CHAPTER 1
God's Gift of Socio/Political Freedom
The American Revolutionary War
America is first and foremost known for pursuing socio/ political and religious freedoms. Israel is first and foremost known for its approachable relationship with God and the initial defense of the Moral Order. Over the many centuries of yore, with the protection, providence, guidance, love, freedom, truth, and Divine grace readily made available by God to Man, both these nations, America and Israel, have had to fight many wars of liberty to fulfill the Divine Will.
The search for liberty dates back eight centuries with the scripting of the Magna Charta. It was the most important document scripted of all times as it set the common citizen at odds with the arbitrary rule of despots. King John, who placed his royal seal on the parchment in the county of Surrey, assured its continuity as etched on a monument placed there much later in the year 1957 AD by the American Bar Association. However, almost three millennia before God made the decision that He wanted a set-apart nation, Israel, to carry-forth and defend His moral message to the souls of Planet Earth. Later in history America too became Divinely selected to implement, expand, and endorse God's gift of freedom for all human life and their societies. In the 18th century's USA, a colonial rebellion erupted in the New World just before the defeat of the powerful British Empire in the Revolutionary War. Freedom became an idea that began to germinate in the mindset of pioneers prior to the year 1776 AD. While many academic factors have been proposed by scholars as the decisive causes of this American socio/experiment, it was the spiritual/religious determinate of a confederation of States with Viking DNA from Scandia, Northern Germany, Northern France, and across the British Isles that conquered the mighty armada of King George's England. Inspired with colonial leadership, sea-roaming privateers, ragtail State militia, and an insufficiently financed, Continental Army, the Revolutionary War became the righteous conflict of religious resistance between a ruling class and those seeking God's liberty. In this regard, Thomas Jefferson led the way with his stirring script that gripped the imagination of he common pioneer to seek the Great Cause of freedom. Biblically, again we see that the upright and the weaker of us shall inherit the Earth. No doubt, this American War of Divine freedom only can be explained as a sacred, religious victory for Mankind. God's intervention expressed through an enlightened, Christian leadership, known as the Founding Fathers, set this imaginative, historic stage intended for a political paradigm needed for future, socio/legal freedom. The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and ultimately the US Constitution became the incentive for this momentous happening. Actually, it was the Saxons in the 10th century that gave rise to the English Common Law. They valued the rule of law over the might of kings. Surely the Magna Charter of England written a hundred years or so later became the socio/political archetype for the democratic ideal, although its principles were not adhered to by the English monarchy and King George III in their attempts to silence, defeat, and exploit the American colonies. The Revolutionary War proved that the cause of liberty will never tolerate or submit helplessly to regal hypocrisy.
In the main, the Founding Fathers, bar none, were deeply religious men who sought out the Christian Lord for guidance and reassurance. Away from home and family, they suffered untreated maladies and loneliness for a stretch of time since they sensed and knew that their political destinies had far-reaching implications and existential meaning. At the very least John Adams, his son, John Quincy, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, all avid, devoted readers of Sacred Scripture, knew that God was promoting "freedom" through them as set-apart leaders. No doubt, the Revolutionary victory was a God-sent miracle of spiritual courage; unlike the French Revolution, whereby freedom was based upon human reasoning-alone devoid of the guidance of God. This conceptual difference between these two 18th century Revolutions proved to be vital to the course of history. As a matter of historic fact, throughout America's tenure, the Good Book, the Bible, could be found at the near-reach of any Presidential desk.
