Our Forefathers

Every one of us, as parents, are concerned about our children, and the Lord has given the responsibility of leadership, training, discipline, education, not to the State, but to the parents.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. - Psalm 127:3

If you go back and look at our early American history, it was evident that our schools were to educate our children. Parents were given the responsibility to train their children, when a town reached a certain size, the parents came together and they formed a central location where they could bring their children together and teach them. They were to teach them the Biblical principles and the Christian religion was the basis for education.

In 1864, Benjamin Morris said, "the State must rest upon the basis of religion, and it must preserve this basis or itself must fall. But the support which religion gives to the State will obviously cease the moment religion loses its hold upon the popular mind. The very fact that the State must have religion as a support for its own authority demands that some means for teaching religion should be disregarded in its schools. The State itself, has a more vital interest in discontinued influence of religion over its citizens than in their culture in any other respect."

If a State was going to remain strong, then education must be a priority, but if education was to be a priority, education must be built upon the dictates of the Word of God, the Christian religion. Anytime that you’re reading our quotes from founding fathers in the 1700’s, 1800’s up until the early 1900’s, when they used the word, religion, they’re referring to Christianity. They’re referring to the Christian religion. In their understanding in order to have a strong society, you must have strong education, but in order to have strong education, you must build that education upon Christian principles and the Word of God. Benjamin Rush once said, "the only foundation for a useful education in a republic, is to believe in religion (Christianity). Without this, there could be no virtue, and without virtue, there could be no liberty. And liberty is the only object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind."