Congress proclaims a Day of Prayer … 250 years ago

Sometimes we are led to believe today that the Founding Fathers of America were men of the Enlightenment, meaning that, for the most part, they were not believers in Jesus.

But that’s not true that they were mostly skeptics. There were a few, but they were the exception – not the rule.

And besides, Enlightenment thinkers, like Montesquieu, Sir William Blackstone and John Locke – whose writings were important to America’s founders – were professing Christians, who often based their arguments on the Bible.

250 years ago from this month, the Continental Congress – the same men that would adopt the Declaration of Independence by voice vote on July 4 – proclaimed a Day of Prayer for the fledgling nation-to-be.

This was no namby-pamby, “To Whom It May Concern”-type prayer – that we’re so often used to today. This was a bold Christian document by professing Christians, representing a population back home that was 99.8% professing Christians.

In that proclamation of a Day of Fasting, Prayer, and Humiliation, March 16, 1776, the founders declared: “In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publicly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God.”

Based on this opening paragraph and other writings of the times, they said: We used to be happy and enjoy life here in these British colonies in North America. We enjoyed our rights as Englishmen. Rights that dated back to the Magna Charta in 1215, which were affirmed in the British Bill of Rights of 1689.

Here, in America, by God’s grace, we were able to practice our religion freely. But now such rights are imperiled.

The proclamation continues: “The Congress, therefore, considering the warlike preparations of the British Ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and privileges, and to reduce us by fire and sword, by the savages of the wilderness, and our own domestics, to the most abject and ignominious bondage.”

The British king and Parliament are determined to make our lives miserable and to take away our rights by their armies and by enlisting Native-Americans against us. (This complaint is also found in the Declaration of Independence.)

Therefore, Congress declares that May 17, 1776, is to be observed as a day, throughout the colonies, dedicated to fasting and prayer to God, begging Him for His help.

This time of prayer is to begin with confession of sin, as Congress continues, “that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assistance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies; and by inclining their hearts to justice and benevolence, prevent the further effusion of kindred blood.”

Congress notes that we have sinned and need to call on Jesus for forgiveness. Perhaps this will stop the further shedding of blood in the various skirmishes, which began a year earlier in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

Congress adds, “But if, continuing deaf to the voice of reason and humanity, and inflexibly bent, on desolation and war, they constrain us to repel their hostile invasions by open resistance, that it may please the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, to animate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to guard and protect them in the day of battle, and to crown the continental arms, by sea and land, with victory and success.”

If the British authorities continue to attack us and engage in battle to vanquish us and strip us of all rights, then may “the Lord of Hosts,” the God of Armies” come to our aid. These phrases come from the Bible – the book that virtually all the Founding Fathers knew well.

They also ask that God would “bless our civil rulers, and the representatives of the people.” And they ask that God would “bless all his people in these colonies with health and plenty, and grant that a spirit of incorruptible patriotism, and of pure undefiled religion, may universally prevail.”

“Pure and undefiled religion” is a biblical reference from the book of James.

Finally, the Congress declares, “it is recommended to Christians of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and abstain from servile labor on the said day.”

A few months later, in the Declaration of Independence, Congress says that they were “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their intentions.”

In short, there was a religious component to the push for independence in America that we would do well to remember in our highly secular age.