Want political consensus? Ben Franklin had a formula that actually worked.

If everyone in America followed his advice, the world would change.

When Benjamin Franklin addressed the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, he was no longer a young man.

He was a legend.

He was the “Elon Musk” of his day.

He’d envisioned, created — and successfully marketed — some of the worlds’ most revolutionary, sought-after technologies:

• cutting-edge medical devices (still in use today, mind you) — like flexible catheters and bifocal glasses;
• architectural marvels like the lightning rod and the “Franklin stove” — a hyper-efficient central-heating system;
• the first postal delivery business model to actually turn a profit;
• and even America’s first-ever political cartoon.

But his accomplishments in politics were more impressive.

Far more impressive.

• When the hated Stamp Act sparked the Boston Tea Party, Ben Franklin was the one who finally convinced Britain to repeal it.
• When tensions between the Britain and America finally erupted into war, it was he who talked France into sending America the ships and troops it needed to win.
• When the Declaration of Independence started the war against Britain, and when the Treaty of Paris ended it in America’s favor, his signature was the one on both documents.

So, if anyone should have been entitled to confidence delivering a speech to a group of lawmakers, surely it was him.

Standing before the Constitutional Convention, though, Franklin knew the war behind him would soon be completely meaningless — wasted! — if swift resolution didn’t come to the war going on now, right in front of him.

“I have lived a long time,” he began, fixing his gaze upon his fellow lawmakers.

“And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth —

— that God governs in the affairs of men.”

“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 were heard,” he emphatically reminded them, “and they were graciously answered!”

He turned to the problem at hand.

“How has it happened that we, [in this meeting], have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to [God,] the Father of lights, to illuminate our understandings?”

Indeed, the lack of “illumination” in their debates was an embarrassment: In over a month arguing over how to organize the country and how much power to divvy out to whom, almost nothing had been accomplished. And without greater unity, he warned his colleagues—

— without the unity of prayer —

— the Convention was poised to fail.

“We shall be divided by our little partial, local interests,” he warned — every politician jockeying for some self-serving power-grab…

…compromising the new Constitution, undermining the long-term survival of their country.

Even worse, he coolly chided them, “We, ourselves, shall become a reproach and a bye-word, down to future age!” He knew that when they failed, they would face the inevitable humiliation and ridicule of the entire world, forever.

But, he assured them, it didn’t have to be that way.

He made a formal motion before the assembled Convention that they retain Clergymen — of one or several denominations — to begin each session with prayer for the proceedings and debates…

…because business savant-slash-diplomatic genius Benjamin Franklin understood — better than anyone — exactly how far human effort, grit, and ingenuity could get them…

…and with the biases, concerns, and fears of his fellow lawmakers (and the folks they represented)…

…he knew getting all those diverse, deeply-divided viewpoints all on the same page…

…would take nothing short of a miracle.

Oh, how little has changed in the last two-hundred-some-odd years.

Sure, issues have evolved some. Instead of fighting about whether a woman gets to vote, we now argue about her right to an abortion. We fight not over the existence of free exercise of religion, but whether it gets to clash with free exercise of sexual orientation — these sorts of things.

But still we bicker over it all like a bevy of intoxicated football fans during a deadlocked Superbowl.

If prayer was what American politics needed in 1787 to find real solutions to actual political woes, we definitely don’t have less need of it now.

And it worked, by the way: The Constitutional Convention did not hire a local minister — either one or several — to come “make prayers” for the Convention. (Clergymen didn’t come cheap back then, and there wasn’t a budget for it.) But a counter-proposal was made — and carried — that the Convention attend a sermon, and that a prayer (presumably extemporaneous) be offered each morning thereafter.

And guess what? The Convention did make more headway after that. And by September of that year, the delegates had built a framework of government that, bolstered by the addition of the Bill of Rights, has succeeded (not without some serious bumps, of course) in securing liberties the world had never known — even under the Roman republic.

So, friend…I commend Doctor Franklin’s remedy to you:

Pray…

• Pray for your local and national leaders — even (or maybe especially!) if you don’t agree with them.
• Pray for your elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats who are honestly trying to do right by the people — regardless of which side of an issue they’re on — that they’ll be guided toward successful consensus.
• Pray for the ones trying to exploit the people — that they’ll be kept out of trouble!
• Pray for everyone you passionately disagree with — those idiots on “the other side of the aisle” — not that they’ll be converted to your infallible Utopian political ideals…but that you can know how to appropriately support them in theirs.

And finally,

• Pray to know how you can support a healthy political process — and budget some time to act on your impressions. This nation was founded on the basis of political activism, and activism has a fortunate way of always having room for one more.

…because if we do not rise above the hollow demagoguery of our own career politicians…

…we will soon know the humiliation and ridicule Ben Franklin warned us about.

(It feels, by the way, like the entire world trying to decide who’s stupider: a world power whose politicians would rather shut down its government than agree on a budget — or the morons who keep voting for them.)

Prayer, my friends, changes things. The most important thing it changes, though, is us.

And if prayer helped transform a rag-tag bunch of criminals into the most powerful nation of the 20th Century…imagine what it could do for us now.

Food for thought.