THE BIBLE IS STILL RELEVANT IN AMERICA
[God’s wisdom] is like a tree of life to those who obtain her, and everyone who grasps hold of her will be blessed.
—PROVERBS 3:18, NET
Here in America, atheists can advocate for their worldview without fear of persecution. Presidential candidates can range from deeply devout to totally nonreligious, and the populace can vote accordingly. That is the beauty (and danger) of democracy. Most of the people, or at least the people who become the most influential, will determine the direction of the nation.
Will marijuana be legalized throughout America? What about physician-assisted suicide? Will no-fault divorce continue to be the law of the land? Will Roe v. Wade be overturned? What about polygamy? Will that ever become legal again?
In a theocracy, religious leaders would answer these questions based on their interpretation of their holy books, and everyone would have to live by their laws, like it or not. In a democracy, we get to vote on many of our laws, and the losers have to accept the final outcome or work hard to overturn it, all while we live side by side in the midst of our differences.
We must remember, though, that the same men who wrote our foundational documents presupposed that America would be a moral and religious society.1 Otherwise, they realized, the democratic principles on which the country was founded would quickly crumble because we can enjoy freedom only with responsibility, and at base, responsibility requires morality. As Dennis Prager observed, “The Founders of America based their entire view of America on this belief—that God wants us to be free. That is why the most iconic symbol of the American Revolution, the Liberty Bell, has only one sentence inscribed on it—a verse from the Hebrew Bible: ‘Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.’”2
Most of our founders presupposed that the Bible would play a major role in American life and thought. They never would have envisaged a nation in which public Bible reading would be banned from the schools (as decreed by the Supreme Court in 1962, without legal precedent). In the oft-quoted words of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (as well as a staunch opponent of slavery), “The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.”3
Today we hear about how irreligious the founders were—deists and free thinkers and nominal Christians—but it is a wildly exaggerated picture that tries to correct another exaggerated picture; namely, that the Founding Fathers were all “born again” evangelical Christians who carried a Bible wherever they went. Undeniably, though, the Bible played a major role in their thinking, even among the least religious of the founders. As Matthew Spalding noted in his book, We Still Hold These Truths:
In 1984, two professors studied the sources cited by the founding generation in their major writings between 1760 and 1805. Their findings are revealing, to say the least. The most-referenced work by far was the Bible, accounting for 34 percent of all citations. The next grouping, making up 22 percent of the citations, was dominated by three writers associated with the moderate Enlightenment: John Locke . . . Baron de Montesquieu . . . and William Blackstone.4
According to Stephen McDowell,
Political Science Professor Donald Lutz conducted an exhaustive ten-year research of about 15,000 political documents of the Founders’ Era (1760–1805). From 916 of these items he recorded every reference our Founders made to other sources. This list of 3154 citations reveals those writings and men that most shaped the political ideas of our Founders. By far, the most quoted source of their political ideas was the Bible, 34% of citations. The next most quoted sources were individuals who had a Christian view of law—Montesquieu (8.3%), Blackstone (7.9%), and Locke (2.9%). In fact, over 80% of all the citations were from the Bible or biblical thinkers.5
Ironically, the biblically inspired form of government that we enjoy gives us the liberty to be godless, irreverent, materialistic, and narcissistic, but we do this at our own risk. Only free people can govern freely, and true freedom is ultimately found in God. That’s why the more we stray from God and his ways, the more enslaved we become—to financial debt, to fleshly passions, to destructive habits. Has there ever been a time when more Americans were more addicted than today? In our rejection of the Lord and his ways, in our scorning of the Scriptures, in our quest for personal “freedom,” we have become totally bound.
Our founders understood this, but today we probably need a reintroduction to the Book they revered. It is popular these days to attack the Bible as an evil book and to malign the God of the Bible as an evil god. We are told that the Scriptures are outdated, outmoded, out of touch, and outlandish. Internet mockers and atheistic authors assure us that “the Bible [specifically, the Old Testament] was written by a bunch of Bronze Age goat herders” or penned by “Bronze Age desert tribesmen,”6 and so it is as irrelevant socially and morally as it is scientifically. What kind of enlightened person would pay attention to such antiquated myths, let alone consider them sacred, inspired, and binding? As someone posted on my Facebook page, “I like how you think your outdated bronze-age mythology is relevant. That’s too cute.”7
We are even told that the Bible is downright dangerous: the website EvilBible.com claims that it “is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible.” Yes, “for far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so called God of the Bible,” the website claims, “makes Osama bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children.”8
In harmony with this assessment is the famous statement of atheist Richard Dawkins:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.9
The reality, as expressed by Jewish scholar Gabriel Sivan, is that
Ever since Sinai, the moral imperatives of the Five Books of Moses, reinforced by the thunderous indignation of the Prophets, have provided one of the greatest inspirations for social reformers and religious idealists, motivating their perennial concern for man’s physical and spiritual welfare and for the evolution of a more just and humane society. . . .
