11, Adams proclaimed that “it is not our own arm which has saved us,” as he warned that we should not turn back to this “political Sodom,” lest like Lot’s wife (Genesis 19) (turned into a pillar of salt) “we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world!”

Much like Paine, Adams argued that it was impossible to “unite the supremacy of Great Britain and the liberty of America.” It was improper for an island to be governing a continent. It was time to escape the “convulsions of elective monarchies” and “hereditary succession.”

Returning to the theme of political popery, Adams accused English Protestant reformers of leaving the people “under the domination of human systems and 15decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone.” Instead of “possessing the pure religion of the gospel,” other nations are governed by “infidels who deny the truth, or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition, or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth.” Support of “unbounding religious freedom . . . will bring with her in her train, industry, wisdom and commerce.”

Much as Jefferson had done in the Declaration of Independence, Adams went on to blame the English for a host of atrocities including releasing “the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren—who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land—who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them to assassinate your wives and children.” Having argued that America had adequate resources, and hopes of foreign aid, to defeat the British, he also believed that they “can look up to heaven for assistance.”

Quoting from another speech that Adams gave in late September 1777 before the Continental Congress, Mark Noll added references to show how pervasively some of Adams’s speeches were salted with biblical language:

Let us awaken then, and evince a different spirit,—a spirit that shall inspire the people . . . to persevere in this glorious struggle, until their rights and liberties shall be established on a rock [see Mt 7:25] . . . We have appealed to Heaven for the justice of our cause, and in Heaven we have placed our trust. Numerous have been the manifestations of God’s providence in sustaining us. In the gloomy period of adversity [echoing Eccl 7:14], we have had “our cloud by day and pillar of fire by night” [quoting Ex 13:21-22]. We have been reduced to distress, and the arm of Omnipotence [echoing Psm 44:3; and 136:12] has raised us up. Let us still rely in humble confidence on Him who is mighty to save [quoting Isa 63:1]. Good tidings [See Lk 2:10 and many other passages] will soon arrive. We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection. (Noll 2016, 277)

Adams later supported the adoption of the U.S. Constitution with the hopes that a bill of rights would be added, but sought to create something of a “Christian Sparta” in his home state, which still had an established church. He also sought to ban theater performances in Boston and was fond of issuing days of thanksgiving and fasting (Stoll 2018).

See also Common Sense (Thomas Paine); Declaration of Independence; Revolutionary War

For Reference and Further Reading

Adams, Samuel. August 1, 1776. “‘American Independence’ Samuel Adams Speech—August 1, 1776.” http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/american-independence-speech-by-samuel-adams-august-1-1776.html. Accessed April 9, 2019.

Noll, Mark. 2016. In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783. New York: Oxford University Press.

Romney, Mitt. December 6, 2007. “Transcript: Mitt Romney’s Faith Speech.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=16969460.

Stoll, Ira. May 3, 2018. “The Revolutionary Gospel According to Samuel Adams.” HistoryNet. https://www.historynet.com/revolutionary-gospel-according-samuel-adams.htm.

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Africana Movement

Through much of early American history, select Bible verses were used to suggest that African Americans had borne the curse of blackness that they believed had been given to Ham, one of the sons of Noah, for viewing his father’s nakedness when he was drunk.

African American defenders, in turn, often compared themselves to the children of Israel, who had suffered servitude in the land of Egypt before Moses led them to the Promised Land of Canaan. In time, an Africana movement developed within the United States that emphasized a very ambiguous verse in Psalm 68:31, an apparent reference to a time when other nations would come to Israel to worship the God, which in the King James Version said, “Princes shall come out of Egypt: Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”

In time, this developed into a Black nationalist ideology, associated with such individuals as Bishop Henry M. Turner (1834–1915) and Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), that two scholars have described as follows:

It celebrated the sovereignty of God as the one who allowed the enslavement of Africans in order for them to become “civilized” and Christianized by the Europeans who oppressed them. It also hailed the providence of God, who would soon deliver Africans and give them an opportunity to exercise their superior genius in the reordering of the world. At the same time it both provided a theological legitimization for the horrors of slavery and it decried slavery as a crime against a once-and-soon-again-to-be-great people. As presented in the distinctive rendering of the King James Version, this text served as a prophecy of God’s impending activity in the very near future; it was an eschatological foretelling of a return to prominence and purpose of a debased and humiliated people. (Powery and Sadler 2016, 17)

See also Curses on Cain, Ham, and the Canaanites; Moses as Political Archetype

For Reference and Further Reading

Powery, Emerson B ., and Rodney S. Sadler Jr. 2016. The Genesis of Liberation: Biblical Interpretations in the Antebellum Narratives of the Enslaved. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Ahasuerus as Political Archetype

Prior to the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in January 1776, most American colonists appear to have maintained their loyalty to King George III. They largely blamed their troubles either on bad advice that he received from his ministers and counselors or on Parliament, which the colonists thought had no right to tax them.

In doing so, Americans looked for ancient parallels, including those in the Bible. They found one such parallel in the Old Testament book of Esther. It detailed how Esther and her uncle Mordecai had saved the Israelites from Haman, a counselor of King Ahasuerus of the Medes and Persians, who had conspired to destroy the Jews after Mordecai had refused to bow to him.

In the period leading up to America’s break with the king in the Declaration of Independence, a number of writers compared George III to Ahasuerus and 17Haman to Lord Bute, Lord North, or other counselors or generals (Shalev 2013a, 31). In this interpretation, which overlapped with republican notions of the dangers of corruption, Haman had become corrupt and had misinformed the king of the situation in order to enhance his own power and influence and to pursue a personal vendetta.

See also Common Sense (Thomas Paine)

For Reference and Further Reading

Shalev, Eran. 2013a. American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Shalev, Eran. 2013b. “Evil Counselors, Corrupt Traitors, and Bad Kings: The Hebrew Bible and Political Critique.” Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God: Reason, Religion and Republicanism at the American Founding, ed. Dustin Gish and Daniel Klinghard. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 105–24.

Aitken Bible

During the colonial era, the British, who viewed the colonies as a source of raw materials rather than as a rival manufacturing center, prohibited the printing of Bibles in America. As war broke out between the colonies and Britain, there was a perceived shortage.

In July 1777, Francis Alison, the pastor of Philadelphia’s First Presbyterian Church, drew up a petition, signed by two colleagues, urging Congress to authorize an American printing but suggesting that “unless the sale of the whole Edition belong to the Printer, & he be bound under sufficient Penalties, that no copy be sold by him, nor any Retailer under him, at a higher price than that allowed by this honourable house, we fear that ye whole impression would soon be bought up, & sold again at an exorbatant price, which would frustrate your pious endeavours & fill ye Country with Just complaints” (quoted in Pears 1939, 226). Believing that proper types for such printing were unavailable in America, Congress ordered the committee to fulfill this need by importing twenty thousand Bibles from Holland or Scotland, but was prevented by the war from doing so.

Prior to the British capture and occupation of Philadelphia in 1776, a local Scottish Presbyterian binder, printer, and book seller named Robert Aitken (1735–1802), who worked in Philadelphia from 1771 to 1802, and was later succeeded by his daughter Jane (Spawn and Spawn 1963, 424, 428), printed a King James Version copy of the New Testament, which he had already begun to sell. On January 21, 1781, he appealed to Congress to support his publication of both Old and New Testaments. In his memorial to Congress, he observed,

That in every well regulated Government in Christendom The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament, commonly called the Holy Bible, are printed and published under the Authority of the Sovereign Powers, in order to prevent the fatal confusion that would arise, and the alarming Injuries the Christian Faith might suffer from the spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine Revelation. That your Memorialist has no doubt but this work is an Object worthy the attention of the Congress of the United States of America, who will not neglect spiritual security, while they are virtuously contending for temporary blessings. (Pears 1939, 229)

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Noting that he had already “made considerable progress in a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools,” he indicated that he was “cautious of suffering [allowing] his copy of the Bible to Issue forth without the sanction of Congress” (Pears 1939, 229). He further wanted Congress to advance money for this purpose.

