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Christian history returns
as Jamestown gag lifted 
New guidance lets visitors
see settlers' religious focus

The gag on guides at the historic Jamestown, Va., site  preventing them from describing much of the Christian influence at the settlement is being lifted by officials who – after WND publicized the situation – confirmed that records show the "propagation" of Christianity was, in fact, a major goal of the newcomers to the continent.

Jamestown is where what later became the United States was introduced to the millennia-old, Christian common law tradition, the first Protestant house of worship, the first Christian conversions and a vision of a republican representative government, and for this year, ongoing events are planned to mark Jamestown's 400th anniversary.

But when California Pastor Todd Dubord led a group of 50 visitors through the area, he found that not only were Christian artifacts ignored, when he asked a question about replicas of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, "our guide responded … by saying that she was 'unable to speak about the plaques. We are only allowed to say they are religious plaques.'"

That now is changing, as documentation from Joseph A. Gutierrez, Jr., senior director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, confirms.

"The perception that somehow staff is minimizing the Christian religious heritage of the Jamestown settlers, or the role of faith in the colony is a significant concern," he said in a recent memorandum to staff members at the site. "It should be remembered that one of the first actions taken by the English settlers when they came ashore at Cape Henry was to erect a cross, and one of the first actions taken when they arrived at Jamestown was to build a church.'

He also said the organization's board had approved "supplemental interpretive program plans for 2007, which included new church-based programs."

One of the augmentations is "Tolling of the Bell: Religion at Jamestown" which is being added to the existing church programming, "The Law and the Lord," and "Rule of Law."

When historical experts finish their review and staff members are trained, two additional programs, "Jamestown Sermons" and "Origins of the Anglican Faith" are to be added, he said.

Further, a new introductory film, "1607: A Nation Takes Root," and new galleries that "trace the central role Christianity played in life in the 17th century" are being developed.

"An entire section of the new galleries is devoted to exploring the role of Church and State and includes period items such as a church pew, Bible, and communion silver," he said. "It was only after significant effort that the Foundation was able to secure the second oldest set of church silver in Virginia for display in this section of the galleries. The chalice, dated 1661, and paten, circa 1670, are on long-term loan to the Foundation, and document the importance of the settler's faith," he told staff members.

The instructions were released after Dubord had lobbied the site, which involves both private foundations and federal agencies, after his visitors' group was told that religious issues were, essentially, off-limits for guides at the community established in 1607 – 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Mass.

Newly crowned King James I had issued orders to the company to spread Christianity and make money.

"While the tour guides at the Jamestown Settlement and Museum were cordial and informative on many points, we were all caught off guard by their unwillingness (yes, unwillingness) to discuss Jamestown's religious roots. As one of the tour guides was leading us through the very heart of the replica of the community, the Anglican Church, we asked if she could speak about the significance of the three religious plaques on the wall in the front of the church: the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles' Creed (the same are in the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg)," Dubord, of Lake Almanor Community Church, had reported earlier.

He said the guide reported being able to identify them only as "religious."

At the same time Dubord was raising his concerns, Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries, was making the same case, in a different manner.

His outrage was over the removal of Christianity from virtually every portion of the location's 400th anniversary events, and it prompted him to announce the Jamestown Quadricentennial: A Celebration of America's Providential History for June 11-16.

Those events arranged by Vision Forum will include the settlers' Christian heritage, because Phillips said the war over the accuracy of the historical presentations "is one of the most significant battles of our day. It is the battle for our history."

"Jamestown's Christian legacy of law and liberty is significant," Phillips told WND. "The vision for settlement at Jamestown was first communicated by a British cartographer and preacher named Richard Hakluyt who hoped the Virginia settlement would be a beacon for religious liberty. The Virginia Charter for 1606, both empowering and governing the Jamestown settlement, was expressly rooted in the Great Commission of Holy Scripture."

He said it certainly is good that some of Christianity's significant contributions are being restored at Jamestown, but he said the entire anniversary campaign still lacks anything that could be described as adequate in its recognition of Christianity.

"The documents on the websites are horrific and shameful, and events themselves are laced with the most offensive revisionism," he told WND. For 350 years, the celebrations of the Jamestown founding always have included Christianity's role, but this year, it is not only being excluded, but being "corrected," he said.

