Our Founding Principles is a 48 by 40 inch acrylic on canvas painting of a rally flag. Currently it is hanging in the office of Tennessee Congressman Marsha Blackburn. This painting is the third flag in a series of three. Each flag tells a story. The first flag points to our resent past, the second flag looks at our contentious present, and this one points to how we can turn our country around by remembering the basics. The words of our founding fathers and others, written in the background, serve to remind us of our founding principles................................. Quotes from our Founding Fathers and Others Found In the Painting • “…If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31,32 • “...My people who are called by My name humble themselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 • “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. We must not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Galatians 5:22-26 • “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance.” Psalm 33:12 • “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” George Washington • “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable.” George Washington • “The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.” John Adams • “We beseech [God] to pardon our national and other transgressions…” George Washington • “Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the Lamb and purge my heart by Thy Holy Spirit. Daily, frame me more and more in the likeness of Thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in Thy fear, and dying in Thy favor, I may in thy appointed time obtain the resurrection of the justified unto eternal life. Bless, O Lord, the whole race of mankind and let the world be filled with the knowledge of Thee and Thy son, Jesus Christ.” George Washington • “True religion affords to government its surest support.” George Washington • “Nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” Abraham Lincoln • “I … rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.” Samuel Adams • “In God we trust.” • “We have this day [4th July] restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His Kingdom come.” Samuel Adams • “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30,31 • “The name of the Lord says the Scripture is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.” Samuel Adams • • “You do well to wish to learn…above all, the religion of Jesus Christ in our schools.” George Washington • “The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.” United States Congress 1782 • “The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.” John Adams • “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” John Adams • “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams • “As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him.” John Adams • “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Patrick Henry • “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is their duty – as well as privilege and interest – of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” John Jay - First Chief-Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court • “…that all may bow to the scepter of our Lord Jesus Christ and that the whole Earth may be filled with his glory.” John Hancock • “The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” Benjamin Rush • “Education is useless without the Bible.” Noah Webster • “But for the Bible we could not know right from wrong.” Abraham Lincoln • “He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.” John Witherspoon • “The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source — from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.” John Dickinson • “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln • “We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.” James Madison • “This Nation was established by men who believed in God.” Harry S. Truman • “The United States is founded on the principles of Christianity” Franklin D. Roosevelt • “Inside the Bible’s pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible.” Ronald Reagan ..................Quote References: NIV and HCSB Bibles and the website http://www.usachristianministries.com/us-history-quotes-about-god-and-the-bible/