Our nation's founding document declared independence from Britain, but, with equal fervor, declared dependence upon God. Expressing "firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence," the signers committed the American experiment to their Maker.
The Spirit of 1776 was reverence and trust.
The 56 men who put their lives and fortunes on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence paid a great price for freedom.
Five were later captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons by death. Two sons were taken prisoner. Nine of the fifty-six died from wounds or hardship from the Revolutionary War. Most of the signers never recovered physically from the war, but I have never read one instance of even one who recanted.
How will we choose to serve liberty?
The references to God in the Declaration of Independence provide a foundation for a moral argument within civil society. And moral truths pervade our founding documents from beginning to end.
Without God as the source of all those moral principles, the public square would quickly revert to the law of the jungle. Brutish power would
prevail.
I pray on this 4th of July 2009, we will seek a rebirth of true liberty, which is possible only when governed by divine law. For, without God, we can never have "liberty and justice for all."
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
When Thomas Jefferson penned the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, he deliberately appealed to the Creator. He acknowledged an overriding obligation to "Nature and Nature's God." And he understood that ordered liberty is not just a subjective preference, but a divinely ordained condition for which human beings are designed. "Liberty and justice for all" is a Christian concept.
1 comment:
Well-said!
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