Magna Carta: Remembering the Great Charter
June 15th is the anniversary of the world’s foremost liberty document: the Magna Carta.
The average American has never heard of the Magna Carta. Modern history books glaze over it as an outdated British relic. This ancient sheepskin may seem irrelevant to us in the 21st Century, as we face financial chaos and the usurpation of private property on a scale never before seen in America. Why should we care about what some archbishop wrote 800 years ago?
We should care because Magna Carta was the foundation and inspiration for America’s freedom documents. Most Americans have forgotten that Magna Carta was not, at its core, a political document. It was a spiritual charter declaring God and His law as Sovereign over the king and his law. Politics did not give birth to liberty. Faith gave birth the liberty. And the pillars of liberty cannot be held up with a “hands-off” church body. We must once again remember the great faith and freedom documents, and regain the ground given over the last Century to those who wish to “deconstruct” the foundations of our Civilization.
The Magna Carta, or “The Great Charter”, established for the first time the principle that everyone, including the King, was subject to the law.
“The Magna Carta doesn’t start with barons, and doesn’t start with individual liberties. It doesn’t start with political considerations, and it doesn’t start with the issue of who holds what power. Magna Carta starts as a religious document, concerned with the 'health of the soul' of the King, and with the 'honor of God', and with the 'exaltation of the Holy Church.' In addition to that, the King acknowledges that the 'advice' for signing the Carta comes from the bishops first (the church leaders), and then from the barons.” 1
Magna Carta grasped in his left hand, a sword in his right, the American colonist stands prepared to fight in defense of his liberties.The seal of Massachusetts in 1775 is shown here in one of the windows of the State House in Boston.
Just like Americans today, the English of the 13th century had nearly forgotten their great heritage of Christian liberty reaching back to the great isle of Iona and later, the laws laid out by Alfred the Great. Their nation was filled with corruption and lawlessness. A small group of landowners and business leaders at that time experienced much the same anger and frustrations that we face each day. Excessive bureaucracy, taxation, endless laws and constant wars. They were overwhelmed by a lawless monarch, King John. (Yes, the infamous king of Robin Hood lore)
King John had killed the true heir to the throne and began tyrannizing the people. He confiscated more and more of their wealth, imprisoned them without trial, and even violated their wives. In 1214 he demanded such high taxes, that many citizens and serfs were starving in the streets.
The nobles and landowners, wrote a letter to the king demanding that he abide by the “common” law and cease his encroachment upon the people’s rights. King John refused their request and multiplied his efforts to tyrannize nobles and peasants alike. So the nobles made a wise choice and went to the most committed spiritual leader of the time, Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They asked him to write a document that would force the king to limit his power based on the law of the land (the Biblically-based common law). Langton was well motivated to write this document since he had seen some of his own family torn from his house and executed but this wicked monarch.
Langton’s writing became known as the Magna Carta, the foremost document of liberty ever produced. Magna Carta, and its 63 articles, was viewed as the masterpiece of Christian liberty for the next 800 years. Its first article insured that the church shall forever be free from state interference. It stipulated that there could be no taxation without representation. It demanded a trial for every freeman by a jury of peers. Do any of these elements sound familiar?
“The question here is: If the signing of the Magna Carta was a conflict between the King and the barons, as the history textbooks tell us, then why does it start with a solemn clause to defend the liberties of the church? ...The answer is: Magna Carta wasn’t drafted by the barons, and the English liberties did not come from a political struggle. The liberties of England came from the Church, based on the ideological foundation of the faith in Jesus Christ, and the application of His Law in the English society.
The signing of Magna Carta was the culmination of a centuries- long war between the pagan and the Christian concepts of law and power. At Runnymede [where Magna Carta was signed] the Church won the victory for Christianity, and by this victory England—and consequently America—was blessed with freedom more than any other nation in Europe.” 2
Magna Carta’s greatest legacy is the concept of a nation of laws rather than men. In its final article it called for armed resistance by the people if their rulers would not obey the law. This same obligation of the people to rise up and throw off tyrants is stated in our Declaration of Independence. All of the articles of Magna Carta were rooted in a long history of Biblical principles and the Ten Commandments.
