America's Founding Fathers made three mistakes, but there's one mistake they didn't make, that we make today.
Lawrence Cremin writes:
For [Benjamin] Rush, who was present in the Congress as a representative of Pennsylvania, the events surrounding the creation of the Republic marked nothing less than a turning point in the course of human history. "I was animated constantly," he reflected in later years, "by a belief that I was acting for the benefit of the whole world, and of future ages, by assisting in the formation of new means of political order and general happiness."11
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11. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p.161.
Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876,
NY: Harper & Row, 1980, p. 114-15. |
Christians today make the mistake of not planning for "future ages." America's Founders believed they were establishing a "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM" -- a "New Order for the Ages." They were looking centuries into the future.
Had today's Christians been in charge back then, they would have said that since God has predestined everything to get worse and worse, and since we're all going to be "raptured" any day now, there's no point in fighting tyranny or establishing "Liberty Under God" in a "Vine & Fig Tree" society.
America's Founders believed in the possibility of future progress.
Today's Christians are infected with "pessimillennialism." We'll see why the Bible actually teaches "optimillennialism."
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