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HISTORY: unwrapped – January 2006

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For his extraordinary service in World War One, Sergeant York received the American Distinguished Service Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Word of York’s distinguished service reached America before he did. Upon his return, he received numerous paid offers to do a movie of his heroic exploits. York refused as long as he could. In 1941, however, the movie Sergeant York hit movie theaters. It starred Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond, Noah Beery, Jr., Joan Leslie, and June Lockhart (also Timmy’s mother on the “Lassie” TV show). Cooper won the Best Actor Award for his portrayal of York. Because York did not want to profit from killing, he insisted that all the proceeds from the movie go to religious works. More importantly, York was able to put his pacifist beliefs behind his duty to fight for his country.

In 1887, Alvin C. York was born into a large family in Tennessee. After his father was killed in a farming accident, Alvin was responsible for his eight younger siblings. At the age of twenty-eight, Alvin dedicated his life to Christ and became a deacon in a small pacifist church. Two years later, World War etched York’s name in the history books. Despite his pacifist beliefs, York was denied status as a conscientious objector and headed for training at Camp Gordon, Georgia. It was here that York displayed his extraordinary rifle skills. He continued to wrestle with his pacifist beliefs even as he was being shipped overseas to fight in France. York became instantly famous for killing twenty-five enemy soldiers, capturing 132 prisoners, including a major and several lieutenants, and taking out thirty-five machine guns. How did Sergeant York handle this fame? Find out during tomorrow’s program!

Aristotle’s views on science, politics, and ethics had a profound effect on the way Europeans constructed their worldview. The Bible was often read through the lens of Aristotle’s writings. When the structure of the universe was being considered, the church adopted Aristotle’s geocentric—earth-centered—cosmology. The church’s battle with Galileo was a philosophical clash over whether Aristotle was right or wrong on this topic. As it turned out, Aristotle was wrong. Earth revolves around the Sun. In addition to cosmology, Aristotle’s views on ethical matters were also adopted by the church. This is certainly the case when the topic of slavery is considered. He wrote that “the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. For he who participates in rational principles enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. . . . It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Aristotle’s views on slavery contributed to harsh working conditions among the indigenous people of the Caribbean and Central and South America.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, individual freedom, either political or religious, was virtually unknown. Geneva was a good example. Before the city council had disestablished Roman Catholicism, the Church ruled the State through the Roman Catholic bishop. Afterwards, the State ruled the Church through the council. When John Calvin arrived at Geneva in August 1536, he was confronted with this unbiblical approach to government. Calvin's goal was to establish a Church governmentally independent of the council while assuring that the council would not be independent of God's law as it pertained to its civil jurisdiction. His tool in accomplishing this difficult task was the Word of God. He preached and lectured from the Bible every day. He knew that when changes came they would come from the bottom up--from the people who desired a true Reformation without revolution. Calvin drew a clear line of distinction between the civil magistrate, whose authority was confined to civil matters, and the elders of churches, whose authority was confined to ecclesiastical matters. He established in Geneva the biblical idea of the jurisdictional separation between Church and State. Contrary to popular opinion, Calvin did not set up a system of government in which the clergy dominated the city council. He was not even a citizen of Geneva until 1559, and he appeared before the council when he was called on to offer his opinions on theological issues. He never occupied a political or civil office in Geneva.

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) rejected the Aristotelian “science” of his day and showed that a scientific theory should be “proved” by experimentation before considered a scientific law. The ordered consistency of the universe, created by God but showing the effects of the fall, led Boyle to adopt this view of science. A reasonable god created a reasonable universe with consistency in the way the cosmos functioned. An experiment done one day should bring about the same results the next day.

