Focus on the Family

Lorinda: Focus on the Family makes a point of always saying that money given to Focus on the Family goes straight to ministry. I’m very thankful for that.

Jim Daly: I'm Jim Daly. Working together, we can transform our nation one family at a time. Support this ministry with a monthly pledge today at focusonthefamily.com/family.

Rod Gragg: The belief was that you were to be submissive to authority over you unless that authority usurped the higher law. They believed that's what occurred, and you see that in the language of the Declaration of Independence. That really was the motivation throughout the Revolutionary War.

John Fuller: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We're looking forward to celebrating our nation's 250th anniversary this weekend. To commemorate this foundational moment in our country's history, we're joined today by historian Rod Gragg, who shares about the incredible faith of George Washington and other leaders in the Revolutionary War. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, I love reflecting on how God's hand of Providence has been on this nation from the very beginning. Independence Day is a great time for us to remember all that He's done for this country. Of course, we know that George Washington and the members of the Continental Congress were fallible people. We're all fallible. We're all sinners saved by grace, and we get that. But God certainly used their faith and courage in extraordinary ways, and we can learn a lot from them. Our guest today is historian Rod Gragg, as you've mentioned. He's dedicated a lot of his time studying the Revolutionary War and the faith of the Founders, and I'm looking forward to this discussion.

John Fuller: I am too. Rod is an award-winning author of more than 20 books. He has spoken at many different venues and has been on national TV shows sharing from his wealth of expertise. He and his wife have seven children and 14 grandchildren. Rod, welcome back.

Rod Gragg: Thank you. Good to be here.

Jim Daly: So good to have you. Tell me in your words why it is important for us to talk about George Washington's faith and the influence that he had on the American Revolution. So often in today's lexicon when we raise a Founding Father’s good points, people jump on all the bad points. But what was so unique about Washington and his commitment?

Rod Gragg: To me, what's distinctive about him the most in terms of faith is that he was really representative. He was motivated and directed by his personal faith, and that was really typical of what it was like in colonial America. The Judeo-Christian worldview was really the bedrock foundation, and it really affected everything: American law, culture, and government. Washington really was more typical of his day than you would think that you'd see in any other era.

Jim Daly: He seemed to express in his writings and his diary just how much faith meant to the country and that the events of the Revolution were evidence of why all Americans should have faith. In fact, he said this in one of those writings: "I am sure there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States. And I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which was so often manifested during our Revolution." I mean, that's pretty straightforward.

Rod Gragg: Right. He uses the phrase throughout his writings, which were voluminous, "the hand of Providence," "by the hand of Providence," "through the hand of Providence," "the interpositioning of Providence." He uses that a lot, and that's where the title in the book comes from. Washington was a very reserved man. He was a low church Anglican, and he really was one who his family said wanted to express his faith more by action than by words, although he wrote a lot and expressed a lot of his faith in his writings.

In his leadership during the Revolutionary War as general and as commanding general of the Continental Army and all the armies, his particular army that he led himself, he encouraged his troops to follow the character of a Christian in their duties. He was very serious about appointing chaplains and chaplains who were serious about their faith. He took a position that after defeats, he would call for a time of reflection, worship, and repentance.

What you saw there was in Washington's influence and how he made sure that his troops treated Loyalists that were near his army. He treated them respectfully and did not mistreat them, and that really attracted them to the Patriot cause, particularly in contrast to the British who so often would fall into this harsh, brutal form of warfare that moved people away from them. When you look at the population of Americans at the time of the Revolution, it was really much thirds: a third Patriot, a third Loyalist, and a third not sure which way to go. That third really made a difference. Because of the conduct of the British and the conduct of Washington's army in contrast, that third moved over to the Patriot side, and that made a big difference.

Jim Daly: Washington often referred to Providence as playing a key role. Sometimes historians debate if they were people of true faith, a Christian faith, or people of just a greater God, basically not really narrowing it to Jesus. Speak to Washington's understanding that way and the language of the day when they talk about Providence and divinity and a great God. They're still pointing to the God that we believe in today.

Rod Gragg: The God of the Bible. Washington's family were insistent that his faith was genuine, deep, and serious. He not only provided leadership in his church but in the community. He would privately fast at times. His faith, all the evidence shows it to be genuine. He spoke often of Providence, of God working in this time of Revolution.

When he resigned his commission at the end of the war before Congress, it was a very moving, dramatic scene with a lot of tears. Washington, who was very stoic about things like that, really struggled to keep his feelings in, but he made the point of saying again that the American victory and independence came from what he called the interposition of Providence and also that he trusted the future of this new nation in the hands of God.

