The man America forgot to invite to its 250th birthday party

(RNS) — George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams will be some of the names that will rightly dominate the tributes as America turns 250 in the next few days.

Block parties, fireworks and patriotic speeches will give honor to these men for the leadership, courage and vision that helped birth and shape a nation unlike any the world had seen before.

Yet standing in London beside a book twice the age of the United States, I find myself wondering whether somebody is missing from America’s 250th birthday party guest list.

This man didn’t set foot in North America . He never signed a founding document. He actually died almost 250 years before the Declaration of Independence. But there is a compelling case that our country’s great story would look very different without him.

Let me introduce you to William Tyndale, the man who, 500 years ago, translated the New Testament from the original Greek into English for the very first time.

The book I have just been staring at is one of only three surviving copies of Tyndale’s 1526 New Testament. Printed in Germany, it was smuggled into England and was already ancient when America declared…