What is the agenda of the political left? The American political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain affirmed that it seeks “a thoroughly secularized society, one stripped of any and all public markers and reminders of religion.”1 Chief Justice William Rehnquist once observed that the Supreme Court “bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.”2 Radical secularists and atheists reflecting confusion regarding the meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause have repeatedly attempted to remove “In God We Trust” from United States currency. A secular undertow ever pulls Americans away from a founding principle of the American republic affirmed in the Pledge of Allegiance: the United States of America is one nation under God. 

George Washington and Our Foundational Laws 

The pre-eminence of God over the political community was assumed in the founding legal documents of the new American nation and in the first public address delivered by the first American head of state. The position that the American people are dependent upon God for His blessing was included as the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”3 A reference to the God of Christianity was included in Article VII of the United States Constitution: “Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven.”4 The conception that the new government would be under God appeared in the First Inaugural Address of George Washington. He publicly acknowledged God, stating that his “first official Act” as president would be the “tendering” of “homage to the great Author of every public and private good” and the offering of his “fervent supplications” that the “Almighty Being who rules over the Universe” would give his “benediction” and would “consecrate” the new “Government.”5

Abraham Lincoln and Divine Providence 

The perspective that governments conduct their business and that nations live under the watchful eye of God continued to show itself on the national stage in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The president concluded the Gettysburg Address by acknowledging that the American political tradition entailed a commitment to the idea of a virtuous people deliberating under God.6 Lincoln affirmed this hope: “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”7 Lincoln likewise manifested a providentialist view of history in his Second Inaugural Address as he contemplated the Civil War and the judgment of God upon the sins of the American people. Lincoln declared, “If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?” Even if the “mighty scourge of war” should continue indefinitely, Lincoln professed this faith: “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”8

Jonathan Edwards 

The perspectives imbedded in our founding documents and articulated by our renowned statesmen had been forcefully stated by the eminent New England theologian, Jonathan Edwards, who reinforced the longstanding providentialist view of history that had existed in the American colonies. He too believed that adverse events in the political community should be directly traced to divine judgment. We see this in his sermon delivered on the occasion of the death of the New England statesman John Stoddard. Edwards asserted, “The removal of such rulers from a people by death is to be looked upon as an awful judgment of God on that people, and is to be greatly lamented.”9 Edwards applied this doctrinal position to the event at hand, the death of New England’s statesman: “The awful voice of God in this providence is worthy to be attended to by this whole province, and especially the people of this country, but in a more peculiar manner by us of this town.” The death of Stoddard led to a sobering, but nevertheless inescapable conclusion: “We have now this testimony of the divine displeasure, added to all the other dark clouds God has lately brought over us, and his awful frowns upon us.” Stoddard’s passing, Edwards affirmed, was not an accident. It was a reminder of the governing authority of the Most High, “an awful manifestation of his supreme, universal and absolute dominion, calling us to adore the divine sovereignty.”10

A Prosperous and Happy Nation 

It should be noted that there was an Augustinian orientation to Edwards’ political theory. In other words, his political thought went beyond the American political tradition, which valued life within a happy and prosperous political community characterized by self-government, a condition that can only exist on the basis of the embrace of the true religion and the practice of private and public virtue. He stood in continuity with the Augustinian theological trajectory, rooted in Scripture, affirming that the ultimate commitment of the Christian is to the City of God.  

Augustine of Hippo had expounded upon Christianity and politics in the early fifth century. He taught that when God is pleased to place Christians in positions of political power such occurrences cause much happiness in the Christian community. Augustine asserted, “As far as those who are endowed with true piety and who lead a good life, if they are skilled in the art of government, then there is no happier situation for mankind than that they, by God’s mercy, should wield power.”11 Furthermore, national greatness and blessing in Augustinian thought is directly related to the embrace of true religion and the practice of moral behavior. What would have happened, Augustine asked, if the Romans “had recognized the one God, and given him the worship of sincere faith and pure lives?” He then answered his own question, “They would have had a better dominion—whatever its size—here on earth, and would have received hereafter an eternal kingdom.”12 He further stated concerning Rome, “If the teachings of Christianity on justice and morality had been listened to and practiced,” the “Roman commonwealth would now enrich all the present world with its own happiness.”13