Jim Daly: When you look at Yorktown as an example of that Providence as he saw it, what happened in Yorktown in the battle, and how did Washington translate that as a divine intervention?

Rod Gragg: You really have a situation of the proverbial David and Goliath with the Americans facing the strongest military force on the face of the earth at the time. European leaders didn't expect this Revolution to last very long, and there are many times where they thought it was all over. 1777, the British captured Philadelphia, the capital, and occupied it, and European leaders thought that's all over.

You see that throughout the war, and it really is remarkable. We can't know how that happened, but Washington was certain that it was Providence that was intervening. At Yorktown, Washington's army was in New York surrounding the British. It had gone from a point where the British really controlled everything to a point where the British were on the defensive. The French sent a French army to bolster Washington's troops, and then he learned they were sending the French navy.

Washington and the French army made this rapid, remarkable march from New York to Virginia aided by the French navy and bottled up the army. The British had already, a few years earlier, at the Battle of Saratoga, lost an army of 6,000 troops to the Americans, and here they were now losing an army of 7,000. They were surrounded, they were under siege, and they had to surrender.

You see this again and again, this David-Goliath thing and this turnaround in the war that really was remarkable. But at the base of all that was really the American worldview. The American worldview was Judeo-Christian, the biblical worldview. It affected and shaped everything in the way that Americans thought and acted and responded to all of this.

It's a remarkable revolution when you think about it in contrast, say, to the French Revolution that occurred at the same time where it was really a bloody revolution against all authority, even Christianity. But the American Revolution was a revolution of law in the fact that Americans believed that Parliament and later they believed the King as well were usurping God-given or inalienable rights.

It's no accident the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable, God-given rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's what they were motivated to fight for, not taxes.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you in that regard when you look at freedom of religion, which seems to be under assault today. It's like we've forgotten our way and what our founding was about. Where did the freedom of religion originate, and why do we often refer to that as the most core freedom?

Rod Gragg: The founding of the 13 English colonies occurred in a remarkable time and place in the wake of what was called the English Reformation where there was an explosion of faith in England that spread across the nation in a great revival. In that time and place, at that very narrow moment in time, that's when the English people spilled into the American colonies.

You had a real diversity of faith. You had the Puritans in New England, the Baptists in Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Presbyterians in New Jersey and Delaware, the Catholics in Maryland. You had Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, and then you had the Anglicans in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

So, a lot of diversity, but all people of the Book. That was the foundation of American culture and law and government. When this Revolution occurred, it really was a revolution of law where the American people believed that through a series of actions, the British Parliament and later the King were attempting to usurp what was known then as the higher law.

The belief was that you were to be submissive to authority over you unless that authority usurped the higher law. They believed that's what occurred, and you see that in the language of the Declaration of Independence. That really was the motivation throughout the Revolutionary War.

John Fuller: That's Rod Gragg, and today we're talking with him about how the Christian faith shaped the founding of our nation. His book is called *By the Hand of Providence*, and we've got copies here at the ministry. Stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast to learn more.

Jim Daly: You mention in the book Washington's perspective on America's sacred calling as a nation, and I want you to elaborate on that. But also, when you look at that idea of exceptionalism, I think this fits in that area where there seems to be the founding of this country, the Revolutionary War, there is a spiritual overtone to it all.

Again, while I've traveled, people have said America has stood as that beacon of freedom. If we lose America, we lose everything because we try, imperfectly, to stand in that position of freedom through all different kinds of administrations and philosophies and beliefs. But I think at the core, America has always stood for that idea of freedom, democracy, etc., imperfectly as it does. Speak to that understanding that Washington seemed to have already that this was an exceptional nation because of its connection to God, and then its future was pretty bright if we stood on the right values.

Rod Gragg: Well, that is a good summary of what he believed, but again, he was really representative of the general worldview of the American people. When you look at the Continental Congress, like you look at the American people at that time, you saw in terms of faith those who had little or none, you had the nominal, and you had the people who were of strong faith.

Aside from where they were personally, there was this underlying foundation, this Judeo-Christian worldview and those values and those principles. John Adams said again about those signers and those who drafted the Declaration of Independence, and he said that that beautiful group of young men were reunited only by one thing, and he said that was "the general principles of Christianity."

If you look at how, for instance, Congress provided leadership for that drive for independence and that drive for freedom, Congress throughout the war twice a year called for days of prayer, fasting, and humiliation. That was what they called it. They actually had the audacity after some defeats to call on American people to repent of their sins.

