The American founders, when framing their governments, looked to the Bible for insights into human nature, civic virtue, social order, political authority and other concepts essential to the establishment of a political society. They saw in Scripture political and legal models - such as republicanism, separation of powers, and due process of law - that they believed enjoyed divine favor and were worthy of emulation in their polities.
The republican model described in the Hebrew Scriptures reassured pious Americans that republicanism was a political system favored by God.
I define the terms "founding fathers" and "founders" broadly to include an entire generation or two of Americans from many walks of life who, in the last half of the 18th century and early 19th century, articulated the rights of colonists, secured independence from Great Britain, and established new constitutional republics at both the national and state levels. This definition includes a cast of thousands who played their patriotic part at the local, state, and/or national levels. Among them were citizen soldiers, elected representatives, polemicists, and patriot preachers.
I contend that no book figured more prominently than the Bible in the political thought of these patriots we call the founders.
God elevates nations that behave in conformity with God's standards but he withdraws his blessings from a people who disregard those standards.
Nations, as well as individuals, must be virtuous and righteous if they desire to be stable, prosperous, and tranquil.
The true greatness of a nation lies in its character, not in its economic or military power.
God ordained and established civil government, but only to serve the common good. A civil government that oppresses its people and acts contrary to the people's interests deposes itself, ceases to be a legitimate government, and, therefore, citizens are no longer obligated by Scripture to obey it.
Just as the children of Israel were directed by God to depart from the land of their oppression with its tyrannical monarch, cross a great sea, and establish a new nation, so, too, the children of Great Britain were led by God to leave the land of their religious oppression, cross a great ocean, inhabit a promised land, and, eventually, resist a "tyrannical" George III and create a new nation in "God's American Israel."
There were many Americans in the Revolutionary era who believed that they, like the children of Israel, were oppressed by their colonial rulers, and they looked to God for deliverance from the tyranny of their pharaoh, George III.
Most of what the founders knew about the Hebraic republic, it must be emphasized, they learned from the Bible. These Americans were well aware that ideas like republicanism found expression in traditions apart from the Hebrew experience, and, indeed, they studied these traditions both ancient and modern.
One should study the Bible alongside other intellectual traditions - such as British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and classical republicanism - in order to truly understand the American founding.
