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History Unwrapped – July 2005

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July 29, 2005 – The Ten Commandments You’ve (Probably) Never Seen

“Ladies and Gentlemen, young and old. This may seem an unusual procedure, speaking to you before the picture begins, but we have an unusual subject: the birth of freedom. The story of Moses.” Yes, it was an unusual way to begin a movie. The introductory words were spoken by Cecil B. DeMille, the director of The Ten Commandments (1956), before the movie was shown. If you’ve only seen The Ten Commandments on television, there’s a good possibility that you’ve never seen DeMille’s opening remarks. He considered his production to be so important that he came out on stage to deliver a short but powerful statement on the nature of freedom under the law of God:

The theme of this picture is whether men ought to be ruled by God's laws or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like Rameses. Are men the property of the State or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today.1

All law is a reflection of some worldview.2 It is impossible to avoid legislating morality. Laws against theft and murder are legislated, and they reflect some moral code. There are few people who would object to laws being made that would punish thieves and murderers. And yet, such laws impose a moral system on all of us. Although, thieves and murderers might object, no one is calling for these laws to be rescinded because they impose a moral code

1 DeMille’s opening remarks can be seen on VHS and DVD versions of the movie.

2 Gary DeMar, Thinking Straight in a Crooked World: A Christian Defense Manual (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2001).

July 28, 2005 – "I Like People Who Can Do Things"

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.”

July 27, 2005 – The Foundation of Civilization

“The Battle of Britain,” said Winston Churchill on the 18th of June 1940, “is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.”1 Churchill saw something in his nation’s history and moral composition that made him identify Christianity with the preservation and advance of civilization. England had a long history of Christian influence that resulted in the advance of civilization around the world. America’s earliest founders did not break from their English heritage. In fact, they sought to establish old England in New England. Samuel Eliot Morison writes the following in his Builders of the Bay Colony:

New England was founded consciously, and in no fit of absence of mind. Patriots seeking the glory of England first called the attention of their countrymen to these shores. Commercial enterprise made the first attempts at settlement. Puritanism overlaid these feeble beginnings by a proud self-governing commonwealth, dedicated to the glory of God and the happiness of a peculiar people. These three main streams in the life of old England, the patriotic, the commercial, and the religious, mingled their waters on every slope.2

It’s no wonder that John Winthrop described colonial America as a “City on a Hill,” a light to the nations.

Order your copy of Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character
of Winston Churchill

1 Quoted in John Baillie, What is Christian Civilization? (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1945), 5.

2 Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, [1930] 1981), 3.

July 26, 2005 – What God Hath Wrought

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.

July 25, 2005 – The Second Josiah

During the reign of Henry III’s young son, Edward VI (1547–1553), England made long strides toward Protestantism. Protestant tutors were put in charge of Edward’s education, and at an early age Edward became familiar with the works of John Calvin and those of the Strasbourg Reformer Martin Bucer. At Edward’s coronation, Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) referred to him as the second Josiah, as a king who would restore England to the true religion. (It was under Josiah’s reign in Judah that the “book of the law” was found in the temple—2 Kings 22). Under Edward’s leadership, a number of important changes took place: religious services were conducted in English; the Catholic Mass was abolished; clergy were permitted to marry; and English Bibles were freely printed. Not everyone was happy with these changes, however. Henry’s brand of Catholicism was still very popular, as future Reformers soon discovered. Edward, sickly and frail from birth with chronic tuberculosis, reigned for only six years. On July 6, 1553, the young king died, praying, “My Lord and God, save this realm from popery, and maintain it in true religion.” He was sixteen.

