How Our Founding Fathers Viewed The Bible

The United States of America is what it is today primarily because of the beliefs, character, wisdom, and foresight of our Founding Fathers. Our freedoms and our form of government have stood the test of time. What did these men hold in common that motivated them to pledge their honor, lives, and fortunes to the noble experiment whose fruits we now enjoy? Overwhelmingly, they believed the Bible. They valued its precepts. They lived by its principles. They quoted its language.

There was a secular study done by the American Political Review on the political documents of the Founding Era, which was 1760-1805. This study found that 94% of the documents that went into the Founding Era were based on the Bible, and of that, 34% of the contents were direct quotations from the Bible.

Listen to the voices of some great Americans whose lives and convictions are responsible for giving us the heritage under which we live today.

Noah Webster said, "The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the best corrector of all that is evil, in human society, the best Book for regulating temporal concerns of men, and the only Book that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity."

John Adams put his dream into words: "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. What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."

"[The Bible] is a book worth more than all other books that were ever printed," said Patrick Henry.

Consider this terse statement by John Jay, original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: "The Bible is the best of all books."

Henry Laurens was president of the Continental Congress, a U.S. Diplomat, and was selected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Mr. Laurens believed that, "The Bible is a book containing the history of all men and of all nations and is a necessary part of a polite education."

Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a noted physician, and treasurer of the U.S. Mint for 14 years, is also referred to as the "father of public school education." Dr. Rush stated, "[The] Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life". "[It] should be read in our schools in preference to all other books from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public temporal happiness." [emphasis added]

Other great men who followed our Founding Fathers have also uttered high praise for the ancient document we know as the Bible. Robert E. Lee thought the Bible was important: "The Bible is a book in comparison with which all others are of minor importance, and which in all my perplexities and distresses has never failed to give me light and strength."

George Washington Carver expressed his profound appreciation for this Book of Books with a rhetorical question: "The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible."

Our Presidents have universally held the Bible in high regard as a book of great practical and educational value.

Listen to a Republican, President Ronald Regan: "Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all the problems men face. The Bible can touch hearts, order minds and refresh souls."

And to a Democrat, President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "We cannot read all the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic."

And to another of our Founding Fathers, President John Quincy Adams: "To a man of liberal education, the study of history is not only useful, and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to the history contained in the Bible, it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with it as it is shameful to be ignorant of it." [emphasis added]

In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on October 2, 2001, our own congressman, The Honorable Zach Wamp, extolled the influence of the Bible on the history and culture of America:

The Bible has had a monumental impact upon the development of our Western civilization, whose literature, art, and music are filled with images and inspiration that can be traced to its pages. More importantly, our laws, our sense of justice, our charity, and our moral standards all find their origin in the Bible. [emphasis added]

The Bible, which is a fundamental part of our national heritage, has had a more profound affect on the moral fabric of American society than any other document. It was the basis for our Founding Fathers' belief in the inalienable rights of the individual - rights which they found explicit in the Bible. This same sense of individual freedom and justice permeates the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The influence of both the Old and New Testaments has formed the basis of our laws, our national character, and our system of values. It was the biblical view of man - affirming the dignity and worth of the human person made in the image or our Creator - which inspired the principles upon which the United States is founded.

Through the support of Bible in the Schools, contributors in Hamilton County give the priceless gift of a biblical education annually to some 3,000 of the 20,000 students in our middle and high schools. At the invitation of our principals and through the generosity of our donors, the five Bible History courses are provided at no taxpayer expense.