Standards
Over the course of 365 days, you'll begin internalizing Christianity as a worldview.
You will begin applying Christian principles to every area of your life. Christianity will no longer be a private belief for you, but a public matter. You will become your own "City upon a Hill."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, delivered a series of lectures at the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898 under the auspices of the L. P. Stone Foundation. Kuyper explained how the Christian faith as set forth in the Westminster Standards related to Religion, Politics, Science, and the Arts. Kuyper said,
"In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, that is Mine!"
If Christianity is relegated to Sunday school, then Monday through Friday we can deny justice, infringe on liberty, and destroy the life, liberty and property of others. It is because the Westminster Standard viewed life as a whole, all of it under the jurisdiction of God and His Laws and morality, that America became prosperous and admired. Americans Christianized business, science, the arts, and every area of life. This made America a great place to live.
- Consider your alternatives:
- An atheistic Soviet Union
- Buddhist Sri Lanka
- Most people would rather live in America, a Christian nation.
It was Calvinism that shaped America.
- The second
most popular work in colonial America
(after the Bible)- was the Westminster Standards.
This comprised a Confession of Faith, a Larger Catechism and a Smaller Catechism.
The Smaller Catechism was for children. The Larger Catechism for teens. Both exceed the depth of most seminary graduates in the 21st century.
At a time when the total population of America was only four million people, it is estimated that some five million copies of the "Westminster Shorter Catechism" were available in the colonies. Historian Richard Gardiner writes:
The Westminster Catechism was not only a central part of the colonial educational curriculum, learning it was required by law. Each town employed an officer whose duty was to visit homes to hear the children recite the Catechism. The primary schoolbook for children, the New England Primer, included the Catechism. Daily recitations of it were required at these schools. Their curriculum included memorization of the Westminster Confession and the Westminster Larger Catechism. There was not a person at Independence Hall in 1776 who had not been exposed to it, and most of them had it spoon fed to them before they could walk.
It takes approximately 11 minutes per day to read through the Bible from cover to cover. It only takes a couple of minutes a day to read through the Westminster Catechisms and Confession in a year. They were written around 1645 and the drafters unequivocally opposed our brand of political libertarianism. But they believed that God is God, and denied that the State is God, a necessary first step on your road to becoming an extraordinary American, an extraordinary Christian, and an extraordinary human being..
- And from the Westminster Standards we're going to discover a program that will rapidly and profoundly change our personal character and habits.