The American Legacy

A Republic of Virtueand

The American Trinity

INDEPENDENCE DAY

• Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

By July 4, 1776 there were 13 COLONIES

136 YEARS HAD PAST SINCE THE FOUNDING OF THE 1ST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT

17th Century America – Experienced Exponential Growth

• Jamestown, Virginia 1607

• The Mayflower 1620

• By 1630• population 4,300

• By 1650• population

50,400• By 1670

• population 111,900

• By 1770• population

2,148,000

136 YEARS FROM JAMESTOWNTO JULY 4, 1776

• WERE YEARS OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH

• WERE YEARS OF RELIGIOUS AWAKENING

• In the New England Colonies, primarily Puritan, religious instruction was of paramount importance and led to the development of advanced educationalinstitutions.

INTELLECTUAL GROWTHColonial Colleges

• Harvard 1636 Calvinists (Congregational

Puritans) • Yale 1701 Congregational • Pennsylvania 1740 Anglican• Princeton 1746 Presbyterian • Columbia 1754 Anglican • Brown 1764 Baptist • Dartmouth 1769 Calvinists

(Congregational)

INTELLECTUAL GROWTHColonial Christian College Mottos

• Harvard Veritas (Truth)

• Yale Lux et veritas (Light and truth)

• Pennsylvania Leges sine moribus vanae (Laws without morals are useless)

• Princeton Dei sub numine viget (Under God's power she flourishes)

• Columbia In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy

light shall we see the light) • Brown In Deo Speramus (In God We Hope) • Dartmouth Vox clamantis in deserto (The voice of

one crying in the wilderness)

INTELLECTUAL GROWTHTHE IVY LEAGUE

RELIGIOUS AWAKENINGThe Great Awakening 1730s & 1740s

George Whitefield

Benjamin Franklin

The American Revolution

The American Revolution was a costly war that lasted from 1775 to 1783 and secured American independence from the power of the British crown, which wanted to keep its empire whole.

What Caused the war? 

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 1754–1763

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

• Britain imposed a series TAXES including:

• The Sugar Act - 1764• The Stamp Act - 1765• The Declaratory Act 1766• The Townshend Revenue Act 1767• The Tea Act – 1773 gave the East

India Company a monopoly on the tea trade

and the Boston Tea Party• Taxation without representation

Sugar Act (1764)

Taxes put on…

…SUGAR

…MOLASSES

…INDIGO

…COFFEE

Stamp Act (1765)

Taxes put on…

...NEWSPAPERS (New York

Gazetteer, Feb. 15, 1775)

...LEGAL DOCUMENTS …PLAYING

CARDS

…DICE

Repressive Measures

TAXATION W/O REPRESENTATION WAS JUST ONE (#17) OF 27 GRIEVANCES LISTED IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ALSO LISTED WERE:

• ABUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE POWERS• ABUSE OF MILITARY POWERS• ABUSE OF JUDICIAL POWERS• STIRRING UP DOMESTIC INSURRECTION

Repressive Measures

• Coercive Acts (after the Boston Tea Party) • Closed port of Boston• took over the government of

Massachusetts• Established military rule

• Warrantless Searches• Quartering Act• Writs of Assistance

Repressive Measures• 1772 KING GEORGE VETOED THE FORMATION OF

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES AS THEY COMPETED AGAINST THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH - RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

• 1774 PENNSYLVANIA ABOLISHED SLAVERY BUT KING GEORGE III VETOED THE LAW

Colonial Resistance

• Boycotts• Representational organizations - Daughters of

the Revolution• Militias - Sons of Liberty • The Boston Tea Party 1773• Continental Congress – Philadelphia 1774• Armed resistance – 1775

• Lexington – the shot heard around the world• The Olive Branch Petition 1775 / K. George III -

Rejected • The Declaration of Independence

• July 4, 1776 • Full-scale War

The Constitution of the United States 1788

Boston Tea Party

UMMMMM COFFEEEEE!!!!

July 4, 1776

A MOST UNIQUE DECLARATION

According to Dr. Daniel N. Robinson, Oxford University,

“Never before had a new government been brought into being by a document declaring the very ends and purposes of government to be life, liberty and happiness of those governed.”

