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Musings on Faith #61 Our Nation's 233th Birthday | |
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This Saturday marks our Nation’s 234th Birthday! And it all began with the Declaration of Independence, dated July 4th, 1776. Too many of us have forgotten, or never learned, the basis of our Nation’s birth, and that forgetting, or ignorance, is a dangerous thing indeed, especially as our own leaders, seemingly inexorably, continue to move us away from freedom and democracy, God and charity, and toward total dependence on the government for all our needs - some of the very things our Founding Fathers warned and fought against. That Declaration of Independence remains the foundation, the cornerstone, of our Nation, and it is good, on this solemn occasion, to remember its words and its lessons, for it is as timely now as it was 234 years ago. I have quoted its opening paragraphs, below, with some words or phrases, in brackets, of explanation: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people [Americans] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another [Great Britain], and to assume among the powers [nations] of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature [immutable, unchanging laws; superior to the laws crafted by man] and of Nature’s God [God Himself] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths [immutable, unchanging, undeniable] to be self-evident [requiring no |
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further ‘proof’ to verify them], that all men [all mankind] are created equal [under the Rule of Law, rather than the rule of men; the later being subject to human frailty, caprice, deceit, and corruption],that they are endowed [gifted and granted, irrevocably] by their Creator [God] with certain unalienable [not subject to being taken away by earthly rulers or powers] Rights, that among these are Life [being not merely existence but a life free to aspire, learn, and grow], Liberty [freedom, including all of the freedoms we now, as Americans, hold, or should hold, sacred, including freedom of speech and of the press, freedom to worship as we choose, and the right to keep and bear arms to defend those rights and ensure that some despot, dictator or foreign power does not take them from us], and the pursuit [working for, going after, aspiring to] happiness [aspiration, education, position, wealth, vocation, free exercise of faith, and so much more]." Only by knowing and understanding our history, and by an abiding faith in God and appreciation for those extraordinary men who we call our Founding Fathers, can we hold on to the freedoms we now enjoy. We have always been able to defend our sacred freedoms from outside forces, but now we face the gravest danger; the danger from within! Have we the courage to defend our rights, as all the generations of Americans before us have done? I pray so. God bless America! Yours in Christ, Tom Woodard |
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