In his last will and testament, Boyle “addressed his fellow members of the Royal Society of London, wishing them all success in ‘their laudable attempts, to discover the true Nature of the Works of God’ and ‘praying that they and all other Searchers into Physical Truths’ may thereby add ‘to the glory of the Great Author of Nature, and to the Comforter of mankind.’” The title of one of Boyle's many books was The Christian Virtuoso, that is, “The Christian Scientist.” Boyle was not a lone Christian voice crying in the wilderness of secular science. The membership of the Royal Society was made up of many Christians who shared Boyle's view that “the world was God's handiwork” and “it was their duty to study and understand this handiwork as a means of glorifying God.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) is best remembered for his masterful sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” In addition to his achievements as a pastor, Edwards was a father to eight daughters and three sons, missionary to the Housatonic Indians, revivalist, philosopher, and accomplished scientist. From a very early age, Jonathan was mesmerized by the beauty and order of God’s world. In fact, he was especially fond of studying spiders. So much so that his accurate observations have been preserved and are acknowledged in the scientific community today. Even more remarkable is that these observations were made when he was a boy with no tools, training or body of knowledge with which to compare and test his findings. In his childhood work, “Of Insects,” Jonathan wrote “Multitudes of time I have beheld with wonderment and pleasure the spiders marching in the air from one tree to another… their little shining webs and Glistening Strings of a Great Length and at such a height as that one would think they were tack’d to the Sky by one end were it not that they were moving and floating.” As a young man, Jonathan wrote seventy resolutions. One of these resolutions was, “To live with all my might, while I do live.” That he did. Blessed with a brilliant mind, Jonathan Edwards used his brief 55 years to advance the Kingdom of Christ. Many believe Jonathan Edwards was the greatest mind in American history.

The First Amendment to the Constitution was not designed to disestablish the Christian religion as it found expression in the state constitutions. Justice Joseph Story (1779–1845), named to the Supreme Court in 1811 and the author of Commentaries of the Constitution of the United States published in 1833 in three volumes, offers the following commentary on the amendment's original meaning:

The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects [denominations] and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.

Story's comments are important. He states that the amendment's purpose was "to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects." This presupposes that Christianity was the accepted religion of the colonies but that no single denomination should be supported by the national government. The amendment was not designed to make all religions equal, only to make all Christian denominations (sects) equal in the eyes of the Constitution.

It’s been sung at the funerals of Winston Churchill, Robert F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. It has brought crowds to their feet at football game half-time shows. Its rousing version has been a repertory standard of concert choirs. But the hymn’s lyrics, whose chorus every red-blooded American can sing, were written by a leftist nineteenth-century woman. Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1862. The words were put to music and became the song of the Union army during the Civil War. Her hymn’s lyrics show that Howe had the ability to hate that liberals quickly condemn in conservatives. Howe’s hymn of hate, stirred by the passions of the Civil War became the best known song of the Union army. Read the words and keep in mind that they were written by a woman who was an early proponent of liberation theology, which believes that sin is social, salvation is freedom from structures of oppression, and redemption is by warfare.

The first computer filled an 1800-square-foot room and weighed thirty tons. The ENIAC was built in 1947 for $500,000. It contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 1,500 relays, 6,000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints. When turned on, its power consumption caused the city of Philadelphia to experience brownouts. The on/off switching was accomplished with manual relays with flat metal surfaces to insure contact. In 1945, Grace Murray Hopper was working on the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator, a primitive computer by today’s standards, when the machine experienced a problem. An investigation showed that a moth had been trapped between the points of a relay. The moth acted as an insulator stopping the flow of electricity. The operators removed the moth and affixed it to the log book. The entry read: “First actual case of bug being found.” The word went out that the computer had been “debugged.” The term “debugging a computer program” was born. Today, debugging refers to lines of electronic code that acts as the brain of the computer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), along with his son Edward, struggled with a defiant calf that would not return to the barn. Edward pulled on the calf’s ears while his father pushed from behind. Their efforts were in vain. The calf would not budge. Emerson had read the philosophy of Plato and the science of Newton, but none of these intellectual tools helped in getting a reluctant calf into the barn. A young girl, knowing little of philosophy and probably nothing of Newton, watched with amusement at the ineptitude of the father and son team. Without saying a word, she walked up to the calf and thrust a finger into its mouth. Lured by this maternal imitation, the calf dutifully followed her into the barn. Emerson watched with amazement at the ease of her accomplishment. Upon returning to the house, he opened his journal, and wrote these famous seven words: “I like people who can do things.”

Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington was the eldest of 12 children of Henry Ludington, a noted New York militia officer and later an aide to General George Washington. On April 26, 1777, a messenger reached the Ludington house with news that the British were burning the town of Danbury, Connecticut, where the munitions and stores for the militia of the entire region were stored. The messenger and his horse being exhausted, Sybil volunteered to bear the order for muster and to rouse the countryside. Through the dark night, the young girl rode her horse nearly 40 miles on unfamiliar and unmarked roads spreading the alarm. She rode alone with only a stick to prod her horse and to knock on doors spreading the alert in time. The men who responded to Sybil’s alarm arrived just in time to drive the British back to their ships in Long Island Sound. One can only imagine what it was like for young Sybil aiding the rebellion. She was within such a short distance from the fighting and was alone with no one for protection. Sybil Ludington was a true American hero.

