Below is Eric Metaxas preaching at a the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia. The topic is religious liberty—and not just religious liberty but liberty generally. Metaxas’ thesis, explored in greater detail in his book, “If you can Keep it,” is that liberty is dependent upon virtue, and virtue is dependent upon religious faith and religious faith is dependent upon freedom:
The framers of the constitution of 1787 were acutely aware that the government they were designing was dependent upon a virtuous citizenry. There was general consent to the truth that only a virtuous people can self-govern adequately to remove the need for constant supervision; hence the whole project of limited government, small, unobtrusive government, a government of laws but not of men, is dependent upon a virtuous citizenry. John Adams famously said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Likewise, there was general agreement that the virtuous citizenry comes from religious faith. Metaxas tells the story of George Whitefield (pronounced Whitfield), a celebrity evangelist who, as Metaxas describes him, made Billy Graham and the Apostle Paul “look like lazy agnostics.” In a time when crossing the Atlantic was a perilous journey, Whitefield made thirteen trips to America, preaching up and down the colonies, usually delivering three or four sermon a day. It is estimated that 75% of the colonists heard Whitefield preach at least once in their lives. His preaching gave rise in the 1730s and 40s to what has been called the First Great Awakening.
Benjamin Franklin, though of Quaker background and not someone who could be described as a conventional Christian, became friends with Whitefield and heard him preach several times. Franklin at first thought it was nonsense, but then verified that Whitefield could, without any modern means of amplification, preach to, and make himself heard by, 30,000 people in an outdoor setting. More importantly, Ben Franklin saw that virtue followed in the wake of the Great Awakening: crime went down, drunkenness went down, what we would now call domestic abuse when down, people worked harder, paid their debts, provided for their loved ones, built churches with their own funds, and helped their neighbors. He saw that a Christian people could be a free, self-governing people.
According to James Madison’s notes, on June 28, 1787, when the delegates to the constitutional convention were hung up over the question of congressional representation, Franklin proposed that each day’s session begin with prayer, to be offered by a succession of local ministers. The delegates never voted on Franklin’s proposal—the main objection was that the convention did not have funds to pay honoraria to the local pastors—but it is evidence of Franklin’s decades-old conviction regarding the efficacy of religious belief in aiding self-government in civil society.
The story of Franklin’s failed motion for prayer actually leads into Metaxas’ next important point: having an official, tax-subsidized minister to come out and deliver a formal civic prayer will not do anything to raise the moral tone of society. In order for religion to make believers more virtuous and moral, and hence better citizens, it must be free and voluntary. Established religion does not work. If your country has an established religion—Metaxas’ example, since his father is Greek, was the Greek Orthodox Church—it does not actually mean that everyone in Greece is Greek Orthodox. To the contrary, it really means almost no one is. Almost everyone is nominally Greek Orthodox, but very few are actually converted to a personal faith in Jesus Christ, the kind of faith that brings about moral regeneration and a changed life. Established religion blends with civic and political life, becomes formal and dead, and loses it power to change lives for the better. Look at the established churches of Europe if you need any proof of that.
There is much more in this sermon, which is not just one of the best sermons on religious and civic liberty I have ever heard, but one of the best sermons, period. It is well worth an hour of your time.