Words From Our Founders: John Adams’ Prayer Proclamation

John AdamsToday we continue our series examining our Founding Fathers in their own words and considering their high esteem for religion, religious liberty, and virtue.

Below is proclamation of prayer and fasting issued by President John Adams on March 19, 1799. Among other things, Adams offers prayers regarding “awful pestilential visitations” and the health of the American people as well as prayers for peace at home and abroad–presumably a reference to the Quasi-War, Fries’s Rebellion, and the battles and wars taking place between Napoleon Bonaparte and other European powers in Africa and elsewhere.

As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme Being, and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments, are conducive, equally, to the happiness and rectitude of individuals, and to the well-being of communities; as it is, also, most reasonable, in itself, that men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgments of dependence and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is, likewise, a plain dictate of duty, and a strong sentiment of nature, that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger, earnest and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests of the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy, by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination among them of those principles subversive of the foundations of all religious, moral, and social obligations, that have produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries; and as, in fine, the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities, is happily calculated to avert the evils which we ought to deprecate, and to excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge, – by calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the momentous truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and inculcate them, by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a national act:

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Words from Our Presidents: Eisenhower on Our Shared Convictions

As part of a series entitled Words from Our Presidents we are bringing you different from quotes from U.S. Presidents on religious liberty and individual freedom. Today we have a quote from President Eisenhower on how our nation’s convictions are rooted in faith.

“Basic to our democratic civilization are the principles and convictions that have bound us together as a nation. Among these are personal liberty, human rights, and the dignity of man. All these have their roots in a deeply held religious faith — in a belief in God.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
June 4, 1958

National Marriage Week Coming in 2014

National Marriage Week is less than 6 months away, on February 7-14. Even though it is still a ways off, the folks who promote National Marriage Week are looking for volunteers and churches who will help make National Marriage Week 2014 a success.

Efforts like this help rebuild a the marriage culture that has been eroding in America over the past many years. To find out why marriage matters and how you can be involved in National Marriage Week 2014, listen to Eric Metaxas’ Breakpoint commentary from the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview below and click the link at the end of this article.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2013/102113_BP.mp3]

Click here to find resources on Breakpoint.org

Click here to visit the National Marriage Week website.

Click here to read “A Married Mom and Dad Really Do Matter: New Evidence from Canada”.