July 22, 2005 – A Dead Man’s Bones that Started a Reformation

England had a head start on the Reformation because of the work of John Wycliffe (c. 1324–1384). It was Wycliffe who held that the Bible alone (sola Scriptura) set forth the definition of true Christianity. Wycliffe’s efforts to translate the Bible into the language of the people prepared the way for a reform movement that would take England and the New World by storm. His hand written translations were based on Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, the only source text available to Wycliffe. Like Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Tyndale, Wycliffe’s reform efforts did not go unopposed. Thirty-one years after his death, the Council of Constance condemned Wycliffe on 260 different counts, ordered his writings to be burned, and directed that his bones be exhumed and buried in unconsecrated ground. In 1428, on orders from the Pope, Wycliffe's remains were dug up and burned. His ashes were thrown in a nearby river. Wycliffe's followers, called Lollards,1 carried on his work under severe persecution from Henry V (1413–1422). Because of continued opposition from the Crown and the outlawing of Bible reading in the English language, the Lollards worked in secret. But by the late fifteenth century, the activity of the Lollards began to grow more bold and effective. They brought the discussion of theological issues to the masses which in turn led some people to question certain aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine. In the end, Wycliffe’s views won out. His ashes became seed for a Reformation that transformed the world. “The sacred Scriptures,” Wycliffe wrote, “be the property of the people, and one which no party should be allowed to wrest from them.”

1The Lollards derived their name from the medieval Dutch word meaning “to mutter” (lollaerd), possibly a reference to their style of worship, which was based on reading the scriptures. The derivation may be of Latin origin, from lollen, “to sing softly” (cf. Eng. lull).

July 21, 2005 – Benjamin Franklin Meets Cotton Mather

You couldn’t pick a more unlikely philosophical pairing. Cotton Mather (1663–1728) was the epitome of Christian exactitude. His writings on religious subjects number more than 400. He was the son of Increase Mather, a minister, and the grandson of John Cotton and Richard Mather, also ministers. He entered Harvard at the age of 12 and easily passed the entrance requirements to read and write Latin and to “decline the Greek nouns and verbs.”

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the tenth son of soap maker Josiah Franklin. Josiah wanted his son to be a minister. Since he could only afford to send his young son to school for one year, he had him apprentice to his brother James, who was a printer. Franklin entered the field of writing under the name “Silence Dogood,” the moniker he had given himself so he could get published in his brother’s newspaper. In 1733, he published Poor Richard's Almanack for the first time. Like his writing venture as Silence Dogood, Franklin published his almanac under a pseudonym, “Richard Saunders.” What distinguished Franklin’s almanac from traditional almanacs of the time were his lively writing style and the addition of witty aphorisms. Many of the famous phrases associated with Franklin, such as, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” come from Poor Richard.

In 1721, The Franklin’s had an encounter with the Mathers over smallpox. The Mathers supported inoculation; the Franklins did not. Cotton Mather, who had watched three of his own children nearly die from smallpox, urged doctors to begin performing inoculations against the disease.Ben Franklin’s older brother James believed inoculation increased the spread of the disease and said so in his newspaper. Mather’s innate curiosity, scientific mind, readings on the subject, and the testimony of his slave Onesimus, who had been inoculated as a child in Africa, convinced him that inoculation was a way to prevent the disease. The process consisted of making a cut in the arm and dropping in a small amount of pus taken from a smallpox sore of someone mildly infected. The irony here is that while bloodletting was seen as a remedy to relieve the blood of toxins, Mather advocated putting toxins in the blood. No wonder his house was firebombed. Bloodletting was what sent George Washington to an early grave in 1799.

The smallpox incident in 1721 wasn’t Franklin’s first encounter with Cotton Mather. Franklin writes in his Autobiography that as a young boy he had read Mather’s Bonifacius: An Essay Upon the Good “which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.” Franklin believed that true religion was in “doing good” and no more. Mather believed that doing good glorified God. In biblical terms, a person’s faith is identified by his works (James 2:14–26).

1 Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. John Bigelow (Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott & Co., 1868), 92.

