Lux Lucet

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

    – Leviticus 25:10

Independence Day. July the Fourth. I don’t recall a time when it was anything other than one of my favorite dates on the calendar.

What’s not to like about it? As a kid, it was always a great time. Warm summer days. Family, friends and fireworks. Great stuff.

Oh, and then there was that whole liberty thing. And really, what’s not to love about liberty?

Fast forward forty or so years, and all those things I loved about the Fourth? I still love ’em. But with the passing of time, and growth in knowledge and wisdom, Independence Day has taken on a deeper meaning for me.

When I think about the Declaration of Independence, whose signing we celebrate this day, my mind cannot help but think about the intimate connection between the political liberty and economic prosperity Americans have historically enjoyed and the Christian faith of America’s founding generation.

In our own day, the public has been brainwashed into believing the lie that Christianity and liberty are somehow antithetical.

The truth is just the opposite.

Jesus said, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Now Jesus’ immediate reference was to the spiritual freedom that comes only through faith in him. But spiritual freedom is the basis for political and economic freedom. When Israel was faithful to God, they were free from bondage to foreign nations. When they rejected the counsel of God for gods of their own imagining,, they soon found themselves under foreign domination.

The United States has, at least historically, been a free nation, because it has historically been a Christian nation.

And when I say a Christian nation, I don’t mean Christian in some generic sense of the word. By Christian, I mean Protestant.

No Protestant Reformation, no United States of America. It’s really that simple.

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”  These words from Leviticus 25:10 are engraved on the Liberty Bell.  

One could, I believe, argue that the roots of the American Revolution, which formerly commenced on July 4, 1776, really started on October 31, 1517, when a certain Augustinian monk nailed a few of his debating points to a church door in the town of Wittenberg in Germany.

In his book Christ and Civilization, John Robbins noted, “The revolution first accomplished in the churches could not be confined to them, but quickly spread to civil governments. Not only was there a reduction in the power of churches in Protestant societies, but a reduction in the size and scope of civil government as well” (41).

Robbins also relates the revolutionary effect the Reformation had on economic development.

It was the nations most affected by the Reformation that ended slavery and serfdom first, not merely because they recognized the freedom of the Christian man and the priesthood of all believers, but also because they realized that all men, Christian and non-Christian, are created in the image of God, and that no man is naturally the inferior or superior of another. The Reformation caused a revolution in thought about the dignity of work, and work became a calling; good works became those tasks done in the pursuit of one’s vocation…” (41).

On July the Fourth, not only do I give thanks for the courage of the founding fathers, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but I give thanks also to those men whose faith and courage kicked off a Christian Revolution over two hundred and fifty years earlier. A revolution without which there were be nothing to celebrate this day.

To my readers, I wish you and your family a blessed and happy Independence Day.

And on this July Fourth, may God bless America.