Call it what you will ... religion, faith, reverence, piety ... whatever you call it, a deep-seated and sustaining belief in God runs like a thread of gold woven through the tapestry that is the story of the early settling of the North American continent and the founding of America. Everywhere you look, you see the influence of this belief in the Creator. If you don't have time to read the original documents, you may consult nearly any book of quotations for the evidence of this.
Nowhere in the writings of the Founders do we find reference to a "wall of separation" between government and religion as it is defined today. It is to the detriment of our society, indeed, to our very liberties, that this re-definition has taken place.
When President Adams penned the words in the quote above, he was essentially writing a sermon to be delivered to the choir. His audience understood and were generally in agreement with him. The fuller quotation is: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
The point being pressed home by President Adams was that the US Constitution was a document for governing a people who were already self-governed by their own morality. That innate morality would help hold in check the negative attributes of "avarice, ambition, revenge and gallantry." One need only scan the headlines today to see the truth of his observations.
With that, we will from time to time, from our observation post here near the intersection of Religion and Government, make occasional reports of the impact each has on the other, and post the results for your perusal. Thank you for taking the time to read this far.
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