Although Congress neither advanced money to Aitkin for this purpose nor offered to purchase his Bibles, a committee, which included two congressional chaplains, did examine the Bible for accuracy, and on September 10, 1782, Congress adopted its first and only such endorsement of such a publication:

Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this Recommendation in the manner he shall think proper. (Pears 1939, 234)

In a subsequent advertisement, which appeared in the Freeman’s Journal of September 25, 1782, Aitken published an advertisement. It stated,

The serious Christian will be pleased to find, that the scarcity of Bibles, of which he has so long had reason to complain, is now removed; and the patriot will rejoice at the advance in the arts, which has at length produced The First Edition of the Holy Scriptures, in the English language, ever printed in America; each of these will allow the merit due to so capital an undertaking; and the trader will find his interest in affording his patronage and encouragement to this work, as several circumstances, particularly the largeness of the type, and the remarkable good quality of the paper, render this edition superior to any of the same size important from Europe. (Pears 1939, 235)

Aitkin further indicated that the Bibles were available “either bound or in sheets” or as large family Bibles (Pears 1939, 235).

A further communication appeared in the Freeman’s Journal dated November 20, 1782, noting that apart from a German Bible and an Indian Bible, this was the first such Bible printed in America, and that given that even “the very paper that has received the impression of these sacred books was manufactured in Pennsylvania, the whole book is, therefore, purely American, and has risen, like the fabled Phoenix, from the ashes of that pile in which our enemies supposed they had consumed the liberties of America” (Pears 1939, 237).

Aitken had hoped that Congress might buy a copy for each of those who had served under him, but although he said that “it would have pleased me well, if Congress had been pleased to make such an important present to the brave fellows who have done so much for the security of their country’s rights and establishment,” he indicated that it was now too late to do so since most of them had been released (Pears 1939, 238).

In 1789, prior to the establishment of copyright laws, Aitken asked Congress to give him the exclusive right to publish Bibles in the United States for the next fourteen years, but it did not do so, and editions by other publishers quickly 19followed (Pears 1939, 240). James H. Smylie claims that Aitken “never recovered his investment” (1997, 153). Matthew Carey observed that as soon as the Revolutionary War ended and Bibles could be imported, “Bibles were imported on a large scale, somewhat superior in quality and at a far lower price, so that he lost the sale of his, or if he sold, it was at a considerable loss” (quoted in Carter 2007, 453).

It is important to recognize that Aitken’s request for government authorization and subsidy came prior to the adoption of the First Amendment, which limits the governmental “establishment” of religion. Although Aitken is believed to have printed as many as ten thousand copies, relatively few remain, and they are highly valued (“Aitken’s Bible Endorsed by Congress”).

When approached by Christopher Talbot about publishing a Catholic version of the Bible, Talbot reported that “in a holy fit of zeal,” Carey had said “that he would rather print the woman of pleasure, than such a pestiferous, idolatrous book” (quoted in Carter 2007, 453–54).

See also King James Version of the Bible; Revolutionary War

For Reference and Further Reading

“Aitken’s Bible Endorsed by Congress.” Free Republic. www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2722475/posts. Accessed March 25, 2019.

Carter, Michael S. 2007. “‘Under the Benign Sun of Toleration’: Matthew Carey, the Douai Bible, and Catholic Print Culture, 1789–1791.” Journal of the Early Republic 27 (Fall): 437–69.

Davis, Deric H. 2000. Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774–1789: Contributions to Original Intent. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hogue, William M. 1991. “An Authorized Bible for America.” Anglican and Episcopal History 60 (September): 361–82.

Pears, Thomas C., Jr. 1939. “The Story of the Aitken Bible.” Journal of the Department of History (the Presbyterian Historical Society) of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A . 18 (June): 225–41.

Smylie, James H. 1997. “America’s Political Covenants, the Bible, and Calvinists.” Journal of Presbyterian History 75 (Fall): 153–64.

Spawn, Willman, and Carol Spawn. 1963. “The Aitken Shop: Identification of an Eighteenth-Century Bindery and Its Tools.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 57 (Fourth Quarter): 422–37.

Sweet, William W. 1935. “The English Bible in the Making of America.” Christian Education 19 (October): 9–13.

Alternate Scriptures

Although the focus of this work is on the Bible consisting of the Old and New Testaments, and its role in U.S. law and politics, it is important to recognize that there are alternate scriptural texts that are considered as inspired holy books by other religions and that a number of these have been homegrown.

Jews rely not only on the Scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament but also on interpretations found in the Talmud. Muslims subscribe to the Koran, which they believed God directly dictated to the prophet Muhammad. In contrast to the general Christian willingness to accept translations of Scripture, some Muslims believe that the Koran should not be translated but can only be 20efficacious in its original Arabic. Hindus consider the Bhagavad Gita to be their Scripture. Both of these Scriptures have been used when members of Congress have taken their oaths to support the U.S. Constitution. In addition, some individuals have avoided holy books altogether, preferring to put their hand on the Constitution or another legal text.

In a study of the National Prayer Breakfast, Jonathan Peterson observes that President Clinton was the first to refer specifically to a text other than the Bible when he referred to a version of the Golden Rule in the Koran and to its teaching “that God created nations and tribes that we might know one another, not that we might despise one another” (2017, 220). Similarly, at the Prayer Breakfast in 2014, President Obama observed that “the Koran instructs: ‘Stand out firmly for justice’” (220).

Within the U.S. context, there are some religions, which have had impacts on U.S. politics, that have relied on supplemental texts. They arose within what Lydia Willsky identifies as a “plain Bible” culture, which she associates with “three mutually reinforcing assumptions,” namely “that the Bible was clear in meaning, persuasive in message and authoritative in truth claims” (2014, 15). These assumptions were, in turn, often tied to Common Scottish Sense philosophy, which had taught “that truth was knowable through the senses, and that inductive reasoning from observation was the best means for gaining knowledge of truth” (Willsky 2014, 17).

Joseph Smith (1804–1844) questioned this view as he observed the wide variety of interpretations of the same Scripture. Interestingly, by his own account, it was this very Scripture that pointed to a solution. After reading James 1:5, which states, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (cited in Willsky 2014, 19), Smith began to do so. He eventually had a number of revelations that led, by his account, to the translation of golden plates, which he interpreted through two stones called the Urim and Thummin, which were themselves biblical names (Samuel 14:41 and Exodus 28:13–30). In addition to the Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, Smith later added the Doctrine and Covenants (1835) and a Book of Abraham (1842), all of which were written in King James English. Somewhat later, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints added his Inspired Version of the Bible, which not only reinterpreted but sometimes added to that Document Scriptures (like revelations to Enoch) that he thought had been lost. In studying this document, Philip Barlow observes that Smith’s alterations fell into a number of distinct categories: “long additions that have little or no biblical parallel”; “theological change”; “interpretive additions”; “harmonization”; “grammatical changes, technical clarifications, and modernization of terms” (1990, 55–57). Philip Barlow believes that Smith “was an authentic, nineteenth-century, Bible-believing Christian” but that he was distinctive in that he was not convinced of the Bible’s “sufficiency” (1989, 762).

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) added yet another book that has served Christian Scientists when she authored Science and Health, which seeks to exegete Scriptures by interpreting them in a more spiritualistic fashion. Eddy, too, appears to have been launched on her quest while reading on a hospital bed the words of Matthew 9:2: “And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of palsy, 21lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy: Son, be of good cheer: thy sins be forgiven them” (quoted in Willsky 2014, 24). This document often quoted from the Scriptures that it sought to interpret.