It is no exaggeration that the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments] has had a greater impact on man’s moral thinking and endeavor than all other ethical formulations known to humanity.10
Writing to a friend in 1809, John Adams stated that, despite contrary views of men like Voltaire,
I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe, or pretend to believe, that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty Sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.11
And how, exactly, did the Jewish people accomplish this extraordinary feat? It was through their sacred, inspired writings—the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, and more—what we call today the Old Testament. In the words of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, “I believe that the existence of the Bible is the greatest benefit to the human race. Any attempt to belittle it, I believe, is a crime against humanity.”12
Through the teachings of the Scriptures, put into practice by the early Christians, the horrible practice of infanticide was eradicated from Roman society. Before this, unwanted babies were commonly and heartlessly abandoned to die at the hands of the elements or wild animals.
Through the teachings of the Scriptures, gladiatorial combat was also eradicated from that society. As the church grew in influence, this barbaric practice, where gladiators competed to the death to the thrill of the fans, came to an end.
Through the teachings of the Scriptures, William Wilberforce eradicated slavery from the British Empire; and through the teachings of the Scriptures, Christian abolitionists eradicated slavery from the United States of America.13 More recently, also through the teachings of the Scriptures, Christian civil rights leaders brought justice to America for black Americans.
In a chapter of the book The Bible and Social Reform, Peter J. Paris explained:
The prophetic strand of the black Christian tradition is rooted in antebellum [pre–Civil War] opposition to slavery that predates the abolitionist organizations. Soon after the birth of the independent black churches in the early nineteenth century, blacks began to protest slavery through moral suasion. The prophetic strand is the locus of some of the finest rhetoric in American history and the source of some of the most persuasive arguments against human enslavement and oppression.14
More broadly, and as summarized by Gabriel Sivan (with emphasis on the Old Testament), “Millions of underprivileged persons in country after country have been rescued from squalor and misery thanks to the humanitarian instincts and philanthropic work of great idealists for whom the reforming spirit of the Hebrew Bible was a lasting inspiration.”15 We can say without exaggeration that the Bible is the most revolutionary book ever written, and its positive fruit is unparalleled throughout world history.
Consider what John Adams had to say about the potential impact of the Scriptures:
Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men, and to piety and love, and reverence towards Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust—no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or any other trifling and mean amusement—no man would steal or rile or any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men—no man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be.16
This is from one of our Founding Fathers. But Adams was not just dreaming. To the extent people have lived by the Scriptures, society has been positively changed.
Os Guinness quoted the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard’s observation that “the thought of Christianity was to want to change everything. Twelve men united on being Christians have recreated the face of the world.” Guinness continued, “Indeed, that transforming power is at the heart of the genius of the West, and a direct gift of the gospel with its emphasis on life change.”17
Sociologist Rodney Stark pointed out that “amidst contemporary denunciations of Christianity as patriarchal and sexist, it is easily forgotten that the church was so especially attractive to women that in 370 the emperor Valentinian issued a written order to Pope Damascus I requiring that Christian missionaries cease calling at the homes of pagan women.”18
He also explained that “Christian women did indeed enjoy considerably greater status and power than did pagan women.”19 How so? “First of all,” Stark wrote, “a major aspect of women’s improved status in the Christian subculture is that Christians did not condone female infanticide,” which was another revolutionary breakthrough brought about by the new faith in accordance with the teachings of the Scriptures.20
Stark noted that males clearly outnumbered females in the ancient Greco-Roman world, meaning that human life was being tampered with: “Exposure of unwanted female infants and deformed male infants was legal, morally accepted, and widely practiced by all social classes in the Greco-Roman world.”21 To illustrate the point, Stark cited a famous letter from the year 1 B.C. written by a man named Hilarion to his pregnant wife, Alis:
Know that I am still in Alexandria. And do not worry if they all come back and I remain in Alexandria. I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I receive payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered for a child [before I come home], if it is a boy keep it, if a girl discard it. You have sent me word, “Don’t forget me.” How can I forget you. I beg you not to worry.22
How extraordinary! The Jesus movement changed that mind-set dramatically, and, as noted, infanticide was largely obliterated by the Christian faith as it spread, which was of special benefit to females. And all this came about through the practical application of scriptural principles, including the principle that all life is sacred (see chapter 5).