Declaration of IndependenceThe First Sentence the Declaration calls upon an authority higher than man:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Within the Preamble of theDeclaration of Independence We Find 3 American Values

GOD

LIBERTY

E PLURIBUS UNUM

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 

with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

AMERICAN VALUESThe American Trinity (Dennis Praeger)

ENSHRINED ON OUR CURRENCY

3 UNIQUE AMERICAN VALUES

•IN GOD WE TRUST•LIBERTY•EPLURIBUS UNUM

IN GOD WE TRUSTWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 

The Founders had a biblical knowledge of God as Creator:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

- Genesis 1:26-28

IN GOD WE TRUSTThe founders:

Believed in GOD; the GOD of the Hebrew bible and were preoccupied with the Bible

Believed in forming a God based country with a non denominational government

Believed in forming a government based on Judeo-Christian values and not Judeo-Christian theology

Believed in the necessity of God for morality, for without God, men’s morals are corruptible, and can easily be changed

IN GOD WE TRUST Of 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention,

the vast majority were professing Christians and actively affiliated with Christian churches –

28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Reformed, 2 Lutherans, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 religions preference was unknown, and 3 Deists (Franklin, and Jefferson).

IN GOD WE TRUST Deist Benjamin Franklin proposed that each session

open with prayer “imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings.”

Deist Thomas Jefferson, “The doctrines of Jesus are

simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.”

Believed that God judges nations

Believed that human life is sacred, we were made in the image of God and

“…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”

IN GOD WE TRUST The Founders: Believed in the sinful nature of man kind***

Sinful nature required a separation of powersExecutive, Legislative and Judicial

The “Worldview” of the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States was “Judeo-Christian” through and through.

IN GOD WE TRUST

IN GOD WE TRUST The phrase appears to have

originated in the Star-Spangled Banner, written during the War of 1812. The fourth stanza includes the phrase, "And this be our motto: 'In God is our Trust.'"

IN GOD WE TRUST

Congress passed an Act on April 22, 1864….to be placed on coinage and IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin.

IN GOD WE TRUST

3 UNIQUE AMERICAN VALUES

•IN GOD WE TRUST•LIBERTY•EPLURIBUS UNUM

LIBERTY

THE FOUNDERS UNDERSTOOD SPIRITUAL LIBERTY

• “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (KJV)

- John 8:32

• “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

- 2 Corinthians 3:17

THE FOUNDERS SOUGHT LIBERTY

FREEDOM IN POLITICS FREEDOM OF RELIGIONFREEDOM OF ASSEMBLYFREEDOM OF SPEECHFREEDOM OF THE PRESSFREEDOM OF PROPERTY OWNERSHIPFREEDOM TO SEEK ECONOMIC SUCCESSFREEDOM FROM STATE OPRESSIONFREEDOM TO BEAR ARMSFREEDOM FROM UNWARRANTED SEARCHESFREEDOM FROM TAXATION W/O REPRESENTATION FREEDOM FROM FEDERAL USURPATION OF STATES RIGHTS (10TH AMENDMENT)

COMMUNIST CUBA• HAVANA – … in December there were

a record 796 temporary arrests for political reasons on the Communist-ruled island.

The government “continues to criminalize, with an anachronistic Penal Code, the free exercise of all civil, political, economic and cultural rights,” the commission said in a report.

- Latin American Herald Tribune, Caracas, Thursday

June 28,2012

IRAN – SHARIA LAW

• Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, 32 Nadarkhani has been jailed since being arrested in 2009 after he went to his son’s school to complain about them starting mandatory Koran classes.

• He was then charged with apostasy from Islam. He was found guilty by the Iranian Supreme Court and sentenced to death and has been imprisoned ever since.

NORTH KOREA• North Korea’s political prison camps have

expanded substantially over the last decade and hold 200,000 people, according to Amnesty International.

• "Hundreds of thousands of people exist with virtually no rights, treated essentially as slaves, in some of the worst circumstances we've documented in the last 50 years," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty's Asia Pacific director.

Shin Dong-hyuk

Shin Dong-hyuk is the only known person born in a North Korean prison camp that escaped and survived to tell the tale.

