Peter and paul still say that the king is the minister to all, the minister of god, a revenger on those who do evil. So the message some of these loyalists said was, obey all rulers, even the bad ones. Respect authority because god put them in authority for a reason. So what you call patriotism is really just ambition. Its selfishness in disguise. And all patriotic revolts do is create more violence. Now what about the patriotic argument . What are the patriots going to do with texts like fear god and honor the king . What are the patriots going to do with texts that say that the Civil Authority are the revengers of god on wrongdoers, obey them just as if youre obeying god . What can you do with that . Is there anywhere you can go with that . Well, of course. Lets see. Jonathan mayhew, long before the revolution, concerning unlimited submission. That title is really helpful. And people like john adams cousins use this text and many, many others. And lets thing about their argument. They say, look again at the historical context. Peter and paul, what they were really doing was making general statements about respecting authority. Submission didnt mean unlimited submission to any king or any authority. The problem with saying that they were endorsing unlimited submission to any king, there are too many biblical texts that show people of god disobeying kings, revolting against kings. I mean, anybody remember exodus and pharaoh . Anybody remember darius and daniel . There were bad kings. And the people of god did not have to just take it from any bad king. So it couldnt have been about unlimited submission to any king. Lets look at pauls situation. Paul specifically, writing to the romans, he was dealing with christians who were just taking a little too literally the idea that christs kingdom is not of this world. Sometimes christians take that a little too literally. Not of this world doesnt mean this world is gone. It means you still have to live in the world, but live in a different way. So paul is saying, the key to understand this is one specific verse. One specific section of a verse that people tend to overlook. And that is, paul said that the ruler was the minister of god to thee for good. So if the ruler is not acting in the peoples best interests, if the ruler is not gods minister for the peoples good, then christians should resist. Christians should rebel against that minister. Or against that king. Part of this, the patriots said, we have to have commonsense when it comes to approaching scriptures. These commands fear and honor the king, these commands for honoring the king as gods minister, theyre basic commands that deal with authority. The bible tells children to obey parents but does that mean that the bible wants children to obey a parent who throws a mad fit and tries to cut all his childrens throats . That was from mayhew. Speeches and sermons can be really sometimes more interesting back then with the graphic details. So the idea then is, respect the king. But based on how the king performs the kings duties. And not specifically for just because the king is the king. So evaluate leadership. So what the patriots are arguing against the loyalists is, really youre just proof texting without understanding the true context. You have to read the true context to understand it. But what it really becomes is an argument over what that context is. The loyalists have a view, the patriots have a view of what that context is overall. So some conclusions on this. The revolution, its arguable, was the most important event in American History. Revolution, it creates the nation, sets the nation in motion. And the revolution becomes like a we still think the revolution becomes an enduring symbol for what the nation is all about, fighting for liberty. There are many different ways in which fighting for liberty takes itself manifests itself. Even in the civil war, the revolutionary period is almost like a biblical text of its own. Because both the confederates and the unionists are arguing that they are the ones who are best following in the footsteps of the revolutionary patriots. So we could seriously make this case that the American Revolution was the most pivotal event in American History. And the bible was arguably the most influential book in the revolutionary period. Its the book that the most people knew about. The book that the most people read. The book that the most people honored as authority. Theres some differences in the way that people read the bible then and the way people read the bible now. When people read the bible then, this was before a lot of higher criticism and arguments over different ways of reading the bible, from historical perspectives and other perspectives. More or less when people read the bible, they read the bible. As it was. And pretty much took it as it was. Thats not to say there werent skeptics on the bible. Certainly some of the founders and others in the enlightenment era were skeptical about different views of the bible. There was some biblical skepticism. From my study, i believe that biblical skepticism did in no way interfere with biblical patriotism. Some of the same people who were rather skeptical about scripture as authoritative, as all word of god, as completely true, also used scripture and understood scripture to make claims about patriotism, loyalty, sacrifice, morality. So regardless of any kind of skeptical views of scripture as revolution, scrip tough was still politically significant. So through the revolution, then, columns became patriotically american. So did the bible. One of the things that i find reading through especially into the 19th century, it really would have helped if i had