[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 7, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E839-E840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           IN RECOGNITION OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS HISTORY WEEK

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                             HON. BILL SALI

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 7, 2008

  Mr. SALI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join with many of my 
colleagues in recognizing American Religious History Week, which began 
yesterday and goes through this Friday.
  I rise not as a sectarian Christian but as an elected Representative 
of a religiously diverse people. In my beautiful region of Idaho, there

[[Page E840]]

are persons of every faith and some who hold to no faith. Some attend 
very traditional, liturgical Christian churches and some attend 
services of Eastern faiths. Some are members of Latter-Day Saint 
congregations and others are Pentecostal Evangelicals. Idaho has a 
vibrant Jewish community--Idaho was the first state in the Nation to 
have a Jewish governor--and our state's Catholics were among millions 
of fellow worshippers who recently welcomed the Pope to our country.
  I could keep going, but you get the point: Like most congressional 
districts, every major religion and denomination is represented in 
Idaho's First. Their adherents are full citizens of our great Republic 
and persons I am honored to represent here in our Nation's capital.
  At the same time, it is indisputable that the Judeo-Christian moral 
tradition was fundamental to our Nation's founding. And this week, we 
in Congress are joining with Americans of every religious tradition in 
noting the importance of that tradition to the institutions we cherish 
and the way of life we enjoy.
  Our country's Founding Fathers were imbued from an early age with a 
profound sense of the Judeo-Christian worldview. In a recent interview, 
Dr. James Hutson, chief of the Library of Congress's manuscript 
division, said, ``Jefferson and others were tutored by ministers. They 
were an extremely biblically literate generation. This certainly shaped 
their view of Providence. The extent to which they believed in 
Providence would be unimaginable today. Adams and folks like that 
continually quoted [Jesus'] statement that a swallow cannot fall 
without God's knowledge. Washington talks about the invisible hand of 
Providence. Their biblical knowledge convinced these people that there 
was an invisible hand of God, and that there was a moral government of 
the universe.''
  Dr. Hutson's view is supported by historians of all persuasions. But 
perhaps the best way to draw attention to our country's religious 
history is by using the words of the Founders themselves.
  Consider the words of John Witherspoon, president of what became 
Princeton University and a signer of the Declaration of Independence: 
``It is in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to 
find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible 
soldier. God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may 
be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in 
the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.''
  John Jay was a co-author of the Federalist Papers. He served as 
governor of New York and later was the first Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court. He has also been called the ``American Wilberforce'' for 
his efforts to work with his British friend William Wilberforce to end 
the slave-trade. What is not often known is that this great statesman 
was the second president of the American Bible Society and argued 
throughout his life for the importance of biblical principles to the 
future of the United States.
  Jay had a strong grasp on God's guidance of the formation of our 
Nation. In 1809, he wrote to a friend, ``A proper history of the United 
States would have much to recommend it: in some respects it would be . 
. . unlike all others; it would develop the great plan of Providence.''
  God's provision to America was clear to Jay's Federalist Papers' co-
author John Adams, as well. He knew that it was found in more than our 
abundant natural resources, but also in the very conscience of the 
people. Adams put it this way: ``We have no government armed with power 
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and 
religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the 
strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our 
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is 
wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''
  In a statement made in 1778 to the Virginia General Assembly, James 
Madison, the future father of the Constitution and President, said, 
``We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon 
the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all 
our political institutions upon our capacity . . . to sustain ourselves 
according to the Ten Commandments of God.''
  George Washington echoed these same views in his Farewell Address to 
the Nation at the end of his presidency: ``Of all the dispositions and 
habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are 
indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of 
Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human 
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens . . . 
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds 
of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, 
that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principle.''
  America's Judeo-Christian religious heritage is rich and profound. It 
has shaped our institutions and nurtured our national soul. It is also 
the fount of the religious freedom we cherish: Those of us who believe 
in the God of the Bible believe He gave men and women the freedom to 
serve Him or not to serve Him. If that's true, we should allow that 
same freedom to our fellow citizens.
  Our Declaration of Independence refers to ``Divine Providence,'' our 
``Creator'' and ``the Supreme Judge of the World.'' Our Founders 
recognized their need to rely on, and submit to, His will in all 
things. May we, in our day and in this Chamber, continue to learn from 
their example.

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