Despite overwhelming contradictory evidence, historical revisionists of our day argue that our country was not founded on a biblical worldview. People who buy into this revisionist history either do not know Ben Franklin, or they do not know the bible.
Over half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were seminary graduates. However, one of my favorite signers, the wise and venerable Ben Franklin was not one of them. Our public educators teach that Benjamin was a Diest. A Diest believes in God the creator, but claims He does not interact with His creation.
So where do university professor’s get this idea that Ben is a Diest? Like my own kids, Benjamin Franklin’s parents educated him at home. In an attempt to teach the falicies of Deism, Ben’s Puritan father assigned anti-Deism tracts as homeschool reading assignments. Being a typical rebellious teenager, Ben proclaimed that he was in fact a Diest at age fifteen.
Our revisionist friends quote the rebellious fifteen year old Ben Franklin. They ignore the words and actions of the wiser eighty-one year old Benjamin when he made a call to prayer at the Constitutional Convention. After five weeks of bickering and debate the founders were far from defining the laws that would govern our nation. It was Ben “the Diest” who reminded them that God miraculously interviened many times during their fight for independance. He called on them to pray that God would guide them in forming the new government.
All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor.
Benjamin Franklin
No doubt, they remembered stories about the bullitproof George Washington, or the lifesaving fog on Brooklyn Heights. They knew the miracles at Valley Forge and Lexington/Concord. Roger Sherman described the victory at Saratoga as the Lord’s doing.
Ben’s declaration that God govern’s in the affairs of men does not sound like the words of a Diest. His speech to the Constitutional convention also references the following scriptures Matthew 10:29, Psalm 127:1, James 1:17, and Genesis 11
“I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men.”
Benjamin Franklin
This declaration by Ben makes me think he was very familiar with the book of the prophet Daniel. Daniel records God using the Babalonian king Nebuchadnezzar to overthrow the Jewish king Jehoiakim. Then, Nebuchanezzer has a dream, but can’t remember it when he awakes. He asks his sorcerers to tell him what the dream was and also interpret what it means. His smartest men tell him that only the gods can interpret dreams, and gods do not interact with men. Daniel tells Neb about the one true God who does in fact govern in the affairs of men.
God reveals himself to Neb again in the story of the fiery furnace. He reveals himself to Neb’s son king Belshazzar in the story of the handwriting on the wall. God revealed himself to the Persian King Darius who overthrew Babylon in the story of the Daniel in the lions den. The book of Daniel tells of the great empires of the earth long before they were even in existence. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and finally the Roman Empire. All would rise and fall by God’s command. The final empire described by Daniel in a sci-fi type thriller is the Kingdom of God which stands forever.
I don’t argue with the historians who say Benjamin was one of the least religious of the founders. I also do not argue that the rebellious fifteen year old claimed to be a Diest. However, anybody who reads this speech from the eighty-one year old Benjamin cannot claim that he still held to Diest beliefs at the end of his life. The foolish thoughts of his teen years turned to great wisdom in his older years. Anybody who considers themselves a patriot would do well to read his actual writings instead of blindly accepting the assumptions of the historical revisionists of our current day.
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