A Baptist Cheer For Cultural Christianity

On 4 July 1776, the day the delegates to the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, a committee was formed to draft a national seal for the fledgling new nation. It would ultimately require three committees and six years to develop the seal that would eventually be a national coat of arms topped by an eagle, with a pyramid on the reverse side with the “Eye of Providence.” But early drafts submitted by the two early members of the committee, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, called for more overtly Christian symbolism.