Tag: Franklin

Our Historical Memory . . . or Lack Thereof

  

It was 243 years ago today that the Continental Congress approved the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Although Thomas Jefferson drafted the document, there was a committee that was responsible for sending it to the floor of the Congress. Two of those committee members were John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson later said that he didn’t write anything original, that he was merely putting into words the consensus of the era concerning rights that come from God and the… Read more »

Our Historical Memory . . . Or Lack Thereof

  

It was 241 years ago today that the Continental Congress approved the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Although Thomas Jefferson drafted the document, there was a committee that was responsible for sending it to the floor of the Congress. Two of those committee members were John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson later said that he didn’t write anything original, that he was merely putting into words the consensus of the era concerning rights that come from God and the… Read more »

Whitefield & the Awakening

  

David Garrick, the most popular actor in Britain in the eighteenth century, once remarked, “I would give a hundred guineas if I could say ‘Oh’ like Mr. Whitefield.” He was referring to evangelist George Whitefield, who, at the young age of 25, arrived in the American colonies and became the focal point of the First Great Awakening. Whitefield was educated at Oxford and became a close friend of John Wesley’s. Together they were part of a student organization called “The… Read more »

Finding the Truth Too Late

  

When dealing with the religious beliefs of America’s Founding Generation—those who participated in the Revolution and the creation of the Constitution—one must draw a clear distinction between those who were genuine Christians and those who were merely religious in a general sense. As I tell my students incessantly, early America was a society built on a Biblical framework of thinking, even though some of the prominent individuals may not have been what evangelicals call “born again.” Yesterday’s post dealt with… Read more »

Heroic Heritage

  

Historic anniversaries abound this week. Yesterday was one that almost everyone in America knows: D-Day. How many, though, can talk about what took place at the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on that day? One of the most heroic actions of D-Day was the scaling of those cliffs by a special Army Ranger battalion. Their mission was to take out the guns at the top that could have devastated the invasion force on all the other beaches. Those Rangers achieved… Read more »