Seventh Day Adventists, which grew out of the millennial Millerite movement, and who argue that Christians should honor Saturday, rather than Sunday, as the Sabbath, accept the writings of Ellen G. White (1827–1915) as prophetic. They included commentaries on the Old and New Testaments as well as the life of Christ.

A non-Christian religious book that has enjoyed considerable success since its initial publication in 1950 is L. Ron Hubbard’s (1911–1986) Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This has become the bedrock for Scientology. Another book that was published soon thereafter was Sun-Myung Moon’s The Divine Principle, which is a central text for the Unification Church (Gutjahr 2001, 353–54). From quite a different perspective, Anton Szazndor LaVey published The Satanic Bible in 1969 (Gallagher 2013).

Willsky points out that the writer Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), usually identified with the New England transcendentalist movement, took the idea of Scriptures to yet another level when in 1859 he authored a personal bible entitled Wild Fruits that was not widely known until its publication in 2000. Unlike the Mormon or Christian Science Scriptures, it is not clear that he intended for this to be authoritative for others. Other Bibles that have been reprinted, but not embraced by any particular group of believers, include the Jefferson Bible and the Women’s Bible edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Professor Paul C. Gutjahr observes that John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891) published his OAHSPE, which he said he received through channeling in 1882 and that Philemon Stewart, a Shaker, published a text through channeling entitled A Holy, Sacred and Divine Rolle and Book; from the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth in 1843 (Gutjahr 2001, 345). The Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for their New World Translation of the Bible, which they first published in 1960 (Gutjahr 2001, 345).

Apart from serving as books on which individuals might take oaths of office, it does not appear that any of these books have been extensively quoted by politicians, apart perhaps from those who might be addressing audiences of Muslims, Mormons, or Christian Scientists. It seems highly doubtful that many individuals outside of these denominations are familiar with these Scriptures or would be likely to recognize them. Given the current religious configuration of the United States, this seems unlikely to change in the near future. Especially in the case of those, like Mitt Romney, who view their own holy books as supplemental to the Bible, it would seem more useful to cite the text that most members of the public would recognize than one that would only appeal to adherents of a single faith.

A recent collection of the favorite Scriptures of one hundred American leaders notes that John Adams enjoyed quoting the introduction of the Shasta, a Hindu Scripture translated from Sanskrit that said,

God is one, creator of all, universal sphere, without beginning, without end. God governs all the creation by a general providence, resulting from his eternal designs. Search not the essence and the nature of the Eternal, who is one; your 22research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough, that, day by day and night by night, you adore his power, his wisdom, and his goodness, in his works.” (Winder 2019, 2)

The book cites favorite Scriptures from other leaders from the writings of Muhammad and Joseph Smith, the Bhagavad Gita (a Hindu text that had some influence on American Transcendentalism and that has been emphasized by the Hare Krishnas), the Dharma (Gautama Buddha), and others.

See also Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Congressional Oaths of Office; Jefferson Bible; Muhammad, Elijah; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

For Reference and Further Reading

Barlow, Philip L. 1989. “Before Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Use of the Bible, 1820–1829.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57 (Winter): 739–71.

Barlow, Philip L. 1990. “Joseph Smith’s Revision of the Bible: Fraudulent, Pathologic, or Prophetic?” Harvard Theological Review 83 (January): 45–64.

“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.

Gallagher, Eugene V. 2013. 2013. “Sources, Sects, and Scripture: The Book of Satan in The Satanic Bible.” The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, ed. Per Faxneld and Jesper A. Peterson. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 103–22.

Gutjahr, Paul C. 2012. The “Book of Mormon”: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gutjahr. Paul C. 2001. “Sacred Texts in the United States.” Book History 4: 335–70.

Peterson, Jonathan. R. 2017. “The Religious Content of the Presidents’ Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, 1953–2016.” Congress & the Presidency 44(2): 212–34.

Willsky, Lydia. 2014. “The (Un)Plain Bible: New Religious Movements and Alternative Scriptures in Nineteenth-Century America.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 17 (May): 13–36.

Winder, Mike. 2019. Favorite Scriptures of 100 American Leaders. Springville, UT: Plain Sight.

America as New Israel

The fact that Christians divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments is but one indication that this book (or collection of books) focuses on two distinct but related subjects. Most, albeit not all, of the Old Testament describes God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, which it presents, as a chosen people. Thus, Deuteronomy 7:6 observes that “thou are an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” Most of the New Testament deals with the life of Jesus (who, as a Jew, would have been part of this Israel) and the founding of the church, which is often presented as a New Israel, and which is further described as inheriting many of the blessings and obligations of its predecessor. Matthew 16:18 thus notes Jesus’s intention to found the church upon a rock “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

As Christianity later split into Catholic and Protestant divisions, which would themselves break into many additional subdivisions including the Church of England, it was common for its members to understand themselves as 23continuing to perpetuate the struggles and blessings of their spiritual forbears, who did not, at the time, have their own homeland. Richard Hughes notes that William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1534), who translated the Bible into English, was especially interested in the idea of the covenant between God and Israel as described in Deuteronomy 28 and that he was further struck with “the twin themes of chosen people and covenant,” which he applied to England (2009, 21).

As Puritans sought to purify this Church, they regarded themselves as having a special mission, which those who came to America hoped might find its full fulfillment there. This mission is often epitomized in John Winthrop’s speech entitled “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which, citing an analogy from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, he referred to America as “a city upon a hill” that could serve as a model for others. Puritans, and later American revolutionaries, would compare themselves to Jews who had crossed the Red Sea in order to enter their own promised land, a motif that both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would contemplate as part of the American Seal. In 1784, Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), a congressional minister, authored a massive work on American history entitled The Conquest of Canaan. There had, of course, been those who had questioned the connection between America and Israel, perhaps most notably Roger Williams, who had observed, “The State of the land of Israel, the Kings and people thereof in Peace & War, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor precedent for any Kingdom or civil state in the world to follow” (quoted in Hughes 2009, 25).

Still, long after many Americans had shed many of the beliefs that were tied to Puritanism, they continued to think of themselves as a “chosen people,” or as God’s New Israel, with the earlier religious mission often melded into the mission of advancing knowledge and liberty. John Berens observes that what he calls American “providentialism” was often at odds with European Enlightenment thinking, which largely divorced world events from God’s design. Berens tied this providentialism to five themes, which he identified as follows: “(1) the motif of America as God’s New Israel; (2) the jeremiad tradition; (3) the deification of America’s founding fathers; (4) the blending of national and millennial expectations; and (5) providential history and historiography” (1978, 2).

Writing in “A Dissertation on the Feudal Law,” John Adams described the settling of America as “the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth” (quoted in Richard 2016, 140). In 1783 Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale, delivered a message entitled “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” in which he elaborated on what he perceived to be America’s link to Israel. In his Second Inaugural Address in 1805, President Thomas Jefferson observed that he would need the help “of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a land flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life” (quoted in Richard 2016, 144). In later years, America would consider their conquest of the American West as a “manifest destiny,” and their obligation to foreign colonies like the Philippines to Christianize them. Mormonism would further emerge as a distinct American religion, which was based in part on the belief that Jesus had come to America to reveal Himself to the lost tribes of the house of Israel. 24In White Jacket, American novelist Herman Melville wrote, “Escaped from the house of bondage, we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people—the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world” (quoted in Hughes 2009, 24). Harriet Beecher Stowe observed that early Americans “spoke of Zion and Jerusalem, of the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, as much as if my grandfather had been a veritable Jew; and except for the closing phrase, ‘for the sake of thy Son, our Saviour,’ might all have been uttered in Palestine by a well-trained Jew in the time of [King] David” (quoted in Shalev 2013, 155).

