FACE - The Foundation for American Christian Education

Helping You in Your Role as a Pastor

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Psalm 11:3

Historically, the pastors, through preaching and teaching, formed the American Republic.

“The Christian church has been one of the most potent factors in the construction of the American Republic and one of the greatest bulwarks of its magnificent principles and institutions.” Therefore “the type of [pastors] who built the nation in the past, and the principles which they built, are the men and the principles which alone can develop and preserve the nation.”

Today, the departure of basic morality from American culture and community so overtly affects our children’s well-being that it has the attention of the pulpit.  However, how many pastors still fail to note that the American Republic is under siege to a secular philosophy that produces increasing repression every day?  As a pastor, your role is central and essential to the future of the nation.   

“How does the Christian church serve the Republic?”

1. “It protects and fosters those institutions which have proved a blessing to the Republic."

2. "It keeps before the people the true idea with regard to national greatness and national strength.”

The connection between Christ and American liberty has been all but forgotten.  It is the role of the pastor to reseed this generation in principles of Christian liberty.  “We know what Christ does for an individual when he yields himself up to Him; He fills him with His own life and makes him one of the luminaries of the world . . . Now, what Christlessness and Christfulness are in the individual man, Christlessness and Christfulness are in the nation.  A nation is only an aggregation of individual men.  Christ deals with nations.  In His sight nations are moral personalities.  They perform all the functions of a moral person, and He treats them according to their character.  Divorce your nation from Christ and you ring its death-knell; you link its fate to the fate of Judas.  Marry your nation to Christ and you open for it a door into a new future and secure for it a place among the nations of the world like that which Paul occupied among men. Tell me how the American Republic will treat Christ and I will tell you the future of the American Republic.”

The Foundation for American Christian Education publishes materials to equip pastors to fully serve God’s purpose in the nation.  Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History: the Principle Approach^® gives shining examples of historic American pastors to encourage and inspire.

One such model of American Christian pastor was Rev. Samuel Davies of Virginia:

“Reverend Samuel Davies, for some time a pastor in Virginia, and afterwards President of Nassau Hall, deserves especial notice.  He was born in Delaware, Nov. 3d, 1724, and received his education in Pennsylvania.  His grand characteristic, as a patriot and preacher, was boldness.  This is a valuable attribute in every public agent . . . ‘if he were asked what is the first, second, and third thing necessary for success in business, he should answer, boldness, boldness, boldness.’ Timid and effeminate efforts in the pulpit are as inefficient as and more destructive than elsewhere.  The stupid soul is startled into attention only by bold blows.  Ministers may describe for ever the beauties of nature, the pleasures of virtue, the dignity of self-respect and the vulgarity of vice, but until more exalted motives are urged, and more potent influences are employed, few effects will follow that are either great or good.

“Davies was the ablest Dissenter in the southern provinces.  His custom was to study his discourses with great care.  Being pressed to preach on a certain occasion without his usual preparation, he replied: ‘It is a dreadful thing to talk nonsense in the name of the Lord.’”

Read the rest of Samuel Davies’s story on pp 47-48 including his defense of religious liberty, his prophecy concerning Washington, and his sacred eloquence which is “the chief conservative of order and the grand solace of the popular mind.”

Tools for teaching and learning America’s Christian history

Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History: the Principle Approach

The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States, Vol. I: Christian Self-Government

The Christian History of the American Revolution: Consider and Ponder

American Dictionary of the English Language

The Bible and the Constitution of the United States of America

Rudiments of America’s Christian History

Resources

FACE Journals

Actions you can take to educate your congregation

Video study series to help you teach the Biblical worldview to your congregation and community