written a civil war book first, then i would have understood the revolution a little better. But then i had to write the revolution book to understand the civil war better. Its a vicious cycle. We probably should have to go back and rewrite our books. But one of the things i see over and over through the civil war, from both sides, in honoring the patriots and honoring the revolution, honoring scripture goes hand in hand. And as part of that, theres this sense that the bible itself is the nations book. That the bible that the nation itself has a biblical kind of aura around it. That its a biblical nation, although they disagree radically over what that means. But it did when i say that the bible became patriotically american, in many cases people see it as a patriotic book. That the bible preaches patriotism. If the bible did preach patriotism or teach patriotism, its a militant patriotism. One of the things that we cannot ignore Going Forward is the militancy of scripture. Thats something we really have to come to terms with. One of my favorite sections of professor George Marsdens book on Jonathan Edwards, he makes the comment Jonathan Edwards is one of my other kinds of interesting favorite people to read. Though i dont agree with everything he said and all the images he preached. But Jonathan Edwards lived in a world, and the world that he lived in was very much like the world we see in lord of the rings and star wars. Just this idea that were in this kind of enchanted world, and its good versus evil. That what we see on a daily life, in our daily life, is not just what we see. Theres more to it than that. Theres good versus evil everywhere, and were always in the midst of it. And its a very meaningful struggle. I think we have to remember that. I think that has to be part of that, part of any understanding of this time and understanding of scripture. Because scriptures read in that kind of context. Thats where we get to military and spiritual warfare and the violent imagery there. And im not saying its good or bad, im just saying we have to think about it. Its certainly part of the tradition. I mean, look through your hymns and in churches if you have a hymn book thats there in the pew. Notice all the imagery thats kind of militaristic imagery. Its part of scripture. Its there. That leads us into conversations about religious violence. And to the extent that thats still a conversation that we have to be a part of. We have to come to terms with how we view the militaristic images in scripture. In which contexts should they be interpreted . Theres also this just war and sacred war kind of question. Inevitably, people ask and the email correspondence that ive received on this book where people will ask, was the revolutionary war a just war, or was the revolutionary war a holy war . Were they fighting a holy war . Or were they fighting a just war . And my answer is always, yes. And by that i mean, they lived in a world in which just war theory was prominent. Specifically, they believed that they were not to be fighting wars of vengeance, wars in which god had sent them to war and they were just to annihilate everyone, in the hebrew bible, the Old Testament pajs. They believed in just war theory, and there were certain rules about going to war. So they argued specifically, many times revolutionaries would say, were arguing a just war, theyd talk in just war, just war terminology. At the same time, they couldnt help also talking about a just war could also an godly war because god was a god of justice. So theres not really a stark division. And i like another quote from George Marsden, George Marsden in one of his writings is talking about just war theory. He said the problem with just war theory is theory. Its too theoretical, it doesnt always deal with how people behave. I find that the case also in reading these texts on the bible and the American Revolution. Thank you. I really appreciate this. Its been a great opportunity. Thank you. Join us saturday at 9 30 a. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. At the American Civil War museum in richmond, virginia, for live coverage of the civil wars impact on americans. Speakers include peter carmichael, director Gettysburg College civil war institute. James robertson, author of the untold civil war. Jane schultz, author of women at the front. Amy morrell taylor, author of the divided family in civil war america. At 8 00 p. M. On lectures in history, from the Georgetown University law center, guest speaker thomas west talks about the his book the political theory of the american founding. In a republican form of government, namely based on consent, elections, virtue is needed in more than in any other form of government. Because in a republic, the people themselves pick the rulers. Sunday at 4 00 p. M. On reel america, the 1956 film a city decides about the Historic Supreme Court decision brown v. Board of education. Intergroup youth had delegates from all the high schools in st. Louis. Well, all i know is at our school, theres some kids who just dont like colored people. Some of the kids at our school dont like white people either. I think its the individual that counts. How are you going to get to know a person unless you meet them . When the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal, these children were ready. At 6 00 p. M. On american artifacts, we look at a selection of Clifford Berrymans popular political cartoons from the early 20th century. And Clifford Berryman continued to draw for the washington evening star for the next 42 years. His cartoons appeared almost daily. Usually on the front page of the paper. Very prominently placed. You have quite an illustrious career. Watch American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Monday on cspans landmark cases, well look at the Supreme Court case mccullough v. Maryland that solidified the federal governments ability to take actions not explicitly mentioned in the constitution and restricted state action against the legitimate use of this power. Explore this case and the high courts ruling with university of virginia associate law professor Farah Peterson and mark killenbeck, university of arkansas law professor and author of mccullough v. Maryland securing a nation. Watch landmark cases live monday at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. For background order a copy of the landmark cases companion book, available for 8. 