Shin Dong-hyuk

• North Korea judges any crimes against the state as blood crimes. So when Shin's uncle committed the capital crime of escaping from the state, his remaining family were imprisoned for life….. At [age] 13, [Shin] when he learned that his mother and brother were planning to escape, he … betrayed them to the authorities. The pair were tortured before his mother was hanged and his brother shot. 

HONOR KILLINGS

• "Honor killings" have been reported in countries around the world.

• The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan released its annual report estimating that in 2011 at least 943 women and girls were murdered in familial "honor killings," including 93 minors.

• According to the report, most of the women were killed by husbands or brothers. "Illicit relations" were cited as a reason for 595 cases, and demanding to marry a partner of their choice was noted in 219 cases.

AMERICA – SHARIA LAW

• Noor Almaleki, a 16-year-old girl who had run away from home because her parents were about to send her overseas to enter a forced marriage.

• In October 2009, at age 20, she was killed in when her father ran her down with his car.

• The jury rendered its verdict against Faleh Almaleki; Guilty of second-degree murder.

• Feb. 22 2011

“Proclaim libertythroughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…” Lev. 25:10 (KJV)

3 UNIQUE AMERICAN VALUES

•IN GOD WE TRUST•LIBERTY•E PLURIBUS UNUM

E PLURIBUS UNUM

Independence Day

• E PLURIBUS UNUM

Latin for "Out of many, one"

THE FOUNDERS UNDERSTOOD SPIRITUAL UNITY

But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (KJV)

1 Corinthians 12:20-21

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (KJV) Gal 3:28

E Pluribus Unum

• E Pluribus Unum was the first motto of America. This motto ended any significance people attached to race and ethnicity or blood, each of which has been among the most important values in all societies.

• Outside of the United States, “familism” has been the human norm. From the beginning of societies, people divided the world by blood and marriage ties -- that is, families and tribes.

E Pluribus Unum

• E Pluribus Unum , with its rejection of tribal, family, ethnic, and blood origins, made possible the essential American value -- the individual.

• America's strength and greatness is its “ability to unifying the diverse.”… and that can only be done by celebrating the individual and the nation those individuals form, America.

E Pluribus Unum

E Pluribus Unum

• Americans value nationalism.

• Nationalism creates a barrier to international institutions controlling Americans.

• Americans who affirm American values strongly oppose handing over power to international bodies such as the United Nations and the international Court of Justice. Why?

What is American Exceptionalism?

• It is the belief that America has better values than international institutions do, and because of those values, not because of any inherent superiority, [America] should guide its own destiny.

• Morality trumps international legality as determined by the United Nations.

America is Not Perfect!• The ideals expressed in the declaration of

independence; specifically, • In God we trust, • Liberty, and • E Pluribus Unum • This American Trinity, drove the American

Revolt against Great Britain.

• Those ideals have continued to drive, and chasen, and correct the American people. Abraham Lincoln quoted the declaration of independence to justify the abolition of slavery. The ideals of the declaration of independence were quoted by women when they sought and won the right to vote. They were quoted by Martin Luther King who drove the Civil rights movement in the 60s.

IN CLOSING,America Faces Challenges Ahead• The ideals expressed in the declaration of

independence; are being attacked. • In God we trust,

• the importance of God in the public square is being attacked by liberals and atheists

• Liberty is being challenged• Equal rights = equal opportunity it is not An equal right to other people’s property.

• E Pluribus Unum “From the many, One.” • Diversity, and mulitculturism are attacking our unique AMERICAN CULTURE.

• Those ideals must be understood and

continue to drive the American people.

The American Church Faces Challenges Ahead

The ideals • In God we trust, • Liberty is being challenged• E Pluribus Unum “From the many, One.” • Those ideals must be defended and used by

Christians in their prophetic role to advance and protect the virtuous ideals of the American people.

• Over 90 percent of the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention were Christians,

yet today only 25% of Evangelicals vote.

On July 2, 1776, the Motion was made and Carried “a declaration of Independence”

John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:   It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Signed on July 4, 1776

LET US CELEBRATE

LET US GIVE THANKS

• FOR THE GODLY LEGACY OF VALUES • WE HAVE INHERITED

• A Republic of Virtue • The American Trinity

• In God We Trust• Liberty• E Pluribus Unum (from the Many,

One)

The American Legacy

A Republic of Virtueand

The American Trinity

LET US PRAY