"They are doing the best they can to minimize references to God," he said, citing bookstore offerings that promote "spirit gods" but are a vacuum when it comes to a representation of the historical Christian record.

"It's down on western Christendom, up with spirit guides," he said.

And when confronted with existing historic markers that reference the Bible and its influence, the contemporary programs answer by saying, "The people of the past were wrong," he said.

"The whole thing is rife with revisionist displays, from the movie all the way through the dioramas, they paint the picture of Europeans who came over as elitist barbarians and the savages were noble and advanced," Phillips said.

He was especially distressed that such a 400th anniversary is a first – and only – such event for this nation. "I always want to be the first person to say thank you even when my opponents do the right thing," he said.

But he said the organizers already have made it clear they want to turn history into pluralism at Jamestown, "meaning every religious bent, except the really historic Christian one, is going to get its day in court."

cont'd

Dubord said he was told via telephone that Jamestown's revisions were being attempted to "better stress" the 1606 Charter notation on the Christian propagation of the Gospel to both site guides and the public.

Dubord also had responded to Gutierrez' confirmation of changes that he looked forward to seeing the changes in a return visit that is scheduled in coming weeks.

"Most of all, I thank you for conveying to me that, after your meetings with Jamestown curators, historians, and other leaders, you will be modifying the instruction information for Jamestown guides to incorporate the colony's 1606 Charter purpose of 'propagating the Christian Religion,' among, as you said, the four-fold purpose outlined therein," Dubord said.

He noted that the 1606 Charter, according to documents at Yale University, said:

    We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet Government: Do, by these our Letters Patents, graciously accept of, and agree to, their humble and well-intended Desires.

He suggested Christian evangelization also was emphasized as "the highest end of our plantation here" in a daily prayer from Jamestown, as cited in some of Virginia's early documentation:

    We therefore beseech thee to bless us, and this our plantation. Which we and our nation have begun in thy fear, and for thy glory. We know O Lord, we have the devil and all the gates of hell against us, but if thou O Lord be on our side, we care not who be against us. O therefore vouchsafe to be our God, and let us be a part and portion of thy people, confirm thy covenant of grace and mercy with us, which thou hast made to thy Church in Christ Jesus. And seeing Lord the highest end of our plantation here, is to set up the standard, and display the banner of Jesus Christ, even here where Satan’s throne is Lord, let our labor be blessed in laboring the conversion of the heathen.

Adding his endorsement of Dubord's request was U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode Jr., R-Va.

"We are overlooking the true facts of our history if we ignore the importance of Christian faith and religion to these early settlers," he said in a letter to Philip Emerson, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.

Emerson told Dubord that the experience at Jamestown with his tour group was "surprising" and said the new programming will provide information that earlier was lacking.

"Numerous other programs and activities will be taking place this year that reference the role religion played in the establishment of Jamestown," he said. "Jamestown was the beginning of the rich tapestry that is America, and religious faith is a vitally important part of that tapestry…"

Dubord's research through archives in the Library of Congress and from various historians shows the Jamestown settlers were commissioned through their Virginia Company not only to advance the company's economic interests, but to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ on orders from King James I, who called for the "propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."

"Historian Sydney Ahlstrom notes that, 'From 1607-1619 the colony's religious affairs were guided by the Virginia Company, which framed its laws and sent out ministers in the capacity of chaplains,'' Dubord wrote. "Early governmental figures 'met in the choir loft of the Jamestown church as America's first elective assembly.' According to Ahlstrom, their enactments included morality, in which:

    "immoderate dress was prohibited; and ministers were to reprove the intemperate, publicly if need be. There were fines for swearing, and excommunication and arrest for persistent sinning. Morning and afternoon services were required on Sunday, and neglectful persons were subject to censure. The governor set apart 'glebes,' or lands to support the church and ministers in each of the four parishes into which the colony had been divided. To promote evangelism among the Indians, each town was to educate 'a certain number' of natives and prepare them for college. There was even talk of founding a missionary 'university' at Henrico ... "

DuBord wrote in his research that his tour took him to Jamestown Settlement, run by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation for the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is adjacent to the Historic Jamestown, run by the APVA Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service.

DuBord has documented similar efforts to edit Christianity from the historic references at the U.S. Supreme Court and Jefferson's Monticello estate, and also has that research, as well as his Jamestown research, available on his church website.