After victories, they would call for times of worship. When they wanted to put out a message to the American people, they would send it to two places, and this included the Declaration of Independence. They would send it to newspapers and they would send it to the churches. That's why it's a document really laced with the language of faith throughout that.

If you think about it, the U.S. Constitution's a rulebook. Rulebooks don't have philosophy in them; they're the rules. The mission statement for America was the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence gave you the mission statement: the why, the motivation, the explanation, and then the Constitution is the rulebook.

Jim Daly: We have to talk about the national sin, slavery, and what was going on at the time. So often today we place our current cultural perspective, our modern glasses, on the view of those then. Although I do like Shelby Steele, who I interviewed, and Shelby said he's an African American, I think he operates out of Stanford University. One of the things that he said is people need to understand that the Founding Fathers, although they didn't do away with slavery at the time, they wrote the document that would quickly, compared to how long slavery had been in place.

I think he said it was a 3,000-year-old industry that started in Africa, certainly was used around the world for an economic engine, and we get all that. But he said if you think about it, the Founding Fathers created a document that you quoted a moment ago about all men being created equal that within 80, 90 years it would result in the Emancipation Proclamation, what Abraham Lincoln would do.

They took a 3,000-year-old industry, created a document that could illuminate people at the right time with the right leadership to end it, and that's kind of part of our history too. But speak to that idea that everything the Founding Fathers believed is nullified because they didn't attack slavery at the time, even though George Washington wrote about the growing concern he had about it.

Rod Gragg: First of all, you have to acknowledge and understand, come from a point of view that's reality, that slavery was the great American tragedy. That and often the way the government treated Native American peoples. Great American tragedy. And yet, at the same time, there was this great debate about slavery with the Founders at the time of the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson's original draft was stronger about it, language that was taken out, and the big concern was politically that they felt like that it was so narrow of a vote to be able to pass this Declaration of Independence, and it really was narrow because it had to be unanimous. You couldn't have some colonies that were in and some colonies were out.

So the big debate was that finally they decided after dealing with slavery that they couldn't fix it. So they kicked the can down the road because they felt like that they had to have the Declaration of Independence, they had to have a nation, and then it could be addressed. Then it came up again during the Constitution, and it still was not properly addressed, and the can was kicked down the road again.

But even with all that imperfection, even with how that all turned out, still the forward motion was put in place. It would be such hypocrisy to say in your mission statement that all men are created equal by their Creator and yet have such inequality with slavery. Once that document became the mission statement of this new nation and was expressed through law through the Constitution, it was like the clock was ticking on the death of slavery.

Jim Daly: It is a scourge. It's horrific what took place. You don't want to minimize that, but like any nation, you hopefully continue to grow in a positive direction, in a good biblical direction, which I think when you look at the arc of history in the U.S., that's certainly the experience. Many people are coming to that same conclusion, including Shelby Steele, who just says we are so much closer than we were 40 years ago, 60 years ago. So that continual progress is the key, even though it's imperfect.

Rod, let me ask you, we have the privilege of celebrating our freedom in America today largely because of what these people did back then. How did George Washington and the Founding Fathers celebrate their freedom right after their victory over the British?

Rod Gragg: For all purposes, the Revolutionary War ended in 1781 with the victory at Yorktown, but it took another almost two years or so to work out all the details and come to a treaty at the Treaty of Paris. Washington's reaction was to call for a worship service. Congress did the same thing. Congress called for these days of prayer and fasting.

The Continental Congress observed those typically by assembling together and then marching as a unit to a church in Philadelphia, and in some cases twice at least, they went to two different churches for two different worship services. That's how they reacted to the victory. There was this widespread celebration on July 4th, they released the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, Adams, the Founders, they thought the great party day would be on the second.

Adams said, in fact, he wrote a letter to his wife and said that from now on, July the second will be a day of celebration of fireworks, of worship services, of great and glad celebration on the second.

Jim Daly: On this day, we're celebrating this. This is why we had you here to talk about the founding of America, all of its goodness and all of its imperfection. I think this will be a little bit of an unfair question, but you're the historian. If we could slap the *Jurassic Park* idea onto the Founding Fathers and somehow we could revive them to come back today and they look at America and they look at where we're at, what do you think their reaction would be?

Rod Gragg: I've thought about that. I would say that, and I'm getting in the ground of speculation here, but I would say first of all that they would be impressed at the scope and measure of America. They would be impressed to a point with technology. I think they would have a lot to grieve about. I think they would grieve a lot about America and where it is today in terms of its shift in the worldview.

