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,...After reading this I have my students answer the question, “Where do our rights come from?” Most students will answer, “The government.” Another group throws in all kinds of creative answers. A few will actually pay attention to what they read and answer, “God.”
Our country is based on the belief that our rights are from God, not the government. That means that no government or politician can take those rights away from us. It means that those rights cannot be changed, edited or adjusted to the cultural norms of the days.
Don’t let the phoney mantra of “separation of church and state” divert you from the central truth that was agreed on by the men at the Constitutional Convention. God is the author of our freedom, period. There may have been many different understandings of this God and how He was involved with mankind but He was the God of the Bible in general terms.
Without the God of the Bible we will not long have the rights we are used to.
homo unius libri
I have to disagree, there are no such things as rights. It's a human idea, we made it up. If there was such as thing as rights then nobody could take them away. But any "right" can be taken away in some shape or form.
ReplyDeleteAnd on the separation of church of state, its not phoney baloney. Most of the founding fathers were deists who knew very well of the horrors of what happened to a Christian Europe that soon started wars and conflicts from differences of religion or have a different view of the same religion. Some didn't share that viewpoint, but people like Jefferson and Madison were key-advocates of keeping religion and government from mixing.
During the civil war there was a movement to amend the Constitution. They had a problem that the whole document makes no reference to God, Jesus or Christianity period. They thought the civil war was punishment from God for doing so, and attempted to make a new amendment to make it a "Christian nation" instead of a nation with a Christian majority. Even back then, it failed to pass. Even the revivals during the red scares.
As a believing Christian I would agree with your first statement about "rights," but for a different reason. I focus more on duty and responsibility than demanding my rights.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Deism talking point, Deists, like Christians and pagans, come in many shapes and forms. These men did not believe that some providential force had wound up the clock of creation and then went to have tea while it ran down. They very much believed that a personal God was involved in what happened and took an interest. You see that in reading almost anything they wrote.
You mention Jefferson. He wrote, or edited, the Declaration so it is hard to believe he didn't at least pay lip service to God being involved in the process of rights. He was not at the Constitutional Convention. If he had been we might not have a country today. He preferred the French model which led to the Reign of Terror and numerous republics.
This response gets too long. Thanks for the disagreement and expression of it.
Grace and peace.
I may not entirely agree with Adam, but it's nice to see someone who knows how to disagree intelligently, instead of flashing hot and exploding.
ReplyDeleteToo bad we can't transition into a coffee shop with a long morning ahead of us and really talk with people.
DeleteGrace and peace