[Looking at history and our area’s unique political and religious attitudes.]
What happened? For the first 200-years from the Europeans in America, education was provided primarily by ministers. In 1635, Joseph Cotton, a Puritan minister influenced the establishment of Boston Latin School to teach basic academic skills and religious principles.
In an interesting re-definition, this was the first public school. According to Public School Review, “The primary function of schools at this time was to teach reading so that children learned to read the Bible. Schools also taught Puritan values and basic information about the Calvinist religion.” That is decidedly different as we know them today.
The Massachusetts Colony passed the Old Deluder Satan Act in 1642, “All youth … be taught to read perfectly in the
English tongue, have knowledge in the capital law, and be taught some orthodox catechism, and that they be brought up to some honest employment.”
The colonial pulpit was intimately involved in education and government, as well as their preaching.
Cotton Mather entered Harvard at 12-years of age, demonstrating his ability in Latin and Greek. He became his father’s understudy before becoming pastor. He worked for the ouster of Sir Edmund Andros, governor of Massachusetts. He was a prolific scientist, historian, and member of the Royal Society of London, who published more than 400 works.
Jonathon Edwards was the greatest philosopher and theologian of British America and entered Yale at 13. His sermons began the Awakening. Thomas Shafer observed “…rediscovered by theologians … and by secular scholars seeking to delineate the “American mind.” Edwards’s ability to combine religious intensity with intellectual rigor and moral earnestness, the cosmic sweep of his theological vision, his emphasis on faith as an “existential” response to reality, his insistence that love is the heart of religion, and his uncompromising stand against all forms of idolatry are some of the reasons his life and writings are again being seriously studied.”
George Whitefield, was a British Methodist evangelist. As a colleague of Edwards and close friend of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, he cast a major influence on the Declaration of Independence for freedom of individuals and to challenge the government in England. He awakened a previously lethargic Christianity.
Dr. John Witherspoon was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, theologian, historian, and president of Princeton. His students included president James Madison, vice-president Aaron Burr, nine cabinet members, 21 senators, 39 members of Congress, three Supreme Court justices, and 12 governors. He was in Congress for many years and signed the Declaration of Independence. After the passing of his wife, at 68-years-old he married 24-year-old Anne Dill and fathered two more children.
John Leland, a Baptist pastor in Virginia and Massachusetts, took a 12-foot circumference cheese, weighing about 1235 pounds from his Massachusetts congregation to President Thomas Jefferson. He was a confidante of both Jefferson and Madison. Leland preached to the Congress on Sunday, January 3. Jefferson concluded if his friend did not see a conflict he could not be criticized for attending. This is two days after his famous letter to Danbury Baptist addressing keeping the government out of churches, not religion out of government.
Other notable patriot-pastors included Samuel Davies, Welsh-American hymnist, president of Princeton, and pastor of young Patrick Henry; Jonas Clark, pastor and leader at Lexington in 1775; and Peter Muhlenburg, pastor and army colonel who encouraged his troops with “Give ‘em Watts, boys!” Without minister leadership in the community, there would be no nation.
Contrast the active participation of the founder-ministers with today.
Pastor Rafael Cruz is the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Rev. Rafael at Carrollton, Texas, a couple of weeks ago in September urged Christians to be more politically involved, declaring that the pious sounding phrase “God is in control” is a “cop-out … it is not even Biblical … is an excuse that Christians give to justify sitting on their rear ends doing nothing, while the country is going to Hell in a hand-basket … It denies individual responsibility.”
He proclaimed that “the Church has failed America.” He did not stop there. “Most pastors are afraid to say anything controversial. To say anything that may offend somebody … They are no longer pastors.” Rev. Cruz continued, “The pastor has a responsibility to lead the sheep in every area of life. Most pastors are not doing that.” A separate survey revealed less than twenty-percent of pastors educate about politics and who to vote for. Pastor Cruz, who escaped from Communism in Cuba asked, “If we lose our freedoms here, where are we going to go?”
If religious leaders do not provide political education of yore, where will people obtain it, from hostile sources? It is each of our responsibility to get out there to vote, intelligently.
Think about it. If you do not participate, someone else is making decisions for you. It is a binary choice. God bless
America.