The Declaration and the Constitution: Their Christian Roots.
The Declaration of Independence indeed shows its Christian roots. However, the original draft of the Declaration, written by Thomas Jefferson, was very vague in showing religious connections. It only mentioned one embedded reference to God, "the laws of nature and of nature's God," which is a direct reference to the laws of God, described in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government and William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. Later, the language of the Declaration was changed around to favor a more religious tone. Phrases such as all men are "endowed by their Creator" with these rights, "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions" and "firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence," are examples of changes made to the Declaration.
Christianity also greatly influenced the Constitution. Fifty-five of the men who signed the Constitution were church members who certified the Christian faith.
Also, when political historians gathered 15,000 writings from the Founding Era (1760-1805), 3154 citations were found in them, and of these citations the most frequently cited are from the Bible. In addition, the writers from the Foundering Era quoted from the Bible 34 percent of the time. What is more intriguing was that about three-fourths of all annotations to the Bible came from reprinted sermons from that era. In terms of framing the government, leaders took a more Biblical view on human nature. If there was no government that would mean men did not need to be governed because they are not sinful, but we all know that is not the case. Framing a republic form of government needs a balance of power to control this sin a free human dignity. This is in strong relation to a Christian view...
Rulers
Catholics once prided themselves on their fidelity and devotion to monarchy, both temporal in their country, and spiritual through God and the Papacy. The Church crowned kings and emperors in sacred ceremonies just as King Saul, King David, King Solomon and their descendants were anointed by holy men to finalize their role as God\'s lieutenant in care of a nation. God called King David a man after His own heart and said that King Solomon would be called His son and that He would be called His father.
The problem today is that democracy has become God to many people around the world. When Catholics began abandoning monarchy for the seeming success of the democratic republic they knowingly or ignorantly embraced the ideology of the Puritans of Oliver Cromwell: that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Clearly this is not so! God warned us that the majority will follow the easy path to destruction and only a few will take the narrow path of goodness. Ultimately, things got so bad that even the Church stopped crowning new Popes begining with John Paul I. Liberal ideas the Church would have once shunned are now being embraced, and Rome is going to have to pay the price.
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