The American founders, when framing their governments, looked to the Bible for insights into human nature, civic virtue, social order, political authority and other concepts essential to the establishment of a political society. They saw in Scripture political and legal models - such as republicanism, separation of powers, and due process of law - that they believed enjoyed divine favor and were worthy of emulation in their polities.

One should study the Bible alongside other intellectual traditions - such as British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and classical republicanism - in order to truly understand the American founding.

I define the terms "founding fathers" and "founders" broadly to include an entire generation or two of Americans from many walks of life who, in the last half of the 18th century and early 19th century, articulated the rights of colonists, secured independence from Great Britain, and established new constitutional republics at both the national and state levels. This definition includes a cast of thousands who played their patriotic part at the local, state, and/or national levels. Among them were citizen soldiers, elected representatives, polemicists, and patriot preachers.

I contend that no book figured more prominently than the Bible in the political thought of these patriots we call the founders.

God elevates nations that behave in conformity with God's standards but he withdraws his blessings from a people who disregard those standards.

Just as the children of Israel were directed by God to depart from the land of their oppression with its tyrannical monarch, cross a great sea, and establish a new nation, so, too, the children of Great Britain were led by God to leave the land of their religious oppression, cross a great ocean, inhabit a promised land, and, eventually, resist a "tyrannical" George III and create a new nation in "God's American Israel."

The republican model described in the Hebrew Scriptures reassured pious Americans that republicanism was a political system favored by God.