Notably, England and America are not the only nations to embody the notion that they are a chosen people. The Confederate States of America sought to emphasize what it believed to be its special ties to God by specifically referring to God in its constitution. Such a notion was embraced by the Dutch, French, and Germans, known as Afrikaners, who settled in South Africa and long practiced a policy of racial separation and discrimination (Hughes 2009, 28). In a more secular context, fascist nations have considered themselves to be the protectors of a favored race while communist nations have believed themselves to be the unique representatives of the proletariat class.

Perhaps because of the way they identify their own founding with that of ancient Israel, Americans have generally supported the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Israel, with the United States being one of the first nations to recognize that state when it was founded in 1948. Modern American Jews and evangelical Christians, many of whom believe the nation’s reestablishment was a fulfillment of biblical prophecies, are often very supportive of that country.

See also Confederate States of America; Great Seal of the United States of America; Model of Christian Charity (Winthrop); Moses as Political Archetype; Political Hebraism; Williams, Roger; Zionism

For Reference and Further Reading

Ahlstrom, Sydney E. 1976. “The Religious Dimension of American Aspiration.” Review of Politics 38 (July): 332–42.

Berens, John F. 1978. Providence & Patriotism in Early America, 1640–1815. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

Goldman, Shalom. 2014. “‘God’s New Israel’: American Identification with Israel Ancient and Modern.” The Bible in the Public Square: Its Enduring Influence in American Life, ed. Mark A. Chancey, Carol Meyers, and Eric M. Meyers. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 81–92.

Guyatt, Nicholas. 2007. Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607–1876. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, Richard T. 2009. Christian America and the Kingdom of God. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

LaFontaine, Charles V. 1976. “God and Nation in Selected U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses, 1789–1945: Part One.” Journal of Church and State 18 (Winter): 39–60.

LaFontaine, Charles V. 1976. “God and Nation in Selected U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses, 1789–1945: Part Two.” Journal of Church and State 18 (Autumn): 503–21.

Mead, Walter Russell. 2008. “The New Israel and the Old: Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State.” Foreign Affairs 87 (July–August): 28–46.

Richard, Carl J. 2016. The Founders and the Bible. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Shalev, Eran. 2013. American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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American Bible Society

One of the organizations that has done the most to promote the distribution of the Bible throughout the United States and the world is the American Bible Society (ABS). Preceded by a number of state organizations, the Society was founded in New York in 1816 largely by Federalist evangelicals who thought that a wider effort was required. American statesmen who were involved in founding or serving in the Society in its early years included its first president, Elias Boudinot, as well as John Jay (the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787), John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton (a New York governor), Rufus King (another delegate to the Constitutional Convention), Marquis de Lafayette, and Francis Scott Key, who authored “The Star-Spangled Banner” (Fea 2016, 21).

These men were not only committed to the spread of the gospel but were also firmly convinced that greater biblical literacy would lead to greater citizen virtue at home and to the spread of Western civilization abroad. Although they were willing to work with Roman Catholics, they originally published only King James Versions of the Bible, albeit without notes or comments. The later stipulation was based on the idea that “the Bible’s salvific message was self-evident in the words of the inspired text” and was designed to create unity among differing Protestant sects (Fea 2016, 63).

An address published by the Society along with its Constitution observed that “the times are pregnant with great events” and that hopes follow “a period of philosophy, falsely so called, and has gone in the track of those very schemes which, under the imposing names of reason and liberality, were attempting to seduce mankind from all which can bless the life that is, or shed a cheering radiance on the life that is to come” (1816, 13–14). In language that remains familiar in the twenty-first century, members expressed their desire to “fly to the aid of all that is holy, against all that is profane; of the purest interest of the community, the family, and the individual, against the conspiracy of darkness, disaster, and death” (14). The address said that “no spectacle can be so illustrious in itself, so touching to man, or so grateful to God, as a nation pouring forth its devotion, its talent, and its treasures, for that kingdom of the Saviour which is righteousness and peace” (15). This magnitude of the task was exacerbated by the immensity of the growing nation and its population “and the dreadful consequences which will ensue from a people’s outgrowing the knowledge of eternal life; and reverting to a species of heathenism, which shall have all the address and profligacy of civilized society, without any religious control” (17). The final paragraph firmly placed the Society within the vision that Puritans had brought to American shores and ended with a quotation from Habakkuk 2:14:

We shall set forward a system of happiness which will go on with accelerated motion and augmented vigour, after, we shall have finished our career; and confer upon our children, and our children’s children, the delight of seeing the wilderness turned into a fruitful field, by the blessing of God upon that seed which their fathers sowed, and themselves watered. In fine we shall do our part toward that expansion and intensity of light divine, which shall visit, in its progress, the 26palaces of the great, and the hamlets of the small, until the whole “earth be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.” (1816, 20)

Fea notes that supporters like Peter Jay saw the distribution of Bibles as a way of hastening the second coming of Jesus while individuals like Elias Boudinot believed that the imminence of this coming required special efforts to reach as many lost souls in the interim as possible (2016, 27). Supporters identified biblical themes with American principles of liberty. An 1830 circular entitled “The Bible: A Religious Constitution” thus described Scriptures as a “bill of rights dictated by the Holy Spirit—a charter granted by the Deity himself”; it described the Bible as a Christian “Magna Carta” (quoted in Fea 2016, 66).

In 1852, the Society apparently decided to issue a “standard” version of the King James Version, which included making a few changes to the text (Hogue 1991, 370). This stirred controversy among members of the Episcopal Church, which believed that its mother church in England had guardianship of this translation (370). In time, the ABS withdrew its standard edition and acceded to the standard of “authorized British presses” (quoted in Hogue 1991, 373).

The ABS typically sold its Bibles through state and local auxiliaries, making several major pushes to reach areas of the nation, like the South or the western frontier, which they believed had been underserved. In time, these efforts extended to immigrants, whom the Society thought were in special need of acculturating to American Protestant ideals. The Society also distributed Bibles abroad. Typically, the Society viewed its activities in distributing Bibles to be somewhat distinct from the job of missionaries, who were there specifically to make converts to their denominations.

Through the early part of the twentieth century, the ABS largely worked with mainline Protestant denominations, but beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, as the membership of these denominations declined, the ABS took a turn in a more evangelical direction. Not all evangelicals were pleased when the Society reversed its prior policy and published its own Today’s English Version of the Bible, the New Testament of which was distributed under the title of Good News for Modern Man, which was based on the idea of “dynamic equivalence” rather than on word-for-word translation. The Society produced a special Eisenhower Memorial Edition of this Bible as well as portions of Scripture to be distributed at Independence Hall during the American Bicentennial celebrations of 1976.

Although the Society had largely judged its prior successes by the number of Scriptures it distributed, it became increasingly concerned about biblical illiteracy and therefore dropped its earlier policy about printing Bibles with commentary or comment and instead expressed its purpose as that of making “the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford so that all may experience its life-changing message” (Fea 2016, 302).

In the summer of 2015, the Society moved its national headquarters to Philadelphia, where it plans to open a Faith and Liberty Discovery Center beginning in 2020. It will feature a two-story sculpture that symbolically represents the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution. Roy Peterson, the CEO of the organization, introduced a statement of faith similar to the Nicene Creed affirming orthodox Christian doctrines, and also calling for all employees to be 27involved in a local church and to “refrain from sexual contact outside the marriage covenant,” which it defined as being exclusively between a man and a woman (cited in Shimron 2018). A number of employees left after this policy was enacted.

See also Boudinot, Elias

For Reference and Further Reading

Constitution of the American Bible Society, Formed by a Convention of Delegates, Held in the City of New York, May, 1816, Together with Their Address to the People of the United States; A Notice of Their Proceedings, and a List of Their Officers. 1816. New York: G.F. Hopkins.

Fea, John. 2016. The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. New York: Oxford University Press.

