(2nd in a series of “Why I Love America”)
“God bless America, land that I love.”
I can sing that phrase with my whole heart because God has poured out blessing upon blessing on the United States. Last week I wrote about America’s abundant resources and natural beauty. This week I’d like to focus on another reason I love America—its founding principles.
The Psalmist wrote, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1). One of the reasons America’s system of government has endured for nearly 250 years is that our founders understood truths the Bible teaches repeatedly: people are sinners. Power is a good thing, but concentrated power is dangerous. Human beings need freedom, but freedom also requires responsibility. Freedom requires responsibility because, in a republic, the people ultimately govern themselves. Those are not merely political truths; they are biblical truths.
Our founding fathers were not perfect men, and they didn’t all believe alike. Yet most belonged to Christian churches, and nearly all of them viewed the world through a biblical lens. They believed in a Creator who grants rights no government can take away, a God who raises up nations and brings them down, and a moral law that stands above every king. President John Adams later wrote, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”
America’s liberty did not happen by accident. It was built upon enduring truths about God, government, and human nature. Those principles have enabled this nation to prosper and endure for nearly two and a half centuries.
Since this July 4 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let’s take a fresh look at that remarkable document.
The opening paragraph reads, “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.”
The Declaration began by explaining why the colonists were taking the extreme measure of declaring independence from Great Britain—their God-given rights were being consistently violated.
Notice three basic, biblical principles in the Declaration.
Government gets its authority from God.
“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.”
Our forefathers acknowledged God’s existence and sovereignty. God created the individual with certain innate rights. The King of England had usurped those rights, and he needed to be reminded that his authority to govern was not inherited—it came from the Creator. He was answerable to a higher authority.
Daniel 2:20-21 reads, Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them (Daniel 2:20-21).
Government is accountable to the people.
“That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
After God came the individual, then the government. Only by the people’s consent could government officials rule, and then only to protect life, liberty, and property.
Our forefathers determined we would be a nation governed not by kings but by laws. We would be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. They would elect the most capable to represent them, to write, interpret, and enforce the law. That conviction was an old one. A Scottish minister named Samuel Rutherford wrote a book about it back in 1644 and called it Lex, Rex—“the law is king.” Thomas Paine said the same thing in plainer terms in Common Sense: “in America THE LAW IS KING.” Not the President, not any man—the law. That’s why our government officials swear allegiance not to a person but to upholding the Constitution.
Government is capable of horrendous evil and must be restrained.
“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
The next few sentences admit that government shouldn’t be overthrown lightly, because none is perfect. But they added that we’d suffered under this unreasonable despot for a long time. When people suffer under a train of abuses, “It is their right, their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Our founders witnessed how power corrupted King George. Government wasn’t to be trusted with unlimited power. But at the same time, they acknowledged the dangers of a pure democracy—the majority could be selfish or ignorant. J. Vernon McGee once quipped, “Sometimes majority opinion just means you have a lot of fools in one place.”
A few years after the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers met to consider a unique form of government that would incorporate built-in checks and balances to limit the government’s power. That’s why we now have representatives, states’ rights, and the electoral college—not a democracy but a constitutional republic.
Our founding fathers recognized the sin nature of man. So they divided the government into three separate branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—and attempted to give them a balance of power. They distrusted government so much that they divided the legislative branch between the Senate and the House. Then they went a step further and established the first ten amendments to the Constitution as limits on the power of government over the individual.
Our forefathers understood something right about human nature. Those principles have endured and enabled this nation to prosper for 250 years. This July 4 we should give God thanks for the good gift of a unique, effective system of government. We enjoy freedoms of worship, travel, press, and speech that are rare in human history.
The way to give thanks is not just with prayers, but with participation in the system. I got into a friendly dispute with a young preacher from Indiana a few years ago. He said preachers should avoid political controversy, because when you get political it turns off the seeker and you lose the opportunity to win him to Christ. Just let the world be the world and focus on Jesus