95 plus shipping and handling at cspan. Org landmarkcases. And for an additional resource, theres a link on our website to the National Constitution centers interactive constitution. Next, a panel of historians takes questions about the bibles influence on the american founders. They also talked about religious liberty, democracy, and a republican form of government. This panel was hosted by the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. Thank you, danielle. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time at lunch and in the museum. If you will please take a moment to silence your cell phone or any other device that you might have with you. Please join me in giving our speak areas round of applause, theyve done an outstanding job. Today has really been an interesting look at how the bible influenced the people and events of the American Revolution and our nations founding. Im going to thank you to those that have submitted questions. Im going to randomly go through these. For our speakers. Well start with are dr. Kidd. Franklin quoted god helps those who help themselves, and can you put that into context in your remarks of franklins belief . Well, that is an example of franklin, that Poor Richards almanac was full of aphorisms that sounded like proverbs and sometimes they were proverbs. And i think that that type of philosophy, of god helps those who help themselves, is an excellent example of this type of emphasis on virtue and morality and industry and true gality that were the hallmarks of franklins philosophy about religion and morality. And so but theres a way in which i mean, it that statement in particular i think sort of decenters god in a way that his calvinist forbears would not have wanted to do. The point for his parents would be you dont need god just to help you, you need god to change your life. And what needs to happen is that if converted by an experience of gods grace transforming power and then were enabled to live a godly, moral life where i think that that type of philosophy of god helps those who help themselves is more of a god as a kind of supplement. That if you follow gods principles and you work hard and youre honest, that things will go well for you. Which is a kind of classic american creed. It may be that it sits somewhat uncomfortably with the council of scripture. Would you say that is a deist statement . Yeah, i would say that it has a kind of deist flavor to it in the sense of god, you know maybe being active, but also somewhat, you know you need to take responsibility for yourself, that gods work, gods power, is not the first thing that you need. The first thing that you need in that kind of formula is your own initiative. And so, again, god is being decentered a little bit. It seems to me just knowing what i know about franklin, that its a sense of god being a little bit secondary or distant. Great. Thank you. Another question from the audience for dr. Dreisbeck, i understand our government is a republic, so many people in america say its a democracy, can it be both . Or is it both . Well, the constitution explicitly makes reference to republican form of government. But i certainly dont think that these are inconsistent in some ways in which they manifest themselves. If you take the words and look at it in its purest definition there might be some restrictions. But let me just remind you of the core of what republicanism would have meant to i think most 18th century americans, which is government by the consent of the government as represented through representatives. In that second aspect could perhaps come into some tension with democracy in the purest form, but i think as these words might have been used at this time in history, they would not have seemed such a sharp clash between the two, they certainly did not view that some expressions and manifest case m of the peoples voice in republicanism as they understood it. If i could jump in there, too. You know, when i explain this to my students, i mean, the founders view of pure democracy, which they would have thought was a really bad idea, as if, you know, every single question that any level of government deals with, then the people have to vote on, say, a popular referendum, on every question. And so, you know, do they have the expertise to make these sorts of decisions . Probably not. If its an issue about some complex Foreign Policy issue or financial issue, banking issue, Something Like that. And so the ideal is that you elect people who do have sufficient expertise in these kind of areas, who the founders would have hoped these people would also be virtuous. Knowledgeable, independent people who then on behalf of the people can make informed decisions about these various kind of policy issues. So thats why i think i mean, weve definitely become more democratic since 1776, 1787. Because, number one, we have a lot more kinds of people voting. And so women, lets just start with women can vote. Lots of