Present day visitors to Putnam County New York can trace Sybil Ludington’s  path on that midnight ride and view a statue of her erected on the route. There is a smaller copy of the statue located in Washington, D.C. in Constitution Memorial Hall.

Columbus might have remained a footnote in history if Washington Irving, the author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” had not published a three-volume biography about him. Although Irving established Columbus’ rightful place in history, he also told a few fibs, the most egregious being that Columbus wanted to prove the Earth was round. Actually, all the scientists and cartographers in the fifteenth century believed the Earth was round. The dispute was how big around the Earth was. On this point, Columbus was wrong and his critics were right. Columbus charted his way to the Indies partly using an ancient map of the world drawn by a Greek astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy from the second century. Although Ptolemy accounted for the world being round, he made the major mistake of leaving out a huge landmass that he did not know was there: North and South America.

January 13, 2006 – Go Fly a Kite

Building a bridge across Niagara Falls was a challenge that taxed both the skill and imagination of the best engineers. Two bridge companies, one from Canada and one from New York, commissioned Charles Ellet Jr. to construct the engineering marvel—a suspension bridge over the Niagara River. The first obstacle was stretching the first cable between the shores. A boat would be swept over the falls if it tried to cross.  It occurred to someone that flying a kite might be the answer to the dilemma. A contest was held with a five dollar prize being offered to the person who could fly a kite across the Niagara Gorge. A young American boy, Homan Walsh, won the contest on the second day of competition. The string of his kite was fastened to a tree on the American shoreline and the building of the new bridge began. On July 26, 1848, the first Niagara Suspension Bridge was completed, and Charles Ellet Jr. was the first to ride across in a horse and carriage. It was officially opened to the public on August 1. Soon after its completion, Charles Ellet Jr. and his brother began charging pedestrians and carriage traffic a fare for crossing the bridge in each direction without permission of the Bridge Directors. The brothers kept the money generated by the fares. The dispute over the fares had to finally be resolved in court.

Where would we be without the telephone? Who could have imagined more than 150 years ago that one day people would be able to speak to people thousands of miles away without the aid of wires? The invention of the telephone followed the invention of the telegraph and the invention of a special series of short and long symbols called the “Morse Code,” named after its inventor Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872). Morse was the son of Jedediah Morse (1761–1826), a pastor who is best known for his textbook Geography Made Easy and his warnings about a world-wide Illuminati conspiracy. At Yale College, the younger Morse was an indifferent student until he heard a series of lectures on the newly-developing subject of electricity. He was also an accomplished painter and the founder of the National Academy of Design. With his inquisitive nature and an artist’s hand, Morse conceived the basic idea of an instrument to send and receive an electrical current over wires that would open and close a circuit to generate short (dots) and long (dashes) sounds. While Morse’s idea was not new, he was the first to develop the theory into a working model with the aid of his two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail. In 1838, with his new telegraph and simplified code in hand, Morse transmitted ten words per minute at an exhibition in New York. Even with this demonstration there was still skepticism that any message could really be sent from city to city over wires. In 1843, Morse secured funds from Congress to construct the first telegraph line in the United States from Baltimore to Washington D.C. In May of the next year, from the nation’s capital Morse sent a biblical quotation over the newly strung wires, a message that revealed his own sense of wonder that God had chosen him to reveal the use of electricity to man: “What Hath God Wrought” (Num. 23:23). While a great deal of credit is owed to Morse for the telegraph, the code was equally ingenious. Morse believed that God has put us here for a purpose. God’s good creation is designed to be studied and developed to the glory of God and the benefit of man.

No one wants to be called a “goody two-shoes”—someone who is prudish and self-righteous. But years ago American colonists considered the term “goody two-shoes” a compliment. The colonists believed that good literature had two purposes: to delight and to instruct. By the early eighteenth century interest in children's literature (and a rise in literacy) led to new markets and a flourishing of new publishers, particularly in England. Innovations in typography and printing allowed greater freedom in reproducing art through engraving, woodcut, etching, and aquatint, although illustrators were still largely anonymous and illustrations confined to frontispieces. One of the most popular fictional books in the colonies was The History of Little Goody Twoshoes, published by one of the most important early publishers, John Newberry. Goody (or Mrs.) Twoshoes was an industrious and godly woman who went through many trials but was eventually rewarded for her virtues.