Glynn, Tom. 2015. Reading Publics: New York City’s Public Libraries, 1754–1711. New York: Fordham University. [Chapter 4: “The Biblical Library of the American Bible Society: Evangelicalism and the Evangelical Corporation,” pp. 101–17.]

Hogue, William M. 1991. “An Authorized Bible for Americans.” Anglican and Episcopal History 60 (September): 361–82.

Jackson, Kent P. 2014. “The Cooperstown Bible.” New York History 95 (Spring): 243–70.

McKivigan, John R. 1982. “The Gospel Will Burst the Bonds of the Slave: The Abolitionists Bibles for Slaves Campaign.” Negro History Bulletin 45 (July–August–September): 62–64, 77.

Mondon, Marielle. 2018. “American Bible Society to Open $60 Million Religious Center on Independence Mall in 2020.” PhillyVoice. December 7.

Shimron, Yonat. 2018. “Employees Quit American Bible Society over Sex and Marriage Rules.” Religion News Service. May 29. https://religionnews.com/2018/05/29/american-bible-society-to-require-regular-church-attendance-strict-sexuality-codes/.

Taylor, Justin. 2016. “An Interview with John Fea on His New History of the American Bible Society.” March 23. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-john-fea-on-his-new-history-of-the-american-bible-society/.

American Exceptionalism

One idea that has been prominent through much of American history is the idea that America is an exceptional nation with a special God-ordained mission, variously described as that of spreading liberty, advancing civilization, or otherwise aiding in human progress. This sense of mission is often tied in popular discourse to 2 Chronicles 7:14, in which God, speaking to Solomon, proclaims, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will heal their land.” In such an interpretation, the American people become the New Israel or the new church that will inherit God’s blessings and share them with the rest of the world.

In its mildest form, this idea touts America as an example for others to follow and urges the people to sacrifice on behalf of the freedom of others. The view can, however, also be used to justify American expansion into the West (manifest destiny) or even the American acquisition of colonies in the wake of the Spanish-American War.

The notion of exceptionalism seems to derive in part from the Puritan idea of a covenantal people, who are the recipient of God’s special blessings. One 28foundation for such a belief is John Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill” speech in which, using an example from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Winthrop argued that the rest of the world would be watching the new colony to see whether or not it would succeed. Although Winthrop’s focus was less on a nation state than on the Puritan church, his words have subsequently been used by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to justify a robust American foreign policy that promotes American freedoms and values.

Pointing to Puritan unwillingness to extend religious freedom to those outside the Puritan fold, historian Mark Noll has argued that the notion of American exceptionalism might better be traced to the circular letter that George Washington sent to the states when resigning his military commission in 1783 to return to private life (Noll 2012). Observing that “we shall have equal occasion to felicitate ourselves on the lot which Providence has assigned to us,” Washington observed, with greater emphasis on human flourishing than on the glory of God, that, having achieved their independence, Americans “are, from this period, to be considered as the Actors on a most conspicuous Theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity” (Washington 2015, 128). He further observed that “Heaven has crowned all its other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other Nation has ever been favored with” (Washington 2015, 128). Washington thought the time was auspicious both because of reason and revelation:

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. (Washington 2015, 128).

In seeking to take advantage of God’s providential blessings, Washington argued for the importance of “an indissoluble Union,” “a sacred regard to Public Justice,” “the adoption of a proper Peace Establishment,” and “the prevalence of that pacific and friendly Disposition, among the people of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community” (Washington 2015, 130).

Even though the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, and the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, many early American history texts argued both that God had intervened to help the United States achieve 29its independence and that Americans thus occupied a higher moral ground than other nations. John Fea thus notes that in Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, which she first published in 1805, she both attributed American independence to a “superintending Providence” and said that the “religious and moral character of Americans yet stands on a higher grade of excellence and purity than that of most other nations” (Fea 2016, 9). Perhaps even more shockingly, Emma Willard’s History of the United States, which was first published in 1826, describes the thinning of Native Americans through disease as a providential provision for “exchanging, upon these shores, a savage for a civilized people” (Fea 2016, 11). Later in the nineteenth century, the notion of American mission was often fueled by secular ideas of progress, by Hegelian ideas of an immanent world spirit, and even by social Darwinism (Ceaser 2012, 19–20).

During the Civil War, both sides portrayed themselves as the heirs of this legacy, with Northerners touting their opposition to slavery and the Confederate States of America pointing to the reintroduction of God within the preamble of their revised constitution. Many leaders of the social gospel movement portrayed World War I as a war for righteousness (Gamble 2003), while World War II pitted America against totalitarian powers and the Cold War pitted it against godless communism. This opposition was highlighted by the congressional introduction of the words “under God” into the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag in 1954. President Reagan, who was quite fond of the “city upon a hill” analogy, further labeled the former Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” while George W. Bush later labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as constituting an “axis of evil.”

It thus seems clear that the idea of American exceptionalism can be used either to remind Americans that much of their prosperity and success has been a gift of grace and to inspire them to seek similar goals for other nations, or a way of emboldening them to absolutize their own values and to assume that their policies must therefore reflect God’s will.

See also America as New Israel; City upon a Hill; Under God; U.S. Constitution; Washington, George

For Reference and Further Reading

Ceaser, James W. 2012. “The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism.” American Political Thought 2 (Spring): 3–28.

Fea, John. 2016. Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction, rev. ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Gamble, Richard M. 2003. The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.

Noll, Mark A. 2012. “‘Wee Shall Be as a Citty upon a Hill’: John Winthrop’s Non-American Exceptionalism.” Review of Faith & International Affairs 10 (Summer): 5–11.

Shalev, Eran. 2013. American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Test from the Revolution to the Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Washington, George. 2015 [1793]. “George Washington’s Circular Letter to the States.” Founding Documents of America: Documents Decoded, ed. John R. Vile. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 127–32.

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American Patriot’s Bible

In today’s market, it is common to find a variety of Bibles aimed at particular audiences. In addition to the wide range of English translations, publishers feature children’s Bibles (often in cartoon form), study Bibles by various pastors and commentators (often with maps and other historical information), Bibles for women, and Bibles for other niche markets. Groups like the Gideons, who regularly engage in evangelism by distributing Bibles, often design special covers for students, nurses, members of the military, or members of other groups.

In 1969, the American Bible Society published its translation of the Bible, Good News for Modern Man: Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Edition with a picture of the president on the back cover and the words, “the Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality and hope.” Over a hundred thousand individuals purchased copies (Fea 2016, 294).

In 1975, the American Bible Society published portions of Scripture entitled “Faith, Justice, and Repentance” and pitched as “a Bible-based ‘Call to the Nation’” (Fea 2016, 295). In addition to publishing bicentennial editions of the Bible, it also published “‘One Nation Under God,’ a meditation on Psalm 33:6–22 (‘happy is the nation whose God is the Lord’) that connected the Bible to the Pledge of Allegiance; ‘Sing a New Song’ (Psalms 95 through 100), a reminder of the role of the Bible in the culture of Puritan New England; and ‘Plead My cause, O Lord’ (Psalm 35), a portion designed to draw attention to the psalm and prayer that Rev. Jacob Duché prayed at the opening of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September 1774” (Fea 2016, 295). In 1976, the Society followed up with a publication of Isaiah 61:1–4, and its description of the Year of Jubilee, entitled “Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land,” with a photo of the Liberty Bell on the cover, which was distributed at the Independence National Historical Park during July (296).

In 1983, the National Publishing Company published a commemorative edition of the Bible for the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, which was to be celebrated in 1987. It contained the outline of Independence Hall on the cover and an introductory essay on the “Genesis of the Constitution of the United States of America.” The Masons, who require a belief in God (albeit not in the divinity of Christ), have a special edition of the King James Version of the Bible that they present to new members and that features pictures of Jesus as well as information on American presidents who were Masons.

