“Betsy Ross was married three times and buried three times,” Pastor Ralph Weitz says with a grin about the woman said to have sewn the nation’s first flag. Ross remarried after her first and second husbands died. Her remains were moved three times, finally resting at the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia.
Flag Day celebrates our nation’s most visible symbol of liberty, which is a banner to our freedom of speech, press, and worship. One of the questions Weitz’s tour groups often ask is this: “Does America have a Judeo-Christian heritage?” His reply, “Absolutely.” And over the years Weitz has answered by guiding, not merely telling.
This pastor of stewardship has taken groups from Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Virginia, on tours since 1999. The annual trekking began when a few church members decided they wanted to tour Valley Forge. They turned to Weitz because he grew up thirty miles from Philadelphia. After agreeing to become their tour guide, Weitz reacquainted himself with Pennsylvania’s history.
“I started by sifting out folklore from fact,” Weitz said. That sifting led to a revolution of sorts, igniting a passion to share America’s spiritual heritage. On his day-long Philadelphia tour, Weitz shows his groups to the usual sites, Independence Hall and Franklin Square. But his tours take a different turn from most. Along the way he points out the pews. He shows the Free Quaker Meeting House, where Quakers who supported the war met after a split. Weitz points out George Washington’s pew at Christ Church and the donated baptismal font of Pennsylvania founder William Penn, who was baptized Anglican but later became Quaker.
When they pass a modern Jewish synagogue, Weitz explains Philadelphia’s Jewish heritage. A Jewish settler lived there as early as 1703. Weitz notes that William Penn’s “y’all come” openness is an important part of America’s religious heritage. Penn penned that no person would be “compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship.”
“What I’m trying to give is not just an evangelic view but what the spiritual climate was in colonial times through the establishment of our country,” Weitz explains.
Although liberty is as invisible as the wind, Weitz saw one tour group member “touch” liberty. Because John Fenton is blind, Weitz asked the park ranger guarding the Liberty Bell if Fenton could go behind the stanchion ropes. As the ranger explained the bell’s history, Fenton’s fingers felt the cold cast of copper and tin.
“John went over the bell with his hands. He felt the rough jagged edges of the bottom rim,” Weitz recalled.
Fenton also felt the carved inscription’s niches: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof, (Leviticus 25:10, KJV).” The moment brought tears to Weitz’s eyes.
“He saw it with his hands,” Weitz said
Weitz ends his tour at Washington Square, the site of a mass grave of Revolutionary War soldiers. Weitz then describes one of the square’s greatest moments. “It is in this square that George Whitefield proclaimed the gospel. It was there without any amplification that he preached to 25,000,” he tells of Whitefield, who was a friend to Benjamin Franklin.
“My purpose is to show people our Judeo-Christian heritage. That’s not debatable. When you see the pews where the founders worshipped, learn of the great evangelist George Whitefield, read the scripture on the Liberty Bell, and discover Penn’s philosophy, that’s part of our Judeo-Christian heritage. It’s missed today.” Continue >>
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