Stark also noted that “the more favorable Christian view of women is also demonstrated in their condemnation of divorce, incest, marital infidelity, and polygamy. . . . Like pagans, early Christians prized female chastity, but unlike pagans they rejected the double standard that gave pagan men so much sexual license.”23 So the double standard that required sexual purity for women but not for men was also obliterated by the teaching of the Bible. Stark also added, “Should they be widowed, Christian women also enjoyed very substantial advantages,” noting that “close examination of Roman persecutions also suggests that women held positions of power and status within the Christian churches.”24
These changes, which were completely radical in the ancient world, were the natural result of Christians living out the teachings of Moses and the prophets and Jesus and the apostles. These teachings brought life, not death; progress, not regress; freedom, not bondage. We must recover the revolutionary power of the Scriptures once again in our day.
Similar examples could be given throughout history, but the story remains the same: where knowledge of the Bible spreads among a people, it has a liberating, transforming effect. Historian John Richard Green explained the Bible’s effect during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603):
Elizabeth might silence or tune the pulpits, but it was impossible for her to silence or tune the great preachers of justice, and mercy, and truth, who spoke from the Book with the Lord again opened to the people [by means of it being translated into English]. The effect of the Bible in this way was simply amazing. The whole temper of the nation was changed. A new conception of life and man superseded the old. A new moral and religious impulse spread through every class.25
I’m quite aware that Bible believers today are accused of being anti-education, anti-science, and anti-progress. The reality is that the Bible played a foundational role in Western education—not the least in American education (see chapter 2)—and Christians often led the way in medical and scientific advance through the centuries. In the best sense of the word progressive, nothing contributes more to human progress than adhering to the wisdom of the Word.
C. Ben Mitchell, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University, pointed out that “Christians have been leaders in medicine and the building of hospitals because their founder, Jesus of Nazareth, healed the sick during his ministry on earth (see Matt. 9; 10:8; 25:24–26). The early church not only endorsed medicine, but championed care for the sick.”26 As stated by the respected medical historian H. E. Sigerist,
It remained for Christianity to introduce the most revolutionary and decisive change in the attitude of society toward the sick. Christianity came into the world as the religion of healing, as the joyful Gospel of the Redeemer and of Redemption. It addressed itself to the disinherited, to the sick and afflicted and promised them healing, a restoration both spiritual and physical. [Thus,] It became the duty of the Christian to attend to the poor and the sick of the community.27
Mitchell quoted Albert R. Jonsen, a historian of medicine from the University of Washington, who stated that from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries,
the Christian faith . . . permeated all aspects of life in the West. The very conception of medicine, as well as its practice, was deeply touched by the doctrine and discipline of the Church. This theological and ecclesiastical influence manifestly shaped the ethics of medicine, but it even indirectly affected its science since, as its missionaries evangelized the peoples of Western and Northern Europe, the Church found itself in a constant battle against the use of magic and superstition in the work of healing. It championed rational medicine, along with prayer, to counter superstition.28
Mitchell also cited Charles E. Rosenberg, another medical historian, who demonstrated that “the modern hospital owes its origins to Judeo-Christian compassion. Evidence of the vast expansion of faith-based hospitals is seen in the legacy of their names: St. Vincent’s, St. Luke’s, Mt. Sinai, Presbyterian, Mercy, and Beth Israel. These were all charitable hospitals, some of which began as foundling hospitals to care for abandoned children.”29 This pattern continues around the world today as Christian missionaries build schools and hospitals to serve the poor and needy, educate the illiterate, and relieve suffering, all as a natural outgrowth of their biblical faith. The Bible is a book of healing, restoration, and life (see chapter 6). It is also eminently practical.
Jonsen had noted that the church “championed rational medicine, along with prayer, to counter superstition.” And Rodney Stark, in his most recent work The Triumph of Faith, has pointed out that in European countries where church attendance is especially low, Christian faith has not been replaced by secularism. It has been replaced by superstition.