In 2009, Thomas Nelson published the American Patriot’s Bible, which was edited by Richard Lee, a Southern Baptist minister. Using the Revised King James Version, Lee’s Bible is described on the Amazon.com website as “THE ONE BIBLE THAT SHOWS HOW A LIGHT FROM ABOVE SHAPED OUR NATION.” The description further observes, “Never has a version of the Bible targeted the spiritual needs of those who love our country more than The American Patriot’s Bible. This extremely unique Bible shows how the history of the United States connects the people and events of the Bible to our lives in a modern world. The Story of the United States is wonderfully woven into the teachings of the Bible 31and includes a beautiful full-color family record section, memorable images from our nation’s history and hundreds of enlightening articles which complement the New King James Version Bible text.”

The front cover features pictures of an American flag, various monuments in the nation’s capital, a sketch of the Pilgrims landing in Massachusetts with the Mayflower in the background, and a painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge against a background of the Declaration of Independence. There is a picture of the Statue of Liberty on the book’s spine, and of the monument of Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima on the back cover, which also includes a quotation from President Ronald Reagan. A scan through the Amazon preview reveals insets on “The Right to a God-Centered Education,” “The Abrahamic Covenant,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “The Right to Bear Arms,” “The Barbary Pirates,” and similar entries.

The unnumbered preparatory materials include “The Seven Principles of the Judeo-Christian Ethic.” These themes and their accompanying Scriptures are as follows: “The Dignity of Life” (Exodus 20:13 and Matthew 22:39); “The Traditional Monogamous Family” (Genesis 2:23,24) (a later entry on p. 1116 describes “The Bible and Marriage”); “A National Work Ethic” (2 Thessalonians 3:10); “The Right to a God-Centered Education” (Ephesians 6:4); “The Abrahamic Covenant”; “Common Decency” (Matthew 22:39); and “Our Personal Accountability to God.” Just over halfway through the Bible is a page describing “The Censoring of Religious Activities in Public Schools,” which portrays the U.S. Supreme Court decisions with respect to prayer, Bible reading, and the posting of the Ten Commandments as an unwarranted and unprecedented reading of “separation of church and state” into the First Amendment (2009, 731).

Although the Amazon website has many favorable reader reviews, many commentators are wary of associating Holy Scriptures with a single nation. Others were particularly concerned about the juxtaposition of a military image at the beginning of the gospels, which are more typically associated with peace (Kaylor 2009).

There is certainly a sense in which the American Patriot’s Bible further advances the idea that America is a providential “city upon a hill” with a special mission, but most Christian theologians would see Christianity, rather than America, as the heir of ancient Israel. Moreover, such a Bible could obviously prove troubling either to minority groups within the United States who believe that the government has treated them unjustly or to foreign nations who believe that America has confused its own national interests with the will of God.

The Patriot’s Bible is far from the only specialty publication. Philip L. Barlow has observed, “Both testaments of The Green Bible are printed with soy-based ink on recycled paper within a cotton/linen cover, a green-letter edition highlighting passages that depict God’s care for creation” (“Forum” 2011, 9). Moreover, in 2014, David Barton published The Founders’ Bible, highlighting his view that most of America’s founding fathers were Christians.

See also America as New Israel; City upon a Hill; Conservative Bible Project; Founders’ Bible; Geneva Bible

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For Reference and Further Reading

Boyd, Greg. July 5, 2018. “The Patriot’s Bible—Really?” Re Knew. https://reknew.org/2018/07/the-patriots-bible-really/. Accessed April 17, 2019.

Fea, John 2016. The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. New York: Oxford University Press.

“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.

Kaylor, Brian. May 22, 2009. “Publisher’s ‘American Patriot’s Bible’ Draws Strong Criticism.” EthicsDaily.com. https://ethicsdaily.com/publishers-american-patriots-bible-draws-strong-criticism-cms-14259/.

Lee, Richard G., ed. 2009. The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America . Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Antichrist

2 John 1:7 refers to the spirit of the “Antichrist,” and numerous Scriptures from the book of Revelation refer to a “man of sin” as someone who will oppose Christ in the last days. The term “Antichrist” has been used both to refer to a particularly evil man who will emerge in the end of times and to a succession of leaders who have opposed Christ.

Written in code at a time when Christians were facing persecution, the biblical book of Revelation identifies Babylon, an ancient pagan city, as sitting on seven hills. This was an obvious reference to Rome; the emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians, would have been an obvious Antichrist. Because the Roman Empire was succeeded by the Roman Catholic Church, the headquarters of which (Vatican City) is also in Rome, it was easy for Protestant reformers from Martin Luther forward to identify the pope as an Antichrist.

Indeed, in a forum to which he contributed, Professor Paul S. Boyer observed that the notes to the Geneva Bible, which was published in English in 1560, explained the passage in Revelation 17:3–4, which describes a woman clothed in purple and scarlet and drinking from a cup of abominations and fornications, by saying, “This woman is the Antichrist, that is, the Pope with ye whole bodie of his filthie creatures” (“Forum” 2011, 18). The Puritans brought this idea with them to the new world, with Jonathan Edwards being among those who believed that the Reformation marked the beginning of the last days in which Catholicism would be overthrown. From such a perspective, which does much to explain conflicts over reading the Bible in public schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Protestants often regarded Catholics less like fellow Christians than like the antithesis to Christ.

During the American Revolution, some Patriots identified King George III as the Antichrist (Burke 2013). This link may have been furthered by the Quebec Act, in which Britain had acknowledged the Catholic Church in Canada. Internationally, Tsar Alexander was among those who identified Napoleon as a possible Antichrist (Carter 2012).

During World War II, a number of commentators identified Hitler or Mussolini as the Antichrist (Carter 2012; Poole 2009, 145). The subsequent Cold War led others to associate the Antichrist with Russia, whose communist ideology was atheistic. Speculation that U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, 33who had helped open diplomatic relations with communist China, might be the Antichrist in time gave way to the idea that Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, with a distinct birthmark on his forehead that some likened to the biblical “mark of the beast,” might be (Carter 2012).

There is not much distance between the view that the pope and Roman Catholics represent the Antichrist and the view that Muslims, who do not accept the divinity of Christ, are in fact Antichrists (Burke 2013). Such usage may, in fact, date back to the Crusades (Burke 2013). Professor Boyer observed that, in the events leading up to the 1990–1991 and the 2011 invasions of Iraq (the home of ancient Babylon), a number of prophetic writers identified Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the Antichrist (“Forum” 2011, 15).

Deeply suspicious of talk of a New World Order, which writers on prophecy have often tied to the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission, a number of such writers (many of whom may have been drawing from the idea that Obama, whose middle name was Hussein, had been born abroad and/or that he was a Muslim) identified Obama as the Antichrist. Indeed, Boyer reports that a Google search conducted in 2010 produced 8,170,000 hits by matching the keywords “Obama” and “Antichrist” (“Forum” 2011, 14). Apparently, every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Obama, other than President Ford, was at one time or another also labeled an Antichrist (Carter 2012).

Clearly, the use of such imagery can be adapted to a variety of contexts and tends to lead to political polarization.

See also Edwards, Jonathan; Obama, Barack; Puritans; Satan

For Reference and Further Reading

Burke, Daniel. February 7, 2013. “How the Antichrist Reflects an Era’s Anxieties.” The Christian Century. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2013-02/how-antichrist- reflects-eras-anxieties.

Carter, Joe. 2012. “The 7 Most Popular Contenders for the Title ‘Antichrist.’” The Gospel Coalition. November 16. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-7-most-popular-contenders-for-the-antichrist/.

“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.