Because of King John’s arrogance, the nobles were forced to raise an army which they called the “Army of God.” They marched on the king’s troops and they prevailed. They then forced the king to sign Magna Carta on the field at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. It was said that after signing the charter, John escaped back into his castle at Windsor and threw himself on the ground, beat his fists and ate straw like a mad man.
The next year John recanted his agreement to obey Magna Carta. The barons were forced into another war with the king. But the king was caught in a rising tide while he was trying to escape with all his treasure, and he lost his wealth in the ocean. He died of dysentery three days later. From that time forward all the kings of England were periodically forced to deal with the brilliant biblical principles laid out in Magna Carta by Stephen Langton.
America’s foundations of liberty are built upon these principles and others, reasoned from the Bible.
The story of Magna Carta reveals the strategy of how to restore liberty to a nation in chaos. Force of arms is not the central means of security and maintaining freedom. We can, as the people of England did, hold our leaders accountable to a higher power, God and His just principles, and check tyranny without massive bloodshed.
We in the 21st century, still have the finest heritage of liberty in human history. We have our treasured freedom documents which call our nation peacefully back to a nation of laws. To allow modern educators, pastors and leaders to re-define every area of law, education, justice and economics as dangerously “political” and “out of the scope” of the church, is to cede all authority of Scripture over these spheres of influence, and ultimately to hand over the reins of governing and leadership to those who hate God and his laws. The result will be a certain loss of liberty.
But, like the people of England, we must inspire and educate our children, our neighbors and fellow citizens, and call our representatives to task when they fail to follow the Constitution and the Scripture that is the backbone of every liberty document.
John Adams, Americas 2nd president, reminded us that, “...it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles, upon which Freedom can securely stand....The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People....They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. – They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.” 3
- from the desk of Dr. Marshall Foster (1945-2022)
1 Bojidar Marinov, "The Forgotten Clauses of the Magna Carta", American Vision
2 Bojidar Marinov, "The Forgotten Clauses of the Magna Carta", American Vision
3 John Jay Institute, "British Christianity and the American Order", 17
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The sun is rising above the trees on the morning of July 4th, 2019, as a man dressed like Thomas Jefferson steps onto the Capital West balcony in Colonial Williamsburg. The sea of people decked out in red, white and blue are quiet and attentive as Jefferson confidently reads the Declaration of Independence. At his conclusion, the crowd bursts into cheers and applause with a number of attendants visibly moved to tears. We spend the rest of the day wandering the historic streets of Colonial Williamsburg, popping into log cabins where cobblers and seamstresses are busy at work adorned in ancient clothes. We listen to audio tours while driving through Jamestown and Yorktown and find a historic home turned bakery for a late afternoon snack. This was the start of our summer trip educating our then 7th graders about Colonial America and the foundations of our country.
We are a family of four that started our homeschool journey at 1st grade. We are currently in our 11th year of homeschooling and have made it a priority to take every opportunity to actually experience the subjects that we’re teaching. With every resource at our fingertips, there is an abundance of ways for our children to learn. Sometimes we watch documentaries or read books, but when we get to physically go to a location and walk through history, it’s a completely different learning experience. We get a front row seat when the switch flips for our kids and we hear, “Wait, I saw a picture of this in that book!”, or, “I recognize this place from that black and white documentary!”
Our summer road trip of 2019 gave us an excellent opportunity to spend July and August traveling up the east coast in our RV and hitting every historic settlement, battlefield, city, museum, fort, monument …and well, anything else of interest that we could find! We spent time at Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Fort Ticonderoga, and Boston to name a few places, but we also took the time to visit Botanical Gardens in Delaware, a small family owned apple orchard in Vermont, and Acadia National Park. There is a historical treasure trove of destinations within a few hours of one another along the east coast that will take you back in time and give you and your children such a rich understanding of the beginnings of America.
We have been blessed to have the freedom to work from pretty much anywhere, a luxury we don’t take for granted. This particular road trip allowed for us to visit 16 states and 2 Canadian Provinces, but we realize not everyone can take on such a long voyage. Homeschoolers on average have more freedom than most, however, a two month road trip can seem very out of reach.