ethnic minorities now participate where they couldnt have at the time of the founding. But i still think that its, you know its fundamentally a democratic republic that we have, as opposed to a pure democracy that the founders would have considered to be illconsidered and chaotic. Republicanism is another way of putting a check on the exercise of power. That comes back to the biblical anthropology that we are fallen creatures and we need as many checks and restraints as we can possibly manage. In the way we frame or government. Thank you. Dr. Berg this one is for you. Could you please expound more on Thomas Jeffersons religious views . Thomas jeffersons religious views . Yes. Okay. I didnt mention Thomas Jefferson. That might be well jump in. You may be able to jump in. Yeah, i mean my basic understanding of Thomas Jefferson is that he was a little more purely deistic in what he had to say. He famously trimmed the bible of certain texts that were miraculous because he mainly wanted to concentrate on the life and morals of jesus and see jesus as this example for morality, which was the key thing for him. And other than that, you know, thats i dont know much else about jeffersons religious views. I sometimes use the term, he was adhere rent of a natural religion, where he saw human reason as the final arbiter at the end of the day. Which gave him pause when he encountered the transcendent claims, the miraculous claims that he read in the bible. If he couldnt understand or explain it through reason, then he had questioned reason to doubt it. Having said that, he thought jesus of nazareth, who was the greatest moral teacher that there ever was, and there was great value in studying that. The kind of religion that he would have warmed to would have been nondogmatic. It would have been nonhierarchal. I think he was very distrustful of churches in which their government was very hierarchal, episcopal, oriented around bishops, for example. I think he had a certain affinity, even though he may not have embraced the specifics, with more congregational type expressions. The baptists in their church goshance. So he liked that kind of church governance, quite apart from the belief system. But i think talking here about a very nondogmatic, a religion that could be explained in rational terms. Famously, he got along well with baptists because they agreed on political views. They agreed on separation of church and state. He had sort of a fascinating relationship with baptists. John wheeland, one of the major baptist figures in the period, who was both kind of southern and new england, he kind of moved around and preached, loved Thomas Jefferson. He actually talked about thomas he was a very fervent biblebelieving baptist. And but he loved jefferson. He thought jefferson was a gift of god. And he knew about jefferson to the extent about jeffersons theology, that he disagreed with. But he thought jefferson was just such a gift to the nation because of jeffersons politics. And he spoke about him like he was a biblical figure or something. So he had religious meaning and value for even for baptists who disagreed with him, and he values the ban tistptists take politics because they agreed so well with as you were describing, viewing religion as basically morality and freedom for individuals. If you look at his account books, he was very generous in giving money to ministers. He maintained tripps with many ministers. Including ministers he would not have agreed with on theological matters. And i think that was of some importance to him. When you look at jeffersons views, especially some of the anticlerical statements that he makes, and he makes some very harsh ones, i think its always useful to look at the context in which he makes them. For example, some of the harsh anticlerical statements he makes is right in the midst of the war where he sees so many especially anglican ministers are leaving, theyre siding with the loyalists. At the same time, hes expressing great friendship and admiration with other 18 lick can herein administers who have sided with the patriot cause. The same comes up in the election of 1800. He is harshly attacked by the congregationalist ministers in new england. And so, again, hes very i think hes deeply and personally wounded by some of the things they say about him. And so again, i think you have to look at the context in which he makes some of the harsh statements against clergymen around the election of 1800, if we jump ahead another decade and a half, he runs into conflicts with presbyterians in Central Virginia over whos going to be the professors at his new university of virginia. There were some presbyterian ministers in his own community that were not keen on some of the people he wanted to hire. And again, he kind of lashes out in some very harsh anticlerical statements. And so i think its always useful to look at the political contexts in which he makes some of these statements to understand where hes coming from with that particular kind of expression from jefferson. Thank you. This next question is for dr. Kidd. Did franklins knowledgeable but nondoctrinal faith make him a better Bridge Builder between various religious groups . Did a similar thing work for lincoln . Yeah, i think it did. He was on very friendly terms with lots of different kinds of churches and ministers. When he was in philadelphia, he most commonly would attend the citys anglican church, church of england. His wife i think was more devout, she was a anglican, he would go with her to church. He gave money for the 18 lick can church to be expand. Some people said it was so he would have a higher steeple for his electrical experiment. But i think he also thought