July 20, 2005 – Georgia on His Mind

General James Oglethorpe (1696–1785) conceived a plan to provide a refuge for persecuted Protestants of Europe. On June 9, 1732, he was granted a charter by George II to establish a new colony. Oglethorpe named his colony Georgia. He was motivated primarily from strong Christian principles, which are evident in his denouncement of slavery. In London, in 1734, he praised Georgia for its anti-slavery policy:

Slavery, the misfortune, if not the dishonor, of other plantations, is absolutely proscribed. Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of our species as our wealth and possessions. . . . The name of slavery is here unheard, and every inhabitant is free from unchosen masters and oppression. . . . Slavery is against the gospel as well as the fundamental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime.1

Oglethorpe’s words were not heeded. The “horrid crime” of slavery was soon introduced to Georgia. “In 1750 the law prohibiting slavery was repealed and Georgia became a slave-worked plantation colony like its neighbor, South Carolina.”2

In keeping with the original charter which gave the colonists of Georgia “a liberty of conscience” to worship God, the 1777 Constitution retains its essential religious character. Article VI states that “The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county . . . and they shall be of the Protestant religion.” Article LVI declares that “All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion; provided it be not repugnant to the peace and safety of he State.” Like many of the state constitutions, the Georgia constitution prohibited clergymen from holding seats in the legislature.

1 Jesse T. Peck, The History of the Great Republic, Considered from a Christian Stand-Point (New York: Broughton and Wyman, 1868), 80.

2 Irwin Unger, Instant American History: Through the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1994), 34.

July 19, 2005 – The Milo Principle

There was a time when wrestling was serious business, deadly serious. Prior to modern Olympic wrestling, combatants often wrestled to the death. Milo of Kroton understood the risks and decided to come out a winner. Born in southern Italy, where Greece had many colonies, Milo won the boys’ wrestling contest in 540 B.C. At more than 40 years old, he continued to wrestle and win titles. In order to gain the advantage over his opponents, he knew that he had to gain weight and strength. There were no Gold’s Gyms, mail order physical fitness programs, barbell companies, or steroids. Weight training—progressive resistance exercise—was not even conceptualized at the time. Even so, Milo understood the principle and applied it in a novel way. Legend has it that he would train in the off years by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until the Olympics took place. By the time the games were held, he was carrying a four-year-old cow on his back the length of the stadium. The principle is simple. As the calf gained weight, Milo progressively got stronger with each day’s workout. The example of Milo translated into a business venture in the twentieth century with the founding of the Milo Barbell Company in 1902, the first barbell manufacturer in the United States that applied the Milo principle to adjustable barbells. The company was eventually purchased by Bob Hoffman in 1935. Hoffman turned the company into the international fitness conglomerate The York Barbell Company. The principle of steady and incremental persistence over time is a great lesson, but once the goal is achieved, some forget what life was like at the start While the Bible says “power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), Milo let his strength go to his head. Thinking himself to be the mythical Hercules, Milo was wandering through the forest when he found an old tree trunk with wedges inserted into it. The strongman saw this as an opportunity to test his strength. Milo placed his hands into the cleft of the trunk and tried to split apart the wood. All he succeeded in doing was loosening the wedges. When they fell out, the trunk closed on his hands, trapping him. According to legend, he fell prey to wild beasts. The Bible sums up the end of Milo’s life: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling” (Prov. 16:18).

July 18, 2005 – The Origin of Computer “Bugs”

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.

July 15, 2005 – The First College in America—Almost

The Virginia colony was the first to charter a college at Henrico, Virginia, in 1619, nineteen years before Harvard and seventy-four years before the College of William and Mary. Like all the colonial colleges, Henricus College was to be designed around the precepts of the Christian faith, “for the training and bringing up of infidels’ children to the true knowledge of God and understanding of righteousness.”1 The college never succeeded, and no further attempts were made to establish a college in Virginia until 1695, when Rev. James Blair, the representative of the Church of England in Virginia, and his superior, the Bishop of London, were granted a charter by King William and Queen Mary. Like all the New England colonial colleges, William and Mary was designed to further the gospel of Christ in all disciplines. The founders of these early educational institutions understood the relationship between a sound education based upon biblical absolutes and the future of the nation. Putting the Bible in the hands of the people was an essential step toward religious and political freedom. “From the very beginnings, the expressed purpose of colonial education had been to preserve society against barbarism, and, so far as possible, against sin. The inculcation of a saving truth was primarily the responsibility of the churches, but schools were necessary to protect the written means of revelation.”2

1 "Funds for a College at Henrico, Virginia (1619)," in Sol Cohen, ed., Education in the United States: A Documentary History, 5 vols. (New York: Random House, 1974), 1:336.

