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Faith & Freedom: Recovering America's Christian Heritage
Faith & Freedom shatters most popular misconceptions about America's history and tells the true story of of an idea never before enacted in the founding of a country -- the idea of freedom. And America is in the midst of a crisis of identity, says Hart, "because its past is being obliterated by revisionist historians and modern prejudices."The myth that religious faith is incompatible with freedom is simply wrong, says "America's founding fathers understood that faith and freedom go together, that one cannot survive without the other."This is a dramatic, fact-filled narrative, containing moving portraits of some of freedom's greatest heroes and martyrs. The volume is packed with crucial information largely omitted from today's history texts.Vitally relevant today as we watch the dramatic increases in government power and the erosion of individual liberty, Hart's book traces this alarming trend directly to the decline of religious influence in American society.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 4, 2015
Although apparently having a revisionist philosophy, this book represents an attempt to counter decades of secular revisionism regarding the Christian influence on this nation's history.
Although the Anglican church is considered Protestant, it is the most Catholic of them, representing a change in management rather than a change in ceremony and traditions when Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church. As a result, the church of England became as much a target of reformers as did the Catholic church. Efforts by the crown to suppress the reform movements led reformers to settle down in North America, producing a wide variety of Protestant sects in the colonies. One fear common to almost all these sects and to independent-minded Anglican congregations was the threat that the crown would appoint a bishop over the colonies who would crack down on religious practices to promote uniformity and suppress dissent. Secular histories tend to ignore this contributor to the tension that led to the American Revolution.
Secular histories also fail to note that the American Revolution was a conservative revolution, conservative in as much as it was an attempt to preserve a way of live rather than produce a new one. The colonies had experienced a high level of self government. George III was a micromanager. The original purpose of the revolution was not independence; rather, the colonists merely wanted to preserve the rights they already had. Independence was merely a means to that end and chosen when all other avenues had been exhausted.
The conservative nature of the American Revolution explains why it succeeded in producing freedom when other revolutions such as the French Revolution produced terror and bloodbath. These other revolutions attempted to produce a new culture by imposing changes on the people in the name of the will of the people.
The Christian view of man also influenced the constitution. The sin nature in man requires him to be governed. A corollary to this is that those who govern also have sin nature and must have limits on their power to limit the damage they can do. As a result, our constitution was designed to give the federal government sufficient power to do its job but insufficient power to produce tyranny. Of course, those limits have been undercut over the years.
Although the Anglican church is considered Protestant, it is the most Catholic of them, representing a change in management rather than a change in ceremony and traditions when Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church. As a result, the church of England became as much a target of reformers as did the Catholic church. Efforts by the crown to suppress the reform movements led reformers to settle down in North America, producing a wide variety of Protestant sects in the colonies. One fear common to almost all these sects and to independent-minded Anglican congregations was the threat that the crown would appoint a bishop over the colonies who would crack down on religious practices to promote uniformity and suppress dissent. Secular histories tend to ignore this contributor to the tension that led to the American Revolution.
Secular histories also fail to note that the American Revolution was a conservative revolution, conservative in as much as it was an attempt to preserve a way of live rather than produce a new one. The colonies had experienced a high level of self government. George III was a micromanager. The original purpose of the revolution was not independence; rather, the colonists merely wanted to preserve the rights they already had. Independence was merely a means to that end and chosen when all other avenues had been exhausted.
The conservative nature of the American Revolution explains why it succeeded in producing freedom when other revolutions such as the French Revolution produced terror and bloodbath. These other revolutions attempted to produce a new culture by imposing changes on the people in the name of the will of the people.
The Christian view of man also influenced the constitution. The sin nature in man requires him to be governed. A corollary to this is that those who govern also have sin nature and must have limits on their power to limit the damage they can do. As a result, our constitution was designed to give the federal government sufficient power to do its job but insufficient power to produce tyranny. Of course, those limits have been undercut over the years.
February 13, 2010
Interesting book, not a popular topic. The author has done his research and knows the religious back-ground of the original settlers and the founding generation. In history class it is too easy to contribute the American founding to John Locke and secular government, but those sources alone don't explain our birth as a nation. One historian tracked references in the writing of the founders - biblical citations out number civil or philosophical citations by a noticeable magnitude. We do a great disservice to history and our own knowledge by ignoring the Christian roots of our founding. Does this mean we are a Christian nation - no - but to say that Christianity had no role in the shaping of our nation is to put blinders on in the false pose of being politically correct.
December 9, 2014
Problematic at best in both method and content; however, Hart's work can serve as a fascinating starting point for the recovering Christian Reconstructionist--and later as a counterpoint for better historians such as Frazier, Marsden, and Fea.
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