the church was a good thing. But he even gave money to help build a synagogue in philadelphia. So it wasnt just charity and benevolence extended to different kinds of christian denominations, but even to jews too. So, i mean, i think thats an upside to me of franklins kind of nondogmatic approach is that he was very ironic, very he definitely thought in a way that jefferson didnt, he thought institutional religion even is a good thing. And so he was keen to help a lot of different kinds of churches. If he weyou were here for my ta this morning you remember john adams saying every Christian Group probably thought he was one of them, the reason for that was he was trendily to groups in a very harsh time of interdenominational conflict, especially between catholics and protestants. But when franklin had the opportunity to visit the continent of europe, he was very complimentary towards catholics and catholic churches. Never quite got over some of his deepbred anticatholic sentiments that he grew up with, so at other times would make some nasty statements about catholics. But yeah, he was level a Bridge Builder between a lot of different kinds of denominations and relimb johns. And i think that reflected the fact that he basically had a positive view of religion and churchgoing and that sort of thing, just as long as you didnt use it to beat people over the head with doctrine. And did you did a similar thing work for lincoln . Oh, right. You know, i dont know as much about lincoln. Maybe professor byrd can Say Something about this. I mean, i think that lincoln definitely has, especially as a leader washington was like this too of making sure to reach out to different leaders of different denominations to say, we need your support, and youre valued here. This sort of thing. So i think in washington, lincolns case that you see that kind of principled outreach to different kinds of denominations. Yeah, i mean, with i think thats true. With lincoln, theres so much consistency i think that inn that comparison. Thats why i think its helpful. The only distinction that we might make with lincoln is that he had as strong a sense of prove determinism i think as anyone. Clearly believed in providence. However, he had a very pessimistic kind of providence. And part of this was his time, part of it was probably the war. But he you can see this even in his famous speeches where he talks about, we need to be on gods side. He talks about maybe god is not really in favor of what were doing. Maybe we are going down the wrong road in various ways. So he had a strong sense of gods judgment on the nation. And that i think may have been somewhat unique. And probably again, its easy to think of these figures as just kind of isolated intellects reflecting out of kind of out of body. But they were living people and situations. As professor dreisbeck talks about with specific situations with jeff so that, you have to think about the context. The same is true with lincoln. The context his entire presidency, and hes the only president who could say this i think, his entire presidency was bounded by war. From the time he took office, it was conflict. Thats what he dealt with. I notice when i read David Mcculloughs biography of john adams, john adams was also attending, wherever he was, Different Church services, different denominations. I found that to be unusual compared to how we attend church today. It seems like we go to our denomination. Do you feel like that visiting various churches we mentioned that was bridgebuilding with our earlier founders. Is that something that could help us with that today . Well, i think that that youre right, i mean, and in the 1700s, theres such intense conflict between especially catholic and protestant, also between baptists and congregationalists. Arguing about the difference between presbyterian and congregationalist pollty. Thats like an issue you shed blood over, right . It speaks to a time when people were, number one, a lot more theologically conversant than we are today. I mean but they also took these things, you know, so seriously. I think in retrospect you think especially in our day and time when you cant take christian commitment for granted in the culture. So it doesnt seem like you want to be fighting about those kind of issues anymore. But i think one of the real breakthroughs came with the new evangelical movement of the 1730s and 40s. If youve been to the museum youve seen about George Whitfield and the great awakening theater they have here. One of the things that was so distinctive about whitfield, who was the greatest evangelicalist of that era, that even though he was an 18 lick can minister, a church of england minister, especially in america he cooperated very avidly with nonanglicans, anybody who was supportive of his message of the new birth of salvation, being born again, this is the experience that all people need to have. He was quite willing to preach in their churches and to preach alongside them. And he was upbraided by anglican authorities about saying, why are you cooperating so much with the dissenters . The baptists and the presbyterians and the congregationalists and the quakers. And he said, because i see born again people among all denominations. So thats a unity thats born to me out of a specific kind of religious principle, which is the belief and the need for conversion and being born again. So theres a way in which i think these two trends towards religious unity are happening at the same time. One is the evangelical unity around the new birth of salvation, one is the enlightenment kind of trend of saying, we need to stop fighting about differences in theology, we need to stop having wars and