A Thanksgiving for Independence Day
by the Rev. James W. Dale
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
That sentence is the heart of the argument Mr. Jefferson lays out in the founding document of this country, the Declaration of Independence. It is this document whose ratification we celebrate this Sunday.
Now whether Mr. Jefferson was Christian in any orthodox sense is highly debatable. Most historians at my alma mater, the university he founded in Virginia, describe him as a deist. That is, he believed in a God who created the universe, set it in motion, and then sat back, letting things work out as they would. He had a profound problem with the notion that Jesus was God’s Son, or that God intervened in human history in any meaningful way.
So on one hand it is not surprising that he locates his notion of rights in creation, with no hint of redemption. The Creator in his view puts our “unalienable rights” into place, and then leaves humans to work out what they mean in practical terms.
On the other hand it is surprising that he locates his notion of rights in creation. It leaves open the very real possibility that people who were and are more orthodox in their Christian beliefs would understand these rights as a matter of Christian faith, gifts of the Creator we know in Christ.
That is to say, Christians locate our rights not simply in creation, but in God’s revelation through the giving of the law at Sinai, through the history of God’s acts with Israel, through the prophets, and through Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
What that does, in brief, is connect the freedom from sin and death in Jesus Christ, with the political freedom Mr. Jefferson envisions in this document.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians does not connect freedom from the law (5:1) explicitly with political or social "freedom" as such. But he does in 3: 28 understand the thrust of grace to be in the direction of equality for those from different religious and cultural backgrounds, for those with different social and economic situations, and between men and women. It's not a huge leap to see that "freedom in Christ" can carry political freight as well.
So, if you want a church free from politics, you have to deny any connection between the Mr. Jefferson’s Creator and the God of the Bible.
You may already have guessed: I affirm the connection, and thank God for it, as I thank God for the awesome privilege of living in this grand experiment in the equality of all people, made concrete in their “unalienable rights,” which experiment we call the United States of America.
*people
