Thoughts on the Fourth

Monday is the Fourth of July, the day on which we Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress in 1776.

The Declaration's second paragraph contains the famous words Thomas Jefferson borrowed and reworked from John Locke and other political philosophers: “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.”

The Fourth is a great day to remember. But we might do well to celebrate September 17 as much as we do July 4.

In 2004, Congress established September 17 as Constitution Day. It commemorates the day in 1787 when the United States Constitution was signed. But barely a murmur will be heard about that day when it comes.

Maybe that’s because the Constitution deals with things we don’t like to talk about as much as we like to talk about freedom, things like personal responsibility and mutual accountability, things that prevent personal liberty and freedom from becoming what the Bible calls “license.” License is doing anything that may come into our heads—good or bad, right or wrong, helpful or hurtful. It's freedom without checks, balances, or concern for others.

From 1781 to 1789, this country tried to govern itself under the Articles of Confederation with freedom as its only principle. The result was a nation descending into chaos. Under the Articles, the new United States couldn’t defend itself or ensure political or economic opportunity or security for its people. That’s why the Constitution came into being. That's why it was essential.

“We the people of the United States,” the Constitution begins, “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Many historians say that the Constitution completed the American Revolution. Without the responsibility and mutual accountability it imposed on the willing and the unwilling alike, the American experiment of freedom would have failed long ago. I think that’s worth at least a few fireworks.

Fourth of July, the Declaration, Rights, Responsibilities

Historian Garry Wills, in his wonderful book on Lincoln at Gettysburg, rightly points out that for the first eighty-nine years of their history, citizens of the United States saw the Constitution, that document which forged the disparate and unruly original states into a single nation, as their birth certificate. Washington and the other Framers saw the Constitution as the document that completed the American Revolution, because liberty without mutual accountability is tyranny and chaos. It was Lincoln at Gettysburg who gave the Declaration of Independence the significance it retains to this day.

Though the Declaration lacks the force of law, its significance for our country and for the history of freedom around the world cannot be underestimated.

As a Christian who strives to pay heed to the Bible, I question the entire concept of "unalienable rights" on which the Declaration is predicated. But I do acknowledge that in the civil realm in which theists and secularists live and govern themselves together, it is a useful fiction, the content of which we can collectively decide. (Certainly, our notion of what constitutes a right and who--which has come to include the unpropertied, blacks, women in the intervening centuries--might stake a claim a right, has expanded over the years.)

For me though, it's personally more useful to think in terms of Jesus' "golden rule": Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think more of my "unalienable responsibilities" to love my neighbor as I love myself, the second part of Jesus' great commandment, than I do of my rights. (The first part of Jesus' great commandment is to love God with all one's heart.)

Of course, not all voluntarily live by this ethic--even we Christians who, on earth, remain saints as well as sinners. That's why government remains what Martin Luther calls "an emergency measure," necessary until the return of Jesus and the final establishment of His kingdom. Government exists to coerce us into consideration of our neighbor when we fail to offer it voluntarily.

Winston Churchill once observed that democracy is the worst form of government...except for every other form of government. He's right, I think, which is why I feel so blessed to live in the cradle of modern democracy, the United States.

Take some time to listen to the hosts, reporters, and contributors of National Public Radio read again this year, the entire text of the Declaration of Independence, here. May God bless the United States of America and may the United States of America always bless God!