Looking for a good, clean movie with strong production values—one that teaches a little-known chapter of American history?

Such movies are hard to come by these days.

Well…add A Great Awakening to your watch list on Amazon. My pal Tom, with whom I share a deep love of American history, told me how it impacted him, so I was quick to check it out.

The film does not disappoint. Spoiler alert: It’s a faith-based movie drawn from one of the most remarkable friendships of the eighteen century, that between Benjamin Franklin, skeptical printer and inventor, and George Whitefield, the fiery evangelist of the First Great Awakening.

They developed a deep mutual respect over thirty years, even though they differed in their religious beliefs. Franklin published many of Whitefield’s sermons and journals, and marveled at the preacher’s speaking voice. Franklin calculated he could be heard by tens of thousands in the open air.

Whitefield preached at least 18,000 sermons in his 34-year ministry, heard by an estimated 10 million people in Britain and America, becoming the foremost preacher of the First Great Awakening and helping ignite the revival that transformed colonial Christianity. Although he brought countless people to renewed or first-time commitments to Christ, as far as history is concerned Franklin never made such a public profession.

Now…fast forward to June 28, 1787.

Franklin, now 81, sits in silence as his fellow Americans debate the way forward for the fledgling nation, made up of disparate states bound only to their self-interests. General George Washington has been coaxed out of retirement from Mount Vernon to chair the Constitutional Convention.

After weeks of frustrating debate, the elderly Franklin finally rises to speak. His remarks become one of the most famous speeches of the Constitutional Convention.

With all eyes upon the elder statesman, here is what he says (as recorded in the notes from James Madison):

“Mr. President,

The small progress we have made after four or five weeks’ close attendance and continual reasonings with each other—our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes—is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.

We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running all about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist.

We have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings?

In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.

All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity.

And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments of human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

Did the Convention adopt Franklin’s proposal for daily prayer during their deliberations?

No.

But two years later, the First Congress elected chaplains for both the House and Senate, continuing the practice of legislative prayer that had begun in the Continental Congress in 1774.

Whether one agrees with Franklin’s theology or not, his appeal reminds us that many of America’s founders believed liberty required more than political wisdom alone. They believed nations, like individuals, ultimately answer to Someone higher.

And that is a fact!