A Monthly Publication of the Church Ambassador Network
As we gather in our churches this July, still fresh from celebrating Independence Day, our minds naturally turn to the profound heritage we have been gifted. This month marks an extraordinary milestone in our history: the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is a moment for deep gratitude, but for those of us shepherding congregations across Ohio, it is also a moment for sober reflection.
We look at the shifting cultural tides around us and feel a familiar, heavy ache. We witness the fragmentation of the family—with Ohio recently ranking a sobering 30th in the nation for family stability according to the 2026 Family Structure Index—and we see the constant barrage targeting the innocence of our children. In the face of such a deeply secularized culture, the temptation to pull back, lower our heads and retreat into the safety of our church walls is incredibly real.
But we are not called to a spirit of fear or isolation; we are called to lead with a posture of boundless love, transformative grace and uncompromising courage.
To effectively engage our culture today, we must remember who we are and where we came from. The United States was not an accident of secular philosophy; it was intentionally built upon a profoundly Christian foundation. Reclaiming that historical truth is the vital first step toward confidently bringing our biblical principles back into the public square.
Long before the Constitution was penned, the very first sparks of American self-governance were ignited in prayer and rooted in covenant. Consider the words of the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the first foundational document of the New World. The Pilgrims made their intentions unmistakably clear, writing that their perilous voyage was explicitly undertaken: "...for the Glory of God and Advancement of the Christian Faith and the Honour of our King and Country..."
This was not an isolated sentiment. As the original thirteen colonies established their individual governments, they explicitly wove their Christian faith into the very fabric of their supreme legal documents. Look no further than the Delaware Constitution of 1776. To hold public office in Delaware, the founders did not establish a secularized, value-neutral standard. Instead, Article 22 mandated that every elected official take the following orthodox oath: "I, A B, do profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ His only Son and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."
From Massachusetts to North Carolina, early American civic life was explicitly tethered to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. Our early leaders understood what the Psalmist declared: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
When the Constitutional Convention met to form a unified nation, the Founders recognized that the radical political freedom they were proposing could not survive without a solid moral bedrock. They knew that a government "by the people" required a people ultimately governed by God.
George Washington, in his historic 1796 Farewell Address, left a stern warning for future generations who might try to separate Christian faith from public policy: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."
His successor, John Adams, echoed this absolute necessity in 1798, writing plainly to the military leaders of Massachusetts: "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
The historical record is unyielding. The principles of human dignity, unalienable rights and self-government that we cherish today were directly derived from a Christian worldview.
If our nation was built on these truths, why does our public square feel so hostile to them today? The prevailing cultural narrative insists that faith is a purely private matter—something to be kept quietly within our hearts or safely behind church doors.
But the great Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper fiercely rejected this false dichotomy. In his famous 1880 inaugural address at the Free University of Amsterdam, he proclaimed: "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"
