Who Created American Morality?

As Christians should be and must be active in the public square, they also must be aware of the intense opposition they will face because of the different moralities in the two domains on the earth, the heavenly domain and the worldly one. The popular assumption in the public arena today is that God is not relevant there anymore.

The new perception of the irrelevance of God in the public arena is a disastrous plot against Christianity. Christians need continuous reminders of American history as one key to pushing against this false assumption. In the 1830s, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueveille traveled to America to study life in this new and exciting nation. Upon his arrival, he wrote about his discoveries in a book entitled, Democracy in America. Written from an outsider’s perspective and just fifty years from the writing of the American Constitution, Tocqueveille wrote,

I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion; for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of society.[1]

What amazing observations from a historian’s and a journalist’s 1830’s perspective. To consider how quickly society dismisses such a powerful testimony today as irrelevant or old news is shameful.

George Washington, the first president of these United States, said in his farewell address to the nation that the base of political prosperity was upon the two indispensible supports of religion and morality. He is quoted as saying that any person who sought to subvert either of these two supports could not claim to be a patriot.[2] John Adams, the second American president, declared that the founding fathers wrote the constitution and founded the nation itself upon the presupposition that the nation was devoted fully to religion and morality. President Adams is quoted as saying, “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."[3]

Consider a more recent president’s opinion of the place of religion and morality in the public arena. Woodrow Wilson, a twentieth-century president wrote the following words.

"We know that there is a standard set for us in the heavens, a standard revealed to us in this book [the Bible] which is the fixed and eternal standard by which we judge ourselves. . . . We do not judge progress by material standards. America is not ahead of other nations of the world because she is rich. Nothing makes America great except her thoughts, except her ideals, except her acceptance of those standards of judgment which are written large upon these pages of revelation. . . . Let no man suppose that progress can be divorced from religion, or that there is any other platform for the ministers of reform than the platform written in the utterances of our Lord and Savior. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."[4]

Why do presidents not say things like this anymore? Some do, just not often in public. Seemingly political correctness is winning the day, causing well-meaning Christian leaders only to speak softly about their beliefs and values. We should not allow the churches, the schools, the government buildings, the marketplace, or anywhere to be quarantined as places where the Christian voice should or should not be heard. Every Christian has a part to play. As a family and as an individual, consider what that might mean for you today. What part does each Christian play in standing up for God, for Christian morality, for truth in American society today?
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(1) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: George Dearborn & Co, 1838), 286-87.

(2)The quotation in its full context is, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars.” James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Published by the authority of Congress, 1854), 220.

(3)John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Frances Adams (Boston: Little Brown, 1854), 229.

(4)Woodrow Wilson used these words in a speech, given to a crowd of approximately twelve thousand people on May 7, 1911. Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 18, 20.