America's Historic Education:

“As men, we have God for our King, and are under the Law of Reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our King, and are under the law revealed by Him in the Gospel.”John Locke, “The Reasonableness of Christianity,”. 1695.

“...The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty...

The Rights of the Colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the Institutes of the great Law Giver..which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.” Samuel Adams, “Rights of the Colonists,” 1772.

“You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you Free.” John 8:32.

Thus was born a new civilization: the Republican form of government. It was an exciting time in World History. The Protestant Reformation was in full force. It was a wonderful period of new discoveries in the universe. A liberating principle of Individuality coupled with spiritual liberty brought true spiritual freedom for the individual. While this concept first permeated only the Church of the day, it would soon advance to the State of the day.

What a contrast, this new idea to contradict the pagan world's view of man. In the old view of man, he had value only as he fitted into the structure of the political world around him. What were his contributions to the political system? While some men might be elevated, the majority were ignored, the poor, the captives, the women. The struggle with these conflicting views continued for centuries. Even after Rome fell, the old view of man lived on, that man was only of value as he contributed to the State. Arbitrary Power existed in ecclesiastical as well as the political realms.

And with the Protestant Reformation came the brilliant “thinkers” who realized that the State exists for Man, and not Man for the State. Men like John Milton, John Locke, and America's Founding Fathers held to this Eternal Truth.

America's History rests on two documents chiefly: The Declaration of Independence and The U. S. Constitution. The New Testament is the treasury of Truth from which these documents came to be. The idealistic goals of the Founders were to establish a form of government which would protect a social and political order reflecting the Biblical mandate for man and government. This embraced the Christian individual, the family, and society. We often quote the Mayflower Compact's words of purpose: ... “for propagating and advancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world.”

What was it that they left behind in the pagan world of the past? The pagan view of the culture was that decisions for man were to be made by the institutions of the day, whether Church or State, whichever hierarchy was in control. Therein was Sovereignty and the powerful would dictate to the individual man. Ignored was the fact that man was created in the very image of the Creator, and had eternal value.

Centralization was the norm. The flow of power and force was always from the top down in the pagan world...power and force flowing through appointees. Unregenerate man was helpless, unable to overcome it. This pagan idea of man and government had prevailed for centuries, unchallenged.

With the Protestant Reformation came the liberation of the individual man. Through the teaching of the Scriptures, he was revealed as free and independent, and governed by the God who had created him. He saw himself as equal to any other individual under God's Law, and under Civil Law as well. He also learned that this new found Liberty was provided under, and within, the Law of God.

The Protestant Church was both local and self-governing, itself operating as a little republic. The new concept of government, being eternal, was liberating and challenging. With Liberty living internally in the very soul of man, man's new government of Grace by Faith, would flow from the “inside out.”

While the old world awarded liberty to a few and never many, the New Christian concept promoted voluntary union with diversity; united by covenants, creeds, laws, and by representative union. All the while, carefully guarded was the Liberty of Conscience under God's Laws - Conscience being the most Sacred of all Property.

Where are we today in America? Is there evidence that we have lost the Christian idea of Man and Government as the basis of our political, social, and governmental structure? Is there evidence that the power of “We the People” has been usurped by a political force intent on promoting a one-world, centralized, totalitarian government?

Are we losing the distinctive of our Christian idea of an individual created by God, for Self-government, and true Liberty? And if so, how do we cast off the old pagan idea of top down structures such as are evident today?

The colonial records of the earliest colonists, over and over, express their convictions that their “liberty is more precious than their very lives.” For America to be the champion and example of Christian self-government once again, we have to follow the same path of the Founders of this Christian Constitutional Republic.

For the individual with conviction, these would be a beginning toward restoration:

1. Search the Scriptures, believing that they are infallible.

2. Recover the language of Liberty, found only in the 1828 Webster Dictionary.(see footnote)

3. Study America's Providential History and the Truth of her glorious past. (see footnote)

4. Join with others; family, church, neighborhood, small groups, together on a mission to reclaim liberty, praying for revival and restoration for our beloved nation so blessed by God.

The restructuring of American Education has been a long process over more than half a century. The first changes were, the denial of the Infallibility of the Scriptures, the teaching of Evolution as fact, instead of theory and the replacing of accurate History with Social Studies. The terms Globalism, and Global Age, and such references, were a clue that change agents were looking at atheistic models of government. The changes to world government would have to come through changes in Education. That was obvious to them.

Progressive educators began, decades ago, looking at Russia, and even China, as models for implementing global objectives in education. Educators in the Reagan administration were aware of such disastrous ideas being circulated, but unfortunately few became alarmed, The ideas have advanced through both Republican and Democrat administrations for decades, as the Federal Department of Education has expanded in power and determination. Totally secular now for decades, sex education is shockingly immoral through the Common Core endorsed and alleged to be “health education”. Moral absolutes are not to be found in government education.

Perhaps the greatest travesty of all is the abandonment of the Family structures in American culture: sons without fathers, mothers under great stress, and parents giving up the education of their children to the State. The toll is taken when the home is not the primary influence in the nurture and character training of children. The ancient Church concept of the body of Christ was: “The Church ALIVE in the home. “ This is God's plan. The Church was alive in Abraham's tent, and in David's palace. The Church: invisible and universal, is, was, and forever will be God’s plan.

The Christian idea of man and government should be American Education 101. Yes, in the home, in the church, in every state, and at every national level thereby, prevailing once again in the public square. Could we together, reclaim this heritage of Christian self-government - with union; thereby restoring our Christian Constitutional Republic for our children, our grandchildren, those of us who have experienced liberty, and for those who long for it.

Restoring our republic - this is our challenge.

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1. The source for Websters 1828 Dictionary as well as the 2 volumes, The Christian History of the Constitution, published by The Foundation for American Christian Education, Chesapeake, Va.

2. For information and ordering, visit website www.FACE.net.

3. We featured America's Providential History last month. It is available from the Providence Foundation. www.providencefoundation.com.

Recommendation of other primary source documents are available from these two foundations, and from the writer of this column.