Thomas Boreman was one of the first entrepreneurs to respond to the market with his miniature books entitled Gigantick Histories (1740–1743) as well as other illustrated books on subjects such as natural history. The most important of the early publishers was John Newbery (1713–1767). Newbery published vast quantities of children’s literature of all types as well as a wide range of books on reading, philosophy, and science, most covered in flowered and gilt Dutch paper and enlivened by simple woodcut illustrations. His first children’s book was A Little Pretty Pocket Book (1744), and one of the most popular was his 1765 History of Little Goody Two Shoes, regarded as the first novel written specifically for children (it is said to have been written for Newbery by Oliver Goldsmith).

Public school textbooks are fertile ground for the seeds of willful historical deception. A careful analysis of 60 elementary textbooks showed that none of them contained one word referring to any religious activity in contemporary American life. The texts were examined in terms of their references to religion, either directly or indirectly. One social studies book devotes 30 pages to the Pilgrims but never refers to religion as even a part of their lives. It teaches that Thanksgiving was the time when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians. There is no doubt that the Christian settlers were thankful for the Indian’s help, but the historical record shows that thanksgiving was ultimately made to God. In a booklet used in Seattle, Washington, children were told that “the Pilgrims were narrow-minded bigots who survived initially only with the Indians’ help, but turned on them when their help wasn’t needed anymore.”  Not only are the books filled with obvious biases but they also contain numerous historical inaccuracies. Supposedly Increase Mather preached a sermon in 1623 where he “gave special thanks to God for the plague of smallpox which had wiped out the majority of Wampanoag Indians.” It would have been impossible for Increase Mather to have preached such a sermon. He was not born until 1639! The rewriting of history is producing historical dunces who have no knowledge or understanding of our rich religious heritage.

We often hear today that Christians should not impose their religion on others. “Practice your faith in the church and in your home, but don’t force it on anyone else.” This thinking is so far from the Founding Fathers’ intentions. Many supporters of the War for Independence were not Christians; they were rationalists. With Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in leadership roles, rationalist influence was very much present in the Continental Congress. At the same time, traditional Christians were represented as well. The Continental Congress attempted to model the kind of cooperation between Christians and rationalists that it hoped would be practiced across the colonies. The Declaration of Independence refers to God four times: “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” “Supreme judge of the World,” and “Divine Providence.” These were rationalist terms that Christian congressman agreed to because they did not deny Christian truth. Interestingly, during the eight-year War of Independence, the annual Thanksgiving and fast-day proclamations issued by Congress and observed throughout the colonies were written with the knowledge that the majority of religious Americans were Christians. The proclamations regularly invoked the name of Jesus Christ and asked for His blessings upon the war effort.

Many of the 29,000 involuntary volunteers hired out to the British by German princes and sent to America to fight in the War of Independence were described as spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, political troublemakers, not more than sixty years old and of fair health and stature. Students on their way to university and young men plowing the fields were abducted and forced to serve as well. One young man, a theological student, was “recruited” amid his many protestations while on his way to Paris. The mixed rabble and honest young men were forced to serve in a far off country whose citizens viewed them as soldiers who fought only for money.  No one was safe from the grip of the seller of souls. The troops were called Hessians due to the treaty made between Britain and the mercenary German princes, one of them being from Hesse. The Hessians pay went to the German princes.  Thousands of the soldiers stayed in America after the war and became, in the end, citizens of the country they were sent to destroy.

Early in his campaign for president, Thomas Jefferson was accused of being an atheist by many prominent clergymen. One of Jefferson’s most vocal early critics was Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale College. On July 4, 1798, Dwight delivered a speech urging the voters to defeat the Jeffersonians—“the illuminati, the philosophers, the atheists, and the deists.” Dwight predicted dire consequences if Jefferson and his party were elected: “We may see the Bible cast into a bonfire, the vessels of the sacramental supper borne by an ass in public procession, and our children, either wheedled or terrified, uniting in chanting mockeries against God.”