Poole, W. Scott. 2009. Satan in America: The Devil We Know. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Pyszczynski, Tom, Carl Henthron, Matt Motyl, and Kristel Gerow. 2010. “Is Obama the Anti-Christ? Racial Priming, Extreme Criticisms of Barack Obama, and Attitudes toward the 2008 US Presidential Candidates.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 863–66.

Apess, William

William Apess (1798–1839), although of mixed blood, identified himself with the Pequot. Indentured as a youth to white families, Apess served for a time in the American militia during the War of 1812. After leading a fairly dissolute life, which he described in his autobiography The Forest: The Experience of William Apess, a Native of the Forest, Comprising a Notice of the Pequod Tribe of 34Indians, the first known autobiography by such a Native American, which was published in 1829, Apess converted and was ordained as a Methodist minister (Tiro 1996).

Much as abolitionist writers were citing Scriptures to condemn slavery, Apess cited Scripture to rail at discrimination against his own people and other peoples of color. He put particular blame on the Puritans, perhaps in part because he was from Massachusetts but probably also because they had been so reputed for their probity and godliness.

Although some versions have edited out a number of his biblical references, Apess’s sermon “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man,” which was originally published as an epilogue to The Experience of Five Christian Indians of the Pequod Tribe (1833), relied quite heavily on the Bible.

Apess began by identifying God as “the maker and preserver both of the white man and the Indian.” From here he described the miserable state of so many Native Americans, which he believed stemmed from the government’s failure to extend them equal rights and privileges and from simple prejudice based on their skin color. Ironically, God had chosen to create many more individuals of color than whites, and, in terms of character, it was whites who one could charge “with robbing a nation almost of their whole Continent, and murdering their women and children, and then depriving the remainder of their lawful rights” as well as enslaving African Americans and subjecting them “under the lash with hunger and fatigue under the scorching rays of a burning sun.”

The Bible admonishes Christians “to follow Jesus Christ and imitate him and have his Spirit.” Apess said that the Bible reveals this in Jesus’s summary of the Ten Commandments in Matthew 22:37–40, and in numerous verses dealing with the need for Christian love and charity as in John 13:35; 1 John 4:29; 1 John 3:18; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 4:20; and 1 John 3:15. Apess further cited Romans 13:9, which says, “Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

Apess proceeded to point out that, as Jews, Jesus and his disciples were not white and asked rhetorically when Jesus had ever taught his disciples “that they ought to despise one because his skin was different from theirs?” In an indirect reference to 1 Samuel 16:7, Apess further pointed out that God looked on the heart rather than on outward appearances, and cited a passage quite familiar to abolitionists, namely that “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scthian, bond nor free—but Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11). He further contended that missionary societies were degrading rather than elevating Native Americans.

Apess further pointed to Acts 10:34, which indicated that “God is no respecter of persons.” Such Scripture was contrary to state laws that prohibited intermarriage between whites and Native Americans and inconsistent with the fact that whites had themselves often chosen Native American mates.

Accusing whites of degrading and robbing Native Americans, Apess noted that there were some American statesmen who did not mock them, and evoked the compassion of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). He ended with, “Do not get tired ye noble-hearted—only think how many poor Indians want their wounds done up daily; the Lord will reward you, and pray you stop not till this 35tree of distinction shall be leveled to the earth, and the mantle of prejudice torn from every American heart—then shall peace pervade the Union.”

Relying more on history than on Scripture, Apess delivered his “Eulogy on King Philip” on January 26, 1836, which in many ways resembles more traditional jeremiads (Bizell 2006). Comparing this Native American king to George Washington, Apess described in vivid detail the manner in which the Puritans had treated Native Americans as less than equals. He reversed the tables of historians who had described Native Americans as savages by detailing how the Puritans had prayed for their deaths and committed many massacres against them. Much like Frederick Douglass in his “What to the Slave in the Fourth of July,” Apess described both the day that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and Independence Day as “days of mourning and not of joy” (Apess 1836).

See also Douglass, Frederick; Native American Indians; Prophets and Jeremiads; Puritans

For Reference and Further Reading

Apess, William. 1833. “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man.” University of Houston Clear Lake. http ://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/Amerind/apesslkggls.htm. Note: Because this text leaves out many of Apess’s references to the Bible, I have supplemented it with https://www.youtube.com/watch?y=NiY5ef4hWTO.

Apess, William. 1836. “Eulogy on King Philip.” Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project. https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/apess-eulogy-speech-text/.

Bizell, Patricia. 2006. “(Native) American Jeremiad: The ‘Mixedblood’ Rhetoric of William Apess.” American Indian Rhetoric of Survivance: Word Medicine, Word Magic, ed. Ernest Stromberg. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 34–49.

Goodnight, Ethan. 2017. “William Apess, Pequot Pastor: A Native American Revisioning of Christian Nationalism in the Early Republic.” Religions 8(18): 17pp. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/2/18/pdf.

Tiro, Karim M. 1996. “Denominated ‘SAVAGE’: Methodism, Writing, and Identity in the Works of William Apess, a Pequot.” American Quarterly 48 (December): 653–79.

Articles, Laws, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martial for the Colony in Virginia (1610)

Although it has received far less attention than the laws of New England, the Articles, Laws, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Marital for the Colony that were issued in Virginia in 1610 have similar scriptural foundations and supports.

Brent Tarter has noted that this set of orders was “the earliest extant English-language body of laws in the western hemisphere,” but is careful to add that “it was not a legal code in the modern sense. No legislation created it, and no court enforced it” (Tarter n.d.). Although often associated with Governor Thomas Dale, the orders, which came at a very troubling time in Virginia’s early history, appear to have originated with a number of military men. Moreover, in contrast to studies that suggest that colonists carried the common law with them to America, these fairly draconian laws appear more similar to regulations that had been used to govern other colonies, with relatively few free men, than those that are associated with the common law (Konig 1982). It is not always clear whether 36the regulations applied to citizens in general or only to those who were in the militia, which might, however, have included most adult males.

The most obvious features of the regulations was the manner in which they depend so heavily on the Ten Commandments and how many violations of these commandments are in turn linked to the death penalty. The first of thirty-seven numbered sections begins by observing that humans owe the highest allegiance to “the King of kings, the commaunder of commanders, and Lord of Hostes” (1611). This leads to regulations against speaking “impiously or maliciously, against the holy and blessed Trinitie,” or “against the knowne Article of the Christian faith, upon paine of death” (1611). Section 3 specifically provides that those who take God’s name in vain or “use unlawful oaths” are subject to having a bodkin thrust through their tongue or, upon multiple offenses, even death.

Subjects are compelled to go to church twice a day and, consistent again with the Ten Commandments, to observe the Sabbath. Section 8 punished murder with death, with other severe penalties for sodomy, fornication, or sacrilege. Section 10 provided penalties for theft, and Section 11 for bearing false witness. There were additional sanctions for trading with Native American Indians or with visiting shipmen, which were, in turn, tied to the sin of covetousness.

Perhaps reflecting the state of near starvation in the colony, the law limited the killing of domestic farm animals that could be bred to increase the colony’s stock. There were additional sanitary regulations limiting the distance within which one could wash clothes or utensils or relieve oneself near a street or well.

Section 25, which is one of the more interesting, provided that “every man shall have an especiall and due care, to keepe his house sweete and cleane, as also so much of the streete, as lieth before his door, and especially he shall so provide, and set his bedstead whereon he lieth, that it may stand three foote at least from the ground, as will answere the contrarie at at a martiall Court.” A number of penalties involved cutting off the ears of offenders or requiring their work in ship alleys.

See also Capital Punishment; Massachusetts Body of Liberties; Ten Commandments

For Reference and Further Reading

“Articles, Laws, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martial for the Colony in Virginia.” 1611. Teaching American History. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/articles-laws-and-orders-divine-politic-and-martial-for-the-colony-in-virginia/.

