The American Experiment

And Its Christian Foundations

On June 11, 2025, Scott introduced a compelling video presentation by Dr. Del Tackett for Lesson 10 of The Truth Project, titled "The American Experiment: Stepping Stones." This lesson challenges the modern narrative that the United States was founded as a secular nation, presenting a wealth of historical evidence to demonstrate its deep Christian roots. Through an exploration of primary sources, biblical principles, and the cultural shifts that threaten America’s founding ideals, Dr. Tackett calls Christians to recognize their role in preserving this unique experiment in governance. Below are the Quotes cited as they occur in the lesson.

Historical Quotes Cited in Class

  • National Education Association (NEA) - 1892:
    "…​if the study of the Bible is to be excluded
    from all state schools; if the inculcation of the
    principles of Christianity is to have no place in
    the daily program; if the worship of God is to
    form no part of the general exercises of these
    public elementary schools; then the good of the
    state would be better served by restoring all
    schools to church control"

  • John Dewey, The Architect of Modern Education
    “ …faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved
    no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props
    of traditional religion. With dogma and creed
    excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and
    buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or
    moral absolutes.” — Nash, The Closing of the American Heart

  • Harvard’s Rules & Precepts - 1636
    “Let every student be plainly instructed, and
    earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end
    of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus
    Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and there-
    fore lay Christ at the bottom, as the only foundation
    of all sound knowledge and learning.”

  • Harvard’s Original Motto
    “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae”
    Truth for Christ and the Church
    This motto has been abandoned for the shorter:
    “Veritas” - Truth

  • Princeton
    "Cursed is all learning that is
    contrary to the Cross of Christ"
    Founding Statement — 1746

  • Samuel Adams
    "Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots,
    unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing
    the minds of men with the importance of educating their
    little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of
    youth the fear and love of the Deity…​in short of leading
    them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of
    the Christian system.“ — Letter to John Adams, October 4, 1790

  • Benjamin Rush
    "In contemplating the political institutions of the
    United States, I lament that we waste so much time
    and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains
    to prevent them. We profess to be republicans and yet
    we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating
    our republican forms of government. That is, the universal
    education of our youth in the principles of Christianity
    by the means of the Bible.”

     — Benjamin Rush, “A Defense of the
    Use of the Bible as a School Book,” 1798

  • Noah Webster
    “In my view, the Christian Religion is the most
    important and one of the first things in which all
    children, under a free government, ought to be
    instructed…​no truth is more evident to my mind
    than that the Christian Religion must be the basis
    of any government intended to secure the rights and
    privileges of a free people.”

     — Reply to David McClure, Oct. 25, 1836

  • George Washington
    Farewell Address, Sept 17, 1796
    “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to
    political prosperity, religion and morality are
    indispensable supports…​In vain would that man claim
    the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert
    these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest
    props of the duties of men and citizens…​”

  • John Adams
    “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for
    liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which
    can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can
    securely stand.”

     — Letter of June 21, 1776, quoted in
    The Wall Builder Report, Summer 1993

  • Benjamin Rush
    “The only foundation for…​a republic is to be laid
    in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and
    without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty
    is the object and life of all republican governments.”

     — Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical, 1798

  • George Washington
    Farewell Address, Sept 17, 1796 “…And let us with caution indulge the supposition
    that morality can be maintained without religion…​
    reason and experience both forbid us to expect that
    national morality can prevail in exclusion of
    religious principle.”

  • Benjamin Rush
    “The only foundation for…​a republic is to
    be laid in Religion.”

    “…Christianity is the only true and perfect
    religion; and that in proportion as mankind
    adopt its principles and obey its precepts
    they will be wise and happy.”

     — Benjamin Rush, “ A Defense of the
    Use of the Bible as a School Book” , 1798

  • Charles Carroll
    signer of the declaration

    “Without morals, a republic cannot subsist
    any length of time; they therefore who are
    decrying the Christian religion…are undermining
    the solid foundation of morals, the best security
    for the duration of free governments.”

     — Letter to James McHenry

  • Samuel Adams
    “Religion and good morals are the only solid
    foundations of public liberty and happiness.”

    Letter to John Trumbell, October 16, 1778

  • Patrick Henry 1736-1799
    “The great pillars of all government and of
    social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion.
    This is the armor…and this alone, that renders
    us invincible.”

     — Letter to Archibald Blair,
    January 8, 1789

  • Alexis de Tocqueville
    Democracy in America

    “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity
    and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is
    impossible to make them conceive one without the other.”

    “The religious atmosphere of the country was the
    first thing that struck me upon my arrival in the U.S.
    In France, I had seen the spirits of religion and
    freedom almost always marching in opposite directions,
    in America, I found them intimately linked together
    and joined and reigned over the same land…​

    "Religion should therefore be considered as the first
    of their political institutions. From the start,
    politics and religion have agreed and have not since
    ceased to do so.”

     — Alexis de Tocqueville
    “Democracy in America”

  • Benjamin Franklin
    “…only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
    As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have
    more need of masters.”

    Letter to Messrs.
    The Abbes Chalut and Arnaud,
    April 17 , 1787

  • Noah Webster
    History of the United States, 1833

    “…​the moral principles and precepts contained in
    the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our
    civil constitutions and laws… All the miseries and
    evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition,
    injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed
    from their despising or neglecting the precepts
    contained in the Bible."

  • John Adams
    “We have no government armed in power capable of
    contending in human passions unbridled by morality
    and religion…​ Our Constitution was made only for
    a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate
    to the government of any other.”

    Address to the Officers of the
    Massachusetts Militia, 1798

  • Daniel Webster
    “To preserve the government we must also preserve
    morals. Morality rests on religion; if you destroy
    the foundation, the superstructure must fall. When
    the public mind becomes vitiated and corrupt, laws
    are a nullity and constitutions are waste paper.”

    4th of July, 1800,
    Oration at Hanover, N.H.