Rev. William Linn of New York voiced similar concerns over a Jefferson presidency when he proclaimed that “the election of any man avowing the principles of Mr. Jefferson would . . . destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.” He further warned that “the voice of the nation in calling a deist to the first office must be construed into no less than a rebellion against God.” The New England clergy especially vilified Jefferson, “whom they hated for `disbelief in the deluge and his opposition to Bible reading in the schools.’“ Even the press got into the act. The Federalist Gazette of the United States framed the key question of the election, “to be asked by every American, laying his hand on his heart, as: `Shall I continue in allegiance to God—and a Religious President; Or impiously declare for Jefferson—and No God!!!’”

In 1777, Congress issued an official resolution instructing the Committee on Commerce to import 20,000 copies of the Bible. With the outbreak of war with England, the sea lanes had been cut off to the colonies. This meant that goods that were once common in the colonies were no longer being imported—including Bibles printed in England. Congress decided to act.

The legislation of Congress on the Bible is a suggestive Christian fact, and one which evinces the faith of the statesmen of that period in its divinity, as well as their purpose to place it as the corner-stone in our republican institutions. The breaking out of the Revolution cut off the supply of "books printed in London." The scarcity of Bibles also came soon to be felt. Dr. Patrick Allison, one of the chaplains to Congress, and other gentlemen, brought the subject before that body in a memorial, in which they urged the printing of an edition of the Scriptures.

The committee approved the importing of 20,000 copies of the Bible from Scotland, Holland, and elsewhere. Congressmen resolved to pass this proposal because they believed that "the use of the Bible is so universal, and its importance so great."2 Even though the resolution passed, action was never taken. Instead, Congress began to put emphasis on the printing of Bibles within the United States. In 1777 Robert Aitken of Philadelphia published a New Testament. Three additional editions were published in 1789, 1779, and 1781. The edition of 1779 was used in schools. Aitken's efforts proved so popular that he announced his desire to publish the whole Bible; he then petitioned Congress for support.

The clergy helped lead the resistance and independence movement in America. They were often described as the “black regiment” because of the black robes they wore while preaching. Before marching off to join Washington’s army, Lutheran pastor John Muhlenberg delivered a powerful sermon from Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 that concluded with these words:

The Bible tells us there is a time for all things and there is a time to preach and a time to pray but the time for me to preach has passed away, and there is a time to fight, and that time has come now. Now is the time to fight! Call for recruits! Sound the drums!

Then Muhlenberg took off his clerical robe to reveal the uniform of a Virginia colonel. Grabbing his musket from behind the pulpit, he donned his colonel’s hat and marched off to war. There is a war going on in America today. It has not come to the force of arms, but it is a war nonetheless. Pastors should thunder from the pulpits where the battles are waging, and what we can do to engage in the fight.

Our nation's coins have not always had "In God We Trust" stamped on them. In 1862 many people began to request that our coinage make reference to God. A sermon by the Reverend Henry Augustus Boardman of Philadelphia declared that "The coinage of the United States is without a God." Some suggested "God our Trust." In 1863 the motto "God and our Country" was proposed. The motto "In God We Trust" appeared for the first time in 1864; it did not receive formal Congressional approval until the following year. In 1865 Congress enacted the following:

And be it further enacted, That, in addition to the devices and legends upon the gold, silver, and other coins of the United States, it shall be lawful for the director of the mint, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to cause the motto "In God we trust" to be placed upon such coins hereafter to be issued as shall admit of such legend thereon.

The interest to secure a place for the motto was so high because of the events of the civil war. Repentance and trust in God were themes that echoed through the nation after blood of so many had been shed. The motto was dropped in 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned the American sculpture Augustus Saint-Gaudens to design new coins. Saint-Gaudens's design did not include the "In God We Trust" motto. As one might imagine, many people were upset at the change. In November of 1907, the president wrote a letter to a minister who objected to the omission. In it Roosevelt claimed that there was "no legal warrant for putting the motto on the coins." Of course, the president was mistaken, since the motto had been authorized by Congress. The matter came before Congress again on May 18, 1908, and an act was passed to restore the motto. "In 1955 Congress extended the act by requiring the phrase to appear not only on all coins but on all paper money thereafter minted or printed. The next year, 1956, Congress enacted a law making the phrase `In God We Trust' officially the national motto."