murdering people over the differences small, apparently, differences in theology. These are both surging at the same time, and so you end up getting people like jefferson and john leland that you mentioned before who have very different personal views about theology, who have identical views about the role of religion in American Public life, which is that we need to have full religious liberty, that the government shouldnt persecute people because of their religious beliefs, that you should let people meet in their own churches in freedom, that you shouldnt force them to pay religious taxes to support a church they dont attend, which is what most people in the colonial era had to do. So, i mean, yeah, i think that theres this is why that tradition of religious liberty is so important. And i mean, it doesnt mean i mean, we all only have so much time, we dont have time to be attending everybodys church and such, i understand that. But we should at least follow their example and say, religious liberty is for everybody. I think theres a couple interesting things going on when you look at some of the communication that the founders and particular washington during the time of his inauguration communicated with two or three dozen religious societies across the spectrum. These are main groups and minority communities. There are several things going on. He wants to reassure them they are part of the american experiment. He wants to bring them into the fold and ensure they are full participants and have parked his experience. They use is a prime duty use this opportunity to communicate to that community at large. Writing letters to religious societies and groups was one of the ways to communicate to a broad audience. All of the early president s used to letter writing to religious society as a way to communicate important ideas. Washington is talking succinctly about conceptions of religious liberty. Thomas jefferson used a letter to a Baptist Association to express the famous metaphor of a world of separation between church and state. A few years later, the closing days of his presidency, he writes to a method is society and says, the deer is part of our constitution is the part that protects the liberty of conscience. They are using these communications to express heartfelt issues and important issues. Its important to focus on these communications because the societies are communicating with them also. They are communicating their concerns and fears. The concerns about their liberty and matters of religion will be respected. It helps them understand the fears and concerns of religious minorities and have an american understanding of religious liberty that would include them. Thank you. Dr. Byrd, this next question is for you and its a long one. Take notes. You reference david as a model for war, a man after gods own heart and yet a man of war. God said to david because he was a man of war and shed much blood on the earth, david would not be the one to build god a house but rather his son, solomon, a man of peace. God said reconcile these as you can. I think its fascinating that opponents of war did not use that text reference. Part of the reason could be there were other text less obscure and more to the moment in terms of Something Like the sermon on the mount. Someone who is a patriot and are going to go to war, i will not mention that incident. Its a valid point in many ways. It does not undercut the larger point that god, in some ways when david went to war and defeated goliath and the philistines, scripture speaks he was doing gods work and doing back. I think its a complicated question. I did not see it in the research i did. I did not see anyone pointing that out and saying those of you calling david a warrior, you might want to think about this. That is one of the texts they drew on and it made an interesting point. It would have helped to reinforce the argument for not only pacifists but those that were not but did not exactly support the war for run reason or another. For one reason or another. Dr. Kidd, what they consider christ before his death . I dont know that he did, he did not have much time left, he was dead five weeks after franklin responded. It is true there were people all through franklins life who are directly imploring franklin to accept christ as his savior. This is one of the reasons why i dont see franklin as a traditional christian because the traditional christians around franklin did not think he was a christian. The best example is George Whitfield, who i mentioned a minute ago, whitfield and franklin were friends and Business Associates for 30 years. They had a transparent relationship about understanding they were not on the same page spiritually. Whitfield thought franklin needed to do something about that. Whitfield would pull no punches and say, you need to put your faith in christ for salvation. Franklin with say, im all set. They would have these conversations. My favorite is in the 1750s, whitfield wrote a letter to franklin. They are business partners, franklin publishes a lot of whitfield stuff. Whitfield says i need you to take care of this publication and so forth. Now, by the way, ive noticed the success you have had with electrical experiments. You have made progress in understanding the mysteries of electricity. Now i implore you to consider the mysteries of new growth in christ. You can imagine franklin rolling his eyes. Whitfield was constantly talking to him. I wonder what the private conversations were because they were not recorded. I wish i couldve been there. Franklin and his sister had conversations like that. There was one time, after franklin had made it big in publishing and went back to boston