America's Founding Father

In this finale to the series commemorating the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, we turn to another aspect of his powerful legacy--his influence on the development of the United States of America. It is the conventional wisdom now, largely through the efforts of secular historical revisionists, to trace the establishment of the American republic to the work of atheists like Thomas Paine, denying any real influence for believers in Christ. But to read the testimony of people from the 18th century is to come away with a much different impression. John Adams and others among the founding generation of Americans looked to John Calvin and his particular views regarding liberty and the way in which Biblical truth must be the foundation of any government that would protect individual liberty. This message makes the case for Calvin as the chief figure who influenced the colonial period and whose distate for tyranny in the state furnished the basis for the resistance that led to the War for Independence.