Were They Christian?

My history professor told his students that the patriots were a rowdy gang who were obsessed with alcohol more than anything else.
My history professor informed me the Declaration of Independence and Constitution had nothing to do with Christianity.
My history professor thought it was ridiculous to believe that the founding fathers established our country for any reasons other than political ones.

I am compelled to say with all due respect that I believe my professor to be mistaken.

My professor is a very intelligent man and I like him very much, but on this point I do not agree. Our nations founders were not a bunch of raging alcoholics who had nothing better to do with their time than overthrow tyrannical governments.

"[Our founding fathers] really knew what they were doing. We are not reading back into history what was not there. … Think of this great flaming phrase: "certain inalienable rights." Who gives the rights? The state? Then they are not inalienable because the state can change them and take them away. Where do the rights come from? They understood that they were founding the country upon the concept that goes back into the Judeo-Christian thinking that there is Someone there who gave the inalienable rights.” (Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, p. 32)

Religion in general and Christianity specifically are not foreign concepts in the documents that announced our nation's autonomy and established our government. If fact, they are widely promoted by the proponents of these vital papers.

Consider the words of John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence and President of what is now Princeton University: "He is the best friend of American Liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting pure and undefiled religion." (Schaeffer, p. 33)

Benjamin Franklin himself strikes a similar chord in his address during the Constitutional Convention of 1787: “God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”

(Continued on Wednesday)