from philadelphia to visit his family, it is clear they fought. This is one of the struggles you have writing a biography of any late 18th century figure like this, almost all the letters that jane wrote to ben franklin are lost because they throw priceless stuff in the trash. It breaks her heart. Its like listening to a phone conversation where you only hear the one side. Been writes back to her later and says im sorry we fought. And sends her a gift to say she was sorry for being harsh. They were fighting about whether you need god to be moral. She was saying to him, you need to have god change your heart or you can never be truly moral. He said i dont think you do and they fought about that. The point is, franklin throughout his life, his response to styles, i have never been asked about this before, it is exasperating because the truth is, people have been asking about this his whole life. It was a constant theme for him. Thank you. Dr. Dreisbach, since america and her constitution were established with the knowledge and reference to the bible, how long can we maintain these establishments if we continue to move away from Biblical Foundation . That is a hard question. I would start by saying i think its important we understand where these ideas came from. I also think you understand why they were perceived important in their own time and then we can ask the hard question, are those reasons still pertinent to us today . I think my own view of politics generally are things like the constitution cannot be divorced from the political culture or the culture at large. You can take a well conceived constitution like the american constitution, and you can put it into a different cultural context and it will not work. This is not just true for our own constitution but attempts to import other constitutions around the world. I think its always useful to understand a context in which a constitution is written and in which it is designed to work. My own view is the founders generally viewed religion as indispensable to their projects. Washington himself speaks to this in his farewell address. Of all the habits in this position which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. He does not flush out what that expression of religion looks like. He is telling us that religion and morality are indispensable to the political contract. He is not thinking in terms of a religious establishment, the kind of formal Institution Establishment that has been here since the time of constantine. He sees an informal role for religion in maintaining this political order. I think they underscore how important this is. I think he is expressing something common of his age. They go on to say, religious morality and they need a man who supports patriotism and leads this. He said religion is indispensable. You can see them undermine. I think his role in the field was essential to survival for self government. I think i agree. There are cautionary notes. The American Culture of 1787. They have different issues. They would agree that virtue is essential. This issue comes up today. People on the secular left will hear, you need abortion, gay marriage, these are hot button issues. I explained to my students, i think almost everybody in america believes we would be better off if we had a Virtuous Society on some things. The financial crisis, if i may, if we have incredibly complex things going on in the financial realm. This helps with these kinds of things. People have trouble understanding this. If everybody is involved in the financial spectrum, we need to be working our best in the industry. Left, right, middle, however, we probably would have done better if we had more pervasive virtue and public spiritedness. That is what the founders meant. I cannot act selfishly because i have to be responsible to the publics interest. We had a financial meltdown which is part of pervasive spirit of greed and selfishness. We are connected to it in america. As a republic, we would have done better if we had more virtue. Thats an example and i like to go to that kind of example because most people can say we can have more virtue in an area like that. We will not agree every day like we see in the news. There are issues of abortion and gay marriage. I have my own opinions about that. Anyone who says virtue and morality, that is passi, people should be able to do what they want and be free to do that. The founders would have said thats a formula for chaos and social breakdown. That is a breakdown which is at war with the concept of liberty. We started this session off talking about the constitution and the influence of the bible on that. You had an opportunity to go down to the second floor and see the bible. How would you describe that on the mayflower compact . You start with who these people were who crafted this document. They were pious people. Not everyone on that ship were pilgrims. It was a mix of people which prompted the crafting of the documents. We start from the proposition that these were people who were on a godly mission, as they understood it. I think they saw themselves in a unique position of human history. You had an opportunity to wipe the plates lien plate clean for human history. They wanted to build a new political system that would avoid some mistakes. We begin to see reflections of that, even in a document like the mayflower compact. It is a brief documents. It does not tell us a lot. It is compact in the sense they are promising to Work Together in a righteous way for something in the future, for some kind of structure. I dont know that we get a lot of insight into constitutionalism through the mayflower compact itself. The seeds of ideas are there for a