At the onset, it was Thomas Jefferson who became the forerunner and champion for the cause of religious freedom. He knew that our understanding of God's Nature, His Will, and His Word must deeply relish the freedom to believe. Jefferson's entire life was devoted to his opposition to all clerically managed, established Churches, especially the entrenched Anglican Church of Virginia. He was an Evangelical who fervently believed that individuals should be allowed to seek God's intimacy in their own time, ways, and means. Both the freedom of religion and political liberty should have no commanding injunction by the tyranny and one-party outlook of a State or religious denomination. In this regard, Jefferson drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the Virginian Statue for Religious Freedom that summarized the rights of Man as coming from God not "political or clerical Man." As never seen before, these two "freedom documents" had the potential to advance the political, intellectual, and spiritual growth of America, the Western World, and universally, Global Mankind. In the 21st century, the cry for freedom can be heard ringing throughout the Globe. However it took the personal sacrifices, national treasure, and much bloodshed of the American Revolution to create the intellectual and spiritual demeanor needed for political rights to emerge out of God's gift of freedom for the common citizen. The Christian principle of both private and public sacrificial service can be readily observed troughout Jefferson's political career when at twenty-five years of age he was elected to the House of Burgesses in the State of Virginia; followed by its Governorship and Presidency of the USA. During his lifetime, Jefferson was a servant via his political offices, who believed that "active goodness" should be at the core of all democratic life. For his country, not unlike Jesus who came to serve Mankind, Jefferson also served his neighbor and country throughout the tenure of his adulthood. Within a political context, Jefferson advocated the natural rights of Man as God's gift, which were premised upon freedom, self-government, a war of independence against Mother England, and the disestablishment from the ruling classes of both Church and State. Jefferson's view of spiritual deliverance included the modernizing of advance education. Based at West Point, NY, he set up a Corps of Engineers so as to better educate the officer corps by teaching engineering, technology, languages, and the mathematics of artillery. As President, Jefferson's prophetic achievements also included the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, which expanded the geo/politics of America well past west of the Mississippi River. It took years of bloodshed and untimely deaths by many thousands of colonials and frontiersmen to implement and actualize the basic freedom ideas and ideals of Thomas Jefferson. What had to be endured during this 8-year war, a bloodbath, were starvation, disease, nakedness, years of mistreatment in British prisons, cold weather, sickness, and hunger. In anticipation of this suffering ought to have been expected side-by-side with the spiritual purity of a Christian character and fortitude of a George Washington, his Generals, and Congressional allies. Out of the blue, this sorrow became comforted by the direct intervention of God who interceded during notable battles won-over at Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Lexington, Dorchester Heights, and Salem. At these sites were the inspiring heroics of the American "freedom crusade." By taking the high ground, the victory at Bunker Hill so devastated the confidence of the British generals that it gave General Washington a year and a half breathing space so as to assemble a formidable Continental Army. At these victorious battle sites, when understood at the spiritual level, the loss of blood that repreesents life itself, first shed by Jesus for the forgiveness of human sin, justifies warfare as needed to further God's Will. Carried on for over eight years, the Revolutionary War of socio/political freedom finally ended at Yorktown when the British General Cornwallis had to unconditionally surrender after the French blockaded the American ports. Along with, when a much smaller British brigade faced a much larger Continental Army and Navy. Just prior to this British defeat, thousands of British and Hessian soldiers walked unsteadily to surrender to George Washington. As a counter tactical reaction, toward the end of the War the British desperately tried to make use of the Tories, i.e. American Loyalists, along with a vast array of Indian tribes to reinforce its now-evaporating troop strength. During this War there were over 20,000 Tories either under British command or serving as a Tory militia. As a military counterpoint, the American West had 10's of thousands of sturdy settlers, who were harden as frontiersmen and accustomed to adversity as a given circumstance of life itself. These settlers stood ready to defend their freedoms, to explore new lands, to seek greater prosperity, and to face Indian threats while under the protection of the newly forming Federal government. Indeed, the hopes of the democratic ideal, where all citizens are deemed equal by law, paved the way of future socio/ political thinking for the expanding Frontier experience. Now, most of America's territory that had no royalty and no State Church, but only Divine freedoms as outlined and mandated in the US Constitution. Although once in jeopardy by the social bondage by powerful ruling classes, slowly the destiny of Americans was becoming historically realized and set in stone at a point of no return.
Unquestionably, George Washington was the spiritual personification of the American War for independence. As a member of the gentry class, a social standing just below nobility, he radiated Christian dignity, integrity, and sincere humility. God's handprint selected him to lead the cause of socio/political freedom for human life and their nations. Washington displayed the Christian virtues as scripted in the Bible by Paul. Washington was humble, courageous, compassionate, patient, stalwart, stately, dependable, disciplined, loved God, and his country. Today, any tourist visiting his estate and gravesite on the Potomac River at Mount Vernon will leave honor-struck with Washington's profound, religious character. When at home, Washington would read the Bible two hours a day on his knees in front of a wooden Ottoman. Out of deep respect for his military temperament and unwavering integrity, both officers and troops alike would follow him along, unconditionally inspired by his Cause for national independence from England, along with socio/ political liberty for all. His tactical commands and military strategies during the harshest of environmental conditions or during the physical exertion of long marches into battles or with the looming certainty of being wounded or killed was proof-positive of his Divine destiny. Granted as historians have revealed, Washington was not a great military tactician like the British generals. He made a number of critical battle choices that proved to be decisively incorrect and costly. But wisely as a diplomat dealing with Congressional politics and funding for his Continental Army, Washington proved to be cunning and unmatched. His leadership was highly successful mainly due to his Christian moral fiber, his just political outlook, his stately appeal, and his diplomatic tenacity.