This is really central to everything that you're addressing, I believe, but the great influential and underreported story of our generation to me as a historian is the shift in the worldview in Western culture and in America in particular. Everybody has a worldview. It's how you look at life, it's how you view the world, it's your core values.

The traditional, historic Western civilization worldview and the American worldview was a Judeo-Christian worldview, the biblical worldview. In the mid to late 20th century, there became a shift from this worldview, the Judeo-Christian worldview holding a view that God is the authority over everything and that God should be the central focus of everything, and the shift over to a view that humanity is the authority over everything and humanity should be the focus of everything. That is a phenomenal shift that has a remarkable impact and cannot do anything but that.

Jim Daly: I think in that context then right at the end here, what do churches do? Churches played a vital role, as you've pointed out, in the Revolutionary War. Clergy led people in their theological understanding of what was right and wrong. What about today? How do we apply those principles to our situation today? How do we assess our situation and then act accordingly? How should we then live?

Rod Gragg: I would say that we have to remember that it is a difficult time for people of faith and a difficult time particularly for Christians who are called on to remain steadfast in the faith and in the truth of Scripture and that at the same time, becoming the unpopular minority and also having to show the love of Christ and wanting to show the love of Christ.

But I would just say that from a point of view of history, you see throughout history that the Church has flourished under duress. So I would say that if we feel pressure as Christians today, and I'm speaking as personally now as a Christian, not as a historian, but I think we feel that pressure, we have to realize that this is not new for Christianity.

What we've enjoyed as Christians here in this culture over the life of our nation has been really unique and it's not typical of what Christians have faced, and yet we see that the Church of Christ has flourished throughout the ages.

Jim Daly: That's a great reminder, and I think of those scriptures "fear not," "be anxious for nothing." I mean, if we as believers believe, I think we should have a sense that God knows what He's doing and He's going to unroll this according to His plan. I think we need to be projecting the very things the Founding Fathers talked about in terms of a sense of faith, religious freedom, the core beliefs of the Judeo-Christian perspective, the fruit of the Spirit.

If we can do those things and remain calm, I think people will wake up when we go into this folly of trying to live life without God because I think it ends up in a dead end, and I think our culture is experiencing that now.

Rod Gragg: Always throughout history, if you study church history, the challenge has been and it is today that in whatever circumstances we face, that we show the love of Christ.

Jim Daly: Do that consistently and God will take care of it. Think of the people in Rome and what they faced, like you mentioned China, where it doesn't look like the church is going to flourish or even get out of that decade or that century, and then the Lord turns it around. And the thing standing in the floor of the Colosseum today is what? Oh, a cross, the cross of Christ. Isn't that interesting?

Rod, this has been great. Thank you for the conversation. Thanks for re-educating us on what the Founding Fathers, particularly George Washington, was about, what this nation was founded upon, the principles that it was founded upon, and the reminder of how do we get back there and concentrate on the core things: "fear not," "be anxious for nothing," and love your neighbor and love God, and I think you've got the ingredients there for a truly continued great nation. Thanks for being with us.

Rod Gragg: My pleasure.

Jim Daly: And if you want a copy of this great book, *By the Hand of Providence*, get in touch with us and we will send it to you for a gift of any amount. If you can make a monthly commitment like Jean and I do, it's a great way to do it. We'll send you a copy as our way of saying thank you. If it's a one-time gift, we'll do the same. We'll send a copy of the book for you, and it's just a great way to do ministry together.

John Fuller: Donate today and make a generous contribution as you can, and we'll send that book to you, *By the Hand of Providence*. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or go to focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Coming up next time, an inspirational radio drama about America's independence.

Guest (Male): But you'll be caught! I mean, if you're caught, won't you be hanged?

Guest (Male): Yes, in all probability. But if that is the Lord's will, then who am I to stand in the way? I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Now, off you go! Godspeed, Orwin Springer. You carry our best hope onward to liberty!

Rod Gragg: To liberty! To liberty!

John Fuller: That's next time on Focus on the Family. And remember, when you get in touch, let us know how you're listening: on our website, through our mobile app, or on our podcast feed. I'm John Fuller, and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, join us next time as we help you and your family thrive.

Jim Daly: Hey, Jim Daly here. Join me for a deep dive on issues in the culture with respected thinkers on my Refocus podcast. I really think you'll love it. Listen to Refocus with Jim Daly on your favorite streaming app today.