constitution. These seeds replicate themselves throughout american constitutional history. For example, allamerican constitutions began with, for whom this document is created. We see that in the mayflower compact and the United States constitution, we the people. We see a statement of purpose. We see that in the preamble to the United States constitution. There are three clear and distinct statements and purposes in the mayflower compact. The order is interesting. It is for the gospel and we get around to the king. They affirm their allegiance to the king, that is remarkable in itself. They are fleeing the persecution of the king. It goes back to the healthy respect for authority, they would have read in romans 13 and first peter 12, professor byrd was talking about in his discussion. That reflects a biblical understanding of authority and how you begin to structure a government. Another thing to add to that, regarding all of these agreements in the mayflower contract to our puritan separatists, is the concept of covenant. Sometimes we miss the four indications of what that meant to them. The full ramifications of what that meant to them. God is sovereign and does what god wants, god is omnipotent and omniscient. God makes covenants with humans which is a remarkable statement of love that god puts forth. They read the bible as a series of interlocking covenants. All of their lives are based on covenants with churches, marriage, family, etc. This concept of covenant which is influential overall, they take from scripture, it is in the back of their minds and at the front of their thoughts as they enter these concepts into deals or understandings and negotiations of who they are in the new world. Thank you. Doctor byrd, members of our audience would like to hear more details about the database and what you are gathering and cataloging in that database. Okay. This is interesting. The database for the revolutionaries and projects, i do find it using a program called microsoft access which is part of microsoft office. I went into different primary sources and entered verse by verse everything i found. At the end, after i read as much as i could find, i ran it and printed out the most cited text and i could find where they were. It was a cumbersome thing. For the work project, it is a more streamlined process. I was helped by lincoln mullen, a professor of history. He is an incredible coder, he has our programmer with an algorithm who can sweep through 2000 source texts or more and picks out text string matching. That database is so much larger than the revolutionary period database because you can do more with the text in the mid 19th century. You can scan them and ocr can pick out and understand them. Try that was something written in 1776. Computers will get garbled. Something written by ben franklin to his sister will look like a recipe for chocolate cake or something. It will not have a clue. That is basically what it is. It was a timeconsuming process of assembling data. I hope you have graduate students helping you with that. I have graduate students helping with somethings. I do not want to persecute a graduate student by saying thats too much punishment. Dr. Dreisbach, this is for you, another long question. When the bible is used in political debate, biblical texts will be used without regard to their biblical context in order to serve a partisan political agenda. Do you see evidence of this in the time period of today and are there examples of the bible being taken out of context for immediate Political Goals . Yes, this is one of the concerns i wanted to focus on when i wrote this book on the bible and the founders. I was not only interested in what kinds of texts they were drawn to, i was interested in whether they were using these texts in ways that were consistent with the biblical context in which we find them. The record is mixed. There are examples where i think you see founders using biblical texts in ways that are more faithful to the biblical context. For example, you see references in the founding literature to micah 6 8. Walk humbly with your god. In my adult life, i heard a dozen sermons on that. It is focused on my individual virtue. That is what god requires of me individually. Quite often when you see this in the literature of the american foundation, they properly understood this is what theologians called covenant text. This was gods grievance against the nation of israel. At the end of that text, the children of israel had been convinced they had broken the covenant with god, what must we do to make things right . This is when god, through the prophet micah, you must have justice and mercy. Theres a richer understanding of this biblical context if you understand this is about a grievance god has with his people. Its not just gods instruction to me as an individual. Having said that, there are other texts where they are misappropriating biblical texts. I made a reference to this in my talk this morning. For example, uses of new testament language on liberty. Americans at this period loved new testament texts that used the word liberty. I mentioned galatians 5 1, stand fast and the crisis will make you free. There are other similar texts. They love to quote this. In my readings, these are more about Christian Liberty or spiritual liberty than political liberty. It is interesting this debate over if the use of this text was appropriate in the 18th century. There are those that say not so fast, that is not about clinical liberty. Disking from loyalist ministers who called out these patriots for their misuse or misappropriation of the language of liberty. There would have been a back andforth, is it appropriate to use this ng