Konig, David Thomas. 1982. “‘Dale’s Laws’ and the Non-Common Law Origins of Criminal Justice in Virginia.” American Journal of Legal History 26 (October): 354–75.

Tarter, Brent. n.d. “Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall.” Encyclopedia Virginia. https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Lawes_Divine_Morall_and_Martiall.

Articles of Confederation

Even before it was officially ratified in 1781, the Articles of Confederation, which was proposed by the Second Continental Congress in 1777, served as the model for the government of the United States that lasted until the implementation of 37the Constitution that was produced by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in 1789. The Articles specifically referred to God as “The Great Governor of the World” (Solberg 1958, 51).

Although the document appears to have been chiefly the result of expedience rather than a conscious imitation of biblical government, the Articles and the thirteen states that composed it resembled the government of the twelve tribes of Israel as described in the biblical book of Judges during the period between the death of Joshua (the successor to Moses) and the introduction of kingship in a number of ways (Shalev 2013, 50–83).

Just as primary power rested within individual tribes during the period of judges, so too the Articles of Confederation vested primary sovereignty within the states rather than in its unicameral Congress in which states were equally represented. There was no independent executive power, like later Jewish kings, nor was there an independent judiciary. A majority of nine states was required to adopt most matters of policy under the Articles, and constitutional amendments required unanimous state consent. The national Congress did not have the power exercised by the current body to act directly upon individuals as in taxing them directly or drafting them into military service, nor did it control interstate and foreign commerce.

The Congress that met from the time of American independence until the adoption of the new Constitution did engage in a number of activities related to the Bible. Although it ultimately adopted a different seal, both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drawing from the Bible, had proposed seals that likened America’s revolutionary struggle to that of Moses and the Jewish people in Israel. Congress had begun the practice of inviting chaplains to deliver prayers during the First Continental Congress, at which Jacob Duché had linked the cause of America to that of the Israelites as described in Psalm 35:1.

Consistent with biblical calls for repentance, Congress adopted a number of Fast and Thanksgiving Proclamations and hired chaplains with the hope of encouraging morality among troops. Concerned about the fact that Americans were now cut off from the supply of Bibles that had previously been published in Great Britain, the Congress, which had actually considered issuing a license to a publisher for a single authorized edition (Hogue 1991, 364–65; Gaines 1950/1951), eventually endorsed the publication of a Bible by Robert Aitken of Philadelphia. Congress also sought to encourage literacy by establishing schools in the Northwest Territories.

Ultimately, the people replaced the Articles of Confederation, much as Jews had earlier sought a king, because they found it inadequate to assure justice at home or to preserve the nation’s standing abroad. Shay’s Rebellion that occurred in the winter of 1786–1787 further suggested that Congress could not adequately protect the states against anarchy (Blau 1987). Largely as a result of their negative experience under King George III, Americans chose to replace their confederal government with a federal one, in which power was divided among three coordinate branches, rather than following the example of the ancient Israelites in establishing a hereditary monarchy.

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See also Aitken Bible; First Continental Congress; Forms of Government; Great Seal of the United States; Hebraic Constitutionalism; U.S. Constitution; U.S. Constitutional Convention

For Reference and Further Reading

Blau, Joseph L. 1987. “Government or Anarchy? In the Debates on the Constitution.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 23 (Fall): 507–19.

Dougherty, Keith I. 2001. Collective Action under the Articles of Confederation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gaines, William H., Jr. 1950/1951. “The Continental Congress Considers the Publication of a Bible, 1777.” Studies in Bibliography 3: 274–81.

Hogue, William M. 1991. “An Authorized Bible for Americans.” Anglican and Episcopal History 60 (September): 361–82.

Jensen, Merrill. 1966. The Articles of Confederation. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

“Religion and the Founding of the American Republic: Religion and the Congress of the Confederation.” Library of Congress Exhibitions. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html.

Shalev, Eran. 2013. American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Solberg, Winton U., ed. 1958. The Federal Convention and the Formation of the Union of the American States. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Vile, John R ., and Andrew Foshee. 1988. “Domestic Politics in the Book of Judges: The Story of Gibeah.” Journal of Political Science 16 (Spring): 33–42.

Ashcroft, John

After serving as attorney general, governor, and U.S. senator from Missouri, John Ashcroft (b. 1942) served as the first U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A graduate of Yale University who earned his law degree at the University of Chicago, Ashcroft was a polarizing figure who was often caricatured for his religious beliefs.

Ashcroft is the son and grandson of Assembly of God (a charismatic denomination whose detractors sometimes describe members as “holy rollers”) pastors, with his father serving as the president of Evangel University, a liberal arts college sponsored by the Assemblies of God. As a young man, Ashcroft performed southern gospel music and was known for authoring an anthem called “Carry the Cross,” which was largely based on Ephesians 6:12. Its words were as follows: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood/ But the darkness of this world./ Put on the whole armor of our God,/ Let his banner of love be unfurled./ I want to carry the cross for the Savior/ I want to carry his cross; that’s my goal” (quoted in Goodstein 2001). In giving a speech to students at Bob Jones University in 2001, Ashcroft cited with satisfaction the slogan of some patriots in the American revolution that “We have no king but Jesus” (Larry King Live 2001). On other occasions, however, Ashcroft observe, that “It’s against my religion to impose my religion on others” (Goodstein 2001), and despite his own ideological convictions, as attorney general, Ashcroft acted fairly pragmatically (Rosen 2004).

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Ashcroft established a reputation for opposing smoking, drinking, dancing, premarital sex, needle exchanges, homosexuality, abortion, and pornography and for holding Bible studies and prayer meetings in his office. Some ridiculed the fact that, consistent with Assembly of God theology, his father chose to anoint him with oil when he accepted public offices. This combined with a statement that “I think all we should legislate is morality” (balanced by “what we can’t legislate is spirituality”) led to strong but ultimately ineffective opposition to his confirmation as attorney general by those who thought that his policies might be too rigid.

Like President Bush, Ashcroft was deeply affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and he considered his central role to be that of preventing further ones. Again, some opponents were particularly critical of the USA Patriot Act, which they feared might be misused in the future.

Drawing from the Bible, Ashcroft is known for saying that “for every crucifixion, there is a resurrection.” After he lost a Senate race to the widow of the candidate whom he had opposed, Ashcroft refused to contest the election and soon found himself appointed as the state auditor of Missouri (Haddock 2002). Visited by presidential aides while he was sick in the hospital, Ashcroft, in conjunction with James Comey and Bob Mueller, refused to oppose reauthorization of practices that he thought might be illegal (Salon Staff 2007).

See also Bush, George W.

For Reference and Further Reading

Ashcroft, John, with Gary Thomas. 1998. Lessons from a Father to His Son. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Eggen, Dan. 2001. “Ashcroft’s Faith Plays Visible Role at Justice.” Washington Post. May 14.

Goodstein, Laurie. 2001. “Ashcroft’s Life and Judgments Are Steeped in Faith.” New York Times. January 14.

Haddock. Vicki. 2002. “Son of a Preacher Man / How John Ashcroft’s Religion Shapes His Public Service.” SFGATE. August 4. https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Son-of-a-Preacher-Man-How-John-Ashcroft-s-2787948.php.

Jones, Bob. 2001. “Man of the Law.” World Magazine. December 22. https://world.wng.org/2001/12/man_of_the_law.

Larry King Live. January 12, 2001. “What Did John Ashcroft Say at Bob Jones University?” CNN.com transcripts. http ://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/12/lkl.00.html.

Rosen, Jeffrey. April 2004. “John Ashcroft’s Permanent Campaign.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/04/john-ashcroft-s-permanent-campaign/302926/.

Salon Staff. 2007. “The Hospital Room Showdown.” Salon. May 15. https://www.salon.com/2007/05/15/comey_testimony/.