By Ira Stoll
Amid all the fireworks and barbecue smoke this July 4, consider pausing for a moment to reflect on the one our founding fathers called the Creator.
July 4 is a religious holiday. For this insight, thank John F. Kennedy.
On July 4, 1946, Kennedy — then 29 years old, the Democratic nominee for a Massachusetts Congressional seat, and still a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve — was the featured speaker at the City of Boston’s Independence Day celebration. He spoke at Faneuil Hall, the red-brick building where long ago the colonists had gathered to protest taxes imposed by King George III and his Parliament.
Kennedy began by talking not about taxes, or about the British, or about the consent of the governed, but about religion. “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense. Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action,” he said.
Read more at http://time.com/2951223/fourth-of-july-god-religion-america/
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Don’t forget the legacy of the Great Awakening on the Revolution: Great Awakening.com. (2014, January 1). Analysis and Information on the First Great Awakening. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from Great Awakening.com: http://www.great-awakening.com/?page_id=12
Also don’t forget the legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Tennant and Samuel Davies – all Presbyterians – in helping form the religious and political sentiments which contributed to the Revolution. Here is the needed reminder: “The effect of Great Awakening unity was an attitude that went against the deferential thinking that consumed English politics and religion. Rather than believing that God’s will was necessarily interpreted by the monarch or his bishops, the colonists viewed themselves as more capable of performing the task. The chain of authority no longer ran from God to ruler to people, but from God to people to ruler” (Great Awakening.com, 2014).”
Some have forgotten this legacy.