George Washington died in his late 60's from a throat infection as America's first President, who refused to be anointed as King and to serve no more than two presidential terms. Then, like many generals and military commanders, he was a tobacco farmer whose English immigrant roots dated back to the year 1657. As a pre-adult his father died unexpectedly.
George was sent to Western Pennsylvania by the Governor of Virginia to survey the wilderness. Washington, who was tall and strong, acquired some of his combat skills during the French and Indian War. Later in his career, unanimously and wisely, Congress selected him to take command of the Continental Army to deal with a number of major encounters against the powerful British Army and Navy in Boston, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, Princeton, and Saratoga. Within the military context of 8-years of war, Washington had to deal with Hessians, Indians, ministers, Courts, Tories, traitors, deserters, corrupt politicians, troop gloominess, wounded soldiers, death, paymasters, drunkenness, prostitution, kings, Parliament, slaves, single and married women, foul language, dysentery, typhus/typhoid fevers, and the betrayal of undercover agents. Yet he survived Loyalist plots to have him assassinated. Surely, all these intrigues was Divinely thwarted.
When possible, Washington regularly attended Sunday services to beseech the American Cause with prayer for God's protection, guidance, and providence. Most of his army that he had to train did not consist of professional soldiers. They were common Americans seeking freedom. Blacksmiths. Tailors. Shoemakers. Saddlers. Fishermen. Noblemen. Farmers. They all fought together, shoulder to shoulder, with 18th century's lowlife as the New England States eagerly supplied Washington's citizen soldiers with new regiments and ample foodstuffs consisting of ducks, geese, fish, pigs, beans, lamb, citrus fruit to prevent scurvy, and hay, along with monthly rations of rum and brandy. Truly, these provisions fortified the colonial spirit that wrestled with the cause of freedom, truth, justice. God's inspiration as scripted by Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence and later Common Cause and The Crisis by Thomas Paine were the times that tried men's souls. The appeal to a "Gracious God of Providence" was widely implored by American commanders during ruggedness of battle circumstances. By appealing for retribution for their fallen comrades during combat campaigns, Washington's commanding voice could be openly heard by his troops engaged in battle. When George rode a white stallion and became visible to is troops, spirits soared. From his headquarter, Washington wrote to John Adams: We have nothing to depend on but the protection of a kind Providence.
To overpower and eventually conquer overwhelming military and economic odds, the American War for God's gift of freedom had to have had three persuading, prominent components. One, the "scripted word" to inspire combatants to fight for freedom as written by Thomas Jefferson's, Declaration of Independence and/or Thomas Paine's The Crises or Common Cause. Two, although yet untried, but potentially exceptional, a military leadership, as per a George Washington, who relied Biblically on God's guidance, protection, and provisions. Throughout 8-years of war, Washington knew that God's grace was to be spiritually petitioned and not to be taken for granted. And three, the knack and cleverness of national and international socio/ politicians, as crafted by a John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and most of the other Founding Fathers. Historically, it has become apparent that God's individual selection of the special attributes of the Founding Fathers and generals as set-apart people to promote the cause of freedom was astonishing.
As the third component to the spiritual/military triumph of the Revolutionary War for socio/political liberty for all, John Adams became God's selection to intellectually, spiritually, and politically lead the way to execute the philosophical clarity of Thomas Jefferson's writings, along with the military gallantly of George Washington. Without a John Adams and his diplomatic and Puritan, political genius America's crusade for freedom surely would have faltered and faded away. One (Jefferson), two, (Washington)) and three (Adams) became the tri/factor core, a prescription accounting for the British defeat in the 18th century.
A great deal has been written by scholars about the political relationship of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. As proof-positive of the handprint of the Divine gracing their spiritual and intellectual affiliation in their defense and promotion of the noble idea of government by law, not rulers, they both died on Independence Day, July 4th, in the year 1826. God was pleased with their destined lives and obedient souls. Both men were opposites in many ways, yet alike, they intensely loved their country and the cause of socio/political liberty.
John Adams was born in Braintree, MA, a hundred years prior when in the year 1638 his family migrated from England with 20,000 other Puritan families, which simply sought separation from the repressive Church of England. They were among the first Evangelical Christians who came to America to renounce the false doctrine, heresies, idolatries, and clerical corruption of the Old World "religious Kings" i.e. the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Patriarch of Eastern Christianity. Today, not unlike Puritans and Quakers, Billy Graham's simple message: "it's all about Jesus" exemplifies the theological evolution of the modern Christian Church. Persecuted Christians of the 17th-18th centuries, i.e. Baptists, Quakers, Pilgrims, Congregationalists, and Lutherans, only sought the guidance, protection, providence, unconditional love, and grace for one's individual destiny as individually supplied by the Holy Sprit, their indwelling King.
