Impact of the 1776 Guiding Documents

Unmoored: America Adrift in Historical Forgetfulness and Finding Our Way Back

In trying to understand the unique concepts of the USA, we need to start with two key documents written in the heady days of the Second Continental Congress: The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.

We saw in the last episode, Christianity was one of the four core themes we can glean from the colonization efforts that formed the USA. In case you missed it, the other three are Capitalism, Risk, and Rebellion. There's a larger point here about that hypothesis regarding understanding the USA, but that's not this podcast. Perhaps I will add a bonus episode going into depth about this to help people better understand the nation called "the USA."

Does that fact that the colonists were intentionally bringing Christianity with them, asserting its importance to their future success, mean that decades later, at the founding of the nation, that they were expecting a “Christian Nation” to follow? What about decades later, as national leaders gathered in Philadelphia in the crucial days leading to the American Revolution…did they perceived themselves creating a “Christian Nation”?

You can read the Declaration of Independence and also the Articles of Confederation for yourself. In the Declaration we focus on the opening explanation, noting editorial changes that were made by Franklin and Adams ("hold these truths to be self-evident") and a few other parts there. Then, we shift focus to the concluding paragraph to two key editorial changes made that inserted the general consensus of the group about the involvement of the Christian God in their effort. With the Articles, we specifically noted Article III and the conclusion that starts, at the end, with "And, whereas...."