For example, in Sweden, which
is almost always presented as exhibit A in the case for the triumph of secularization . . . more than 20 percent of Swedes say they believe in reincarnation; half believe in mental telepathy; and nearly one in five believes in the power of lucky charms. A third believe in New Age medicine such as “healing Crystals”; 20 percent would consider purchasing their personal horoscope; 10 percent would consult a medium; and nearly two out of five believe in ghosts.30
In Russia, despite decades of the systematic teaching of atheism, only 6.6 percent of the population identifies as atheist, yet church attendance remains relatively low. But that tells only part of the story:
Two-thirds of Russians believe in “supernatural forces.” So did many of those employed in the Soviet regime as instructors in atheism or in the Communist Party’s inner circle. It was common for Soviet leaders to consult psychics and fortune tellers, and most of them visited occult healers. Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the USSR from 1964 to 1982, had a personal healer. A 2006 report from the Russian Academy of Sciences acknowledged that there were more occult healers than conventional medical doctors practicing in Russia, and according to one news account, “Russian newspapers are full of ads for all manner of urban witches and wizards.” The scholar Holly DeNio Stephens reports, “Healers and psychics frequently appear on morning and evening talk shows and recount their visions and paranormal experiences.” In 2008 a national survey of Russia found that 52 percent believed in faith healers and another 20 percent weren’t sure.31
What about Iceland, considered by many sociologists of religion to be one of the most secularized nations in the world, a nation in which less than half claim they are religious and more than 40 percent of young Icelanders identify as atheist?32 This secular nation is thoroughly superstitious, as Stark pointed out:
34 percent of Icelanders believe in reincarnation and another 16 percent aren’t sure about it. Moreover, a national survey found that 55 percent of Icelanders believe in the existence of huldufolk, or hidden people, such as elves, trolls, gnomes, and fairies. Consequently, planned highways are sometimes rerouted so as not to disturb various hills and large rocks wherein huldufolk may dwell, and Icelanders planning to build a new house often hire “elf spotters” to ensure that their site does not encroach on huldufolk settlements. In addition, half of Icelanders have visited a fortune teller, and spiritualism is very widely practiced; it is popular even among intellectuals and academics. According to a Reuters dispatch (February 2, 2015), a rapidly growing group of Icelandic neopagans broke ground for a temple dedicated to worship of the old Norse gods.33
Here in America, “studies find that in the United States the irreligious are far more likely than the religious to believe in a whole array of occult beliefs such as Atlantis, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, astrology, UFOs, haunted houses, and ghosts.”34 So it is not those following the Scriptures who believe in fairy tales and superstitious myths. It is those who reject God’s Word who are more likely to do this. In the oft-quoted words of G. K. Chesterton, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing—they believe in anything.”35
On October 14, 1941, Adolph Hitler commented:
So it’s not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that’s left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.36
Today we can say that it was not Christianity that died a natural death. To the contrary, it was Nazism that died a violent, ignominious death while the Christian faith, despite setbacks in the West, is thriving worldwide like never before. Nazism, for its part, has been “convicted of absurdity”—and far worse.
More than twenty-five hundred years ago, the prophet Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, declared, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa. 40:7–8). Empires have come and gone, including the mighty Roman empire, but God’s Word still stands, including the letters of Paul. As for the words of Jesus, he said almost two thousand years ago, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). So far, the words of this Jewish carpenter who never once left his home country and who died a criminal’s death around the age of thirty-three have proven absolutely true. There is something utterly unique about the Scriptures. Read through the books of sacred literature from other world religions and see for yourself if anything truly compares with the Bible in majesty, practicality, wisdom, and relevance.
When our daughters were in their teen years, I read a passage from Proverbs to them about the dangerous effects of getting drunk, wanting them to realize how applicable the Scriptures were to their lives. The text said:
Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns, trying out new drinks. Don’t gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down. For in the end it bites like a poisonous snake; it stings like a viper. You will see hallucinations, and you will say crazy things. You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea, clinging to a swaying mast. And you will say, “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t even know it when they beat me up. When will I wake up so I can look for another drink?” (Prov. 23:29–35 NLT)
This got their attention, driving home the point that the Bible was anything but an irrelevant, ancient religious textbook. It is the living Word of the living God, speaking as clearly to us today as it did two or three thousand years ago. No other book is like it, and no other book has had the positive world impact that the Bible has when rightly taken to heart and applied.
Leonard Ravenhill, a fiery revivalist and author, once said, “One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.” I want to be that “simple soul.” How about you? You may have heard Chesterton’s famous statement, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” I think it’s high time that we said to God, “No matter the cost or the consequences, by your help and grace, we want to live this out. We want to follow your Word. We want to prove to the world that your ways are ways of life. While we have breath and strength, we want to go for it!”
If we do, I believe God himself will back us. Are you ready to take the plunge?