2 Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 32-33.

July 14, 2005 – “That’s Crackerjack!”

“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don’t care if I never get back.” So the line goes in Jack Norworth’s 1908 “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It’s not often than a snack food is immortalized in song. According to legend, a unique popcorn, peanuts, and molasses confection that was the forerunner to Cracker Jack’s caramel coated popcorn and peanuts was introduced by F. W. Rueckheim and his brother to a snack-craving public in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s first World’s Fair. The trick was keeping the stuff from sticking together. Louis Rueckheim, F.W.’s brother and partner solved the problem with a secret process. When Louis gave the treat to a salesman, he exclaimed, “That’s crackerjack!,” slang for “awesome” or “really great.” The name stuck and was trademarked. “A Prize in Every Box” became an advertising slogan when toys and baseball cards were inserted into every package. More than 23 billion toys have been given out since they were first introduced in 1912. Some old Cracker Jack prizes are valued at more than $7,000. Some of the earliest toys were made of metal. A complete series of the 1915 baseball cards, original and in near mint condition, has been valued as high as $60,000. There are no longer any toys in Cracker Jacks. A choking scare forced the company to replace the toys with a “Surprise inside.” It sure is a surprise—it’s made of paper! Well, Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo are still on the box, I mean, bag. Is nothing sacred?

July 13, 2005 – It’s Never too Late to Start a Business

Harland Sanders was born September 9, 1890. He began franchising his chicken business in the early 1950s—at the age of 65—using money that he received from Social Security! When he was 40, Sanders began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. He didn’t own a restaurant then, but he served people on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station. As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years, he perfected his “secret blend of 11 herbs and spices” and the basic cooking technique that is still used today. He was made a “Colonel” by Governor Ruby Laffoon in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state’s cuisine. In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, Sanders auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 monthly Social Security checks. He was so convinced that his fried chicken was superior to anything on the market that he devoted himself to the chicken franchising business. He traveled across the country by car going to restaurants, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the owners liked what they saw and tasted, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that would pay him a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the United States company for $2 million to a group of investors. In 1971, the franchise was sold for $285 million. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million. KFC is now part of the world's largest restaurant company—Yum! Brands—with nearly 32,500 units in more than 100 countries and territories around the world.1 And to think that it all started with some chicken, “11 herbs and species,” a cooker, a $105 Social Security check, and a man who did not know the word “retire.”

1 This information was gathered from the official KFC website “About KFC”: www.kfc.com/about/colonel.htm

July 12, 2005 – The “Witchy Woman” Behind the Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum is best known for the literary classic The Wizard of Oz. While the original printed version enjoyed success, having sold 90,000 copies in the first two years of publication, it was the 1939 film version starring Judy Garland that has made a lasting impression on young and old alike. Her version of “Over the Rainbow” has been voted the best film song of all time. Of course, Baum had nothing to do with the film or the song.1 He died in 1919.

Most writers conceive their stories from life experiences, tidbits of facts and events they pick up as they go through life, and their own general philosophy of life in the construction of their fictional works. It was no different for Frank Baum. Baum was most influenced by his mother-in-law Matilda Josyln Gage. While she was living with Baum and his wife, she was working on Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate, a book that was eventually published in 1893. As an early feminist and theosophist, Gage concocted the idea that women often became witches and dabbled in what we today would describe as the occult because they were denied formal education by the Church. Belief in witchcraft was concocted by the church to keep women down. At the same time, Gage claimed, “We have abundant proof that the so-called ‘witch’ was among the most profoundly scientific persons of the age.” First she claims the church invented the witchcraft scare, and then she says that some women excelled in the dark arts. Like the Force in Star Wars, witchcraft was benign. “‘Magic’ whether brought about by the aid of spirits or simply through an understanding of secret natural laws, is of two kinds, ‘white’ and ‘black,’ according to its intent and consequences are evil or good, and in this respect does not differ from the use made of the well known laws of nature, which are ever of good or evil character, in the hands of good or evil persons.”

You can see this philosophy developed in The Wizard of Oz where there are good witches and bad witches. Glinda, a self-identified “good witch” asks Dorothy, after the death of the “wicked witch of the east,” “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Magic can have good or evil results, depending on the intent of the person using the craft.

1 http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/relatedarticles/27136.php

July 11, 2005 – George Washington’s Straight Army

Homosexuality and the military have never been compatible bedfellows. During the Clinton administration, a “Don’t Ask—Don’t Tell” policy was put into effect. Liberal groups are trying to open the military to self-professed and practicing homosexuals. At a General Court Marshall, on March 10, 1778, a Lieutenant Enslin was “tried for attempting to commit sodomy with John Monhort.” He was also tried for “Perjury in swearing to false Accounts.” Enslin was “found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War.” He was dismissed from the service “with infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief [George Washington] approve[d] the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such infamous Crimes order[ed] Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of the Camp . . . by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return.”1

1 The Writings of George Washington, Bicentennial Edition (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), (March 1 through May 31, 1778), 11:83–84.

The first Congress that convened after the adoption of the Constitution requested of the President that the people of the United States observe a day of thanksgiving and prayer:

That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.

This resolution was opposed by some as an infringement on the authority of the states: "It is a business with which Congress has nothing to do; it is a religious matter, and as such is proscribed to us."1 Nevertheless, the resolution was adopted. Washington then issued a proclamation setting aside November 26, 1789, as a national day of thanksgiving, calling everyone to "unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions."2 Washington called for days of prayer and thanksgiving on January 1 and February 19, 1795.

1 Quoted in Anson Phelps Stokes and Leo Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 87.

2 Quoted in Stokes and Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States, 87.

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."1 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.2

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."3

1 Quoted in Stokes and Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States, 568.

2 Quoted in Stokes and Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States, 568.

3 Anson Phelps Stokes and Leo Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 570.

July 6, 2005 – The Real Story on the First Amendment

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.1

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.

1 Quoted by Judge Brevard Hand, in Jaffree vs. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 544 F. Supp. 1104 (S. D. Ala. 1983) in Russell Kirk, ed., The Assault on Religion: Commentaries on the Decline of Religious Liberty (Lanham, NY: University Press of America, 1986), 84.

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.1

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.

1 Benjamin F. Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (Philadelphia, PA: G.W. Childs, 1864), 215. This 800-page book is available on CD from American Vision.

2 From a report submitted to Congress, quoted in John Wright, Early Bibles in America, 3rd rev. ed. (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1894), 55.

July 4, 2005 – The Bible and the Oath of Office

The Presidential oath of office is described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

While the United States Constitution states that no religious test can be given to a political office holder, every president since George Washington (except Thomas Jefferson) has taken the oath of office with his hand on a Bible, promising to keep that oath by uttering “I swear, so help me God.” Even during the hurried swearing-in ceremony of Lyndon B. Johnson on Air Force One after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the soon-to-be president took the oath with his hand on “the slain President's own leather-bound Bible.”1

1 Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Knoll, "Introduction," The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History, eds. Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Knoll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 5.

July 1, 2005 – The Grandsons of Jude

In fragments from Hegesippus’s five books of commentaries on the Acts of the Church,1 written between A.D. 165–175, we read about an episode where the grandsons of Jude, the brother of Jesus, are brought before Domitian Caeser, “that emperor [who] dreaded the advent of Christ, as Herod had done.” Domitian asked them whether they were of the family of David; and they confessed they were.” He continued by inquiring about “Christ and His kingdom, what was its nature, and when and where it was to appear.” They answered “that it was not of this world, nor of the earth, but belonging to the sphere of heaven and angels, and would make its appearance at the end of time, when He shall come in glory, and judge the living and dead, and render to every one according to the course of his life.”2 There are those who claim that the early church believed in an earthly millennial kingdom where Jesus would reign as king from Jerusalem. The testimony of Jude’s grandsons give testimony to the belief that Christ’s kingdom was established in heaven and was a first-century reality.

1 Hegesippus was “a contemporary of Justin” and “the earliest of the Church’s chroniclers.”

2 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html