Ultimate Beatitude in the Heavenly Country 

Augustine desired a well-ordered political community. He was devoted to the prosperity of the state. He wanted to have the temporal blessings of God showered upon the earthly commonwealth as a result of its commitment to virtue and decency.14At the same time, however, he never set his ultimate hope upon the political orders that can be achieved by man here in this world. “True justice,” he maintained, “is found only in that commonwealth whose founder and builder is Christ.”15Thus, “the Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond comparison.”16 Augustine’s deepest longing was for the City of God. He said, “We sigh for her beauty while on our pilgrimage.”17 

Abraham Lincoln also understood that ultimate happiness is not to be found in the political communities of this world. He would not have disputed the statement that “human life is compelled to be wretched by all the grievous ills of this world.”18 “In this sad world,” said Lincoln, “sorrow comes to all.”19 He stood with those who “desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.”20 He had spoken of heaven as the place in which there would be “a joyous meeting with the many loved ones gone before.” “Through the help of God” he expressed his desire to join them before long.”21 On that fateful Good Friday of his assassination, Lincoln displayed a cheerfulness that amazed his wife Mary. That afternoon, he told her, “We must both, be more cheerful in the future.”22That evening the president accompanied his wife and two guests to Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln referred to, as Augustine put it, “the name of the City” which has a mystic significance.23 The president told Mary in a suggestive and loaded statement that he would like to “visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the steps of the Savior” and that “there was no city on earth he so much desired to see as Jerusalem.”24

The yearning of Jonathan Edwards for the heavenly country was no less than that of Augustine or Lincoln. The death of John Stoddard, he said, was “a loud and solemn warning to all sorts to prepare for their departure hence.”25 He ever proclaimed that we need to be ready so that we may inherit the kingdom of heaven. This was the ultimate political community which held his deepest allegiance. Edwards’ son, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., echoed the thinking of his father regarding the primacy of the world above in this declaration: “How happy that people is, whose God is the Lord, not only as this circumstance lays a foundation for their political good, but especially as it lays a foundation for true virtue and piety, for peace and comfort here and eternal happiness in the favour of God hereafter.”26 

  1. Jean Bethke Elshtain, “The Bright Line: Liberalism and Religion,” New Criterion 17 (March 1999): 8.  ↩︎
  2. Terry Eastland, “A Court Tilting Against Religious Liberty,” in “A Country I Do Not Recognize”: The Legal Assault on American Values, ed. Robert H. Bork (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 2005), 97.  ↩︎
  3. “Declaration of Independence,” in The American Republic: Primary Sources, ed. Bruce Frohen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 191.   ↩︎
  4.  “The Constitution of the United States of America,” in The American Republic: Primary Sources, ed. Bruce Frohen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 239. ↩︎
  5. George Washington, “First Inaugural Address,” in An American Primer, ed. Daniel J. Boorstin (New York: Mentor, 1966), 192. ↩︎
  6. Willmoore Kendall and George Cary, The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1995), ix.  ↩︎
  7. Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address,” in Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought, ed. Scott J. Hammond (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 2007), 1113.  ↩︎
  8. Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” in Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought, vol. 1, ed. Scott J. Hammond (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 2007), 1117–18. ↩︎
  9. Jonathan Edwards, “A Strong Rod Broken and Withered,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 25, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 316. ↩︎
  10. Edwards, “A Strong Rod Broken and Withered,” 330. ↩︎
  11. Augustine, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 1972), 213–14.  ↩︎
  12. Augustine, City of God, 170.   ↩︎
  13. Augustine, City of God, 70. ↩︎
  14. Augustine, City of God, 70, 170. ↩︎
  15. Augustine, City of God, 75. ↩︎
  16. Augustine, City of God, 87. ↩︎
  17. Augustine, City of God, 205. ↩︎
  18. Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 1984), 857. ↩︎
  19. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 25. ↩︎
  20. Hebrews 11:16. ↩︎
  21. William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln, ed. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 21. ↩︎
  22. Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 315.  ↩︎
  23. Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, 865. ↩︎
  24. Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 297. ↩︎
  25. Edwards, “A Strong Rod Broken and Withered,” 329. ↩︎
  26. Jonathan Edwards, Jr., “The Necessity of the Belief of Christianity,” in Political Sermons of the Founding Era, 1730–1805, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 1211 ↩︎

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