The Bible and America both enjoy unprecedented success. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. It has sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide, and has been the best-selling book in America for centuries. No other book is comparable.
Similarly, America is unrivaled in its success. Born in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, she has had only one from of government since the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789. Neither our closest allies nor our fiercest enemies have experienced the stability with which we have been blessed.
The accomplishments of both America and the Bible are unmatched but not unrelated, for the Bible was the key factor in America’s success- a fact largely unknown today but widely acknowledged in previous generations. For example:
“The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be… impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed.” ~President Teddy Roosevelt
“The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.” ~President Harry S. Truman
“The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests.” ~President Andrew Jackson
“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.” ~President Ronald Reagan
“I have myself for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit… which I now recommend to you- that is, with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my advance in wisdom and virtue. “ ~President John Quincy Adams
“I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holly Scriptures… Go to… the Scriptures for renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.” ~ President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Bible’s numerous benefits on individuals as well as on the national culture were so universally recognized that groups were formed to promote the reading and distribution of the Bible. For example, in 1816 America’s first national Bible Society was formed: the American Bible Society. Its first president was Founding Father Elias Boudinot – a President of Congress during the American Revolution, a framer of the Bill of Rights, and the first attorney admitted to the Supreme Court Bar. Concerning the Bible, he declared:
Were you to ask me to recommend the most valuable book in the world, I should fix on the Bible as the most instructive both to the wise and ignorant. Were you to ask me for one book affording the most rational and pleasing entertainment to the enquiring mind, I should repeat, it is the Bible. And should you renew the inquiry for the best philosophy, or the most interesting history, I should still urge you to look into your Bible. I would make it, in short, the alpha and omega of knowledge. Today, we would expect ministers to start Bible Societies, but in previous generation it was presidents, military generals, attorney generals, and supreme court justices who led the way because they especially understood the practical relevance of the Bible to everyday life. For example:
“The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.” ~John Jay, Original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Author of the Federalist Paper
“The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world. By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects… It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published.” ~Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration
“No book in the world deserved to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. The first and almost the only book deserving such universal attention is the Bible.” ~ President John Quincy Adams
“[The Bible] is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed.” ~Patrick Henry
“All of the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from them despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.” ~Noah Webster, Schoolmaster of America
“[T]he Holy Scriptures… can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness… Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.” ~James McHenry, signer of Constitution
“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited… What a Utopia- what a Paradise would this region be! The Bible is the best book in the world.” ~John Adams, signer of the Declaration
The Founding Fathers’ unwavering commitment to the Bible was especially evident at the conclusion of the American Revolution. With the victory at the Battle of Yorktown, America was finally free from British policies – including the longstanding British policy against printing Bible in English in America.
Consequently, in 1781 a plan was advanced in Congress to print America’s first English-language Bible. On
Resolved, that the United States in Congress assembled… recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States.
Of the events surrounding the printing of America’s first English-language Bible, one early historian observed:
Who… will call in question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution ad an existence in the world!
The Bible played a key role in causing America to be the most successful nation in the world, and its influence remain just as profoundly beneficial today on those individuals who will read, study, and apply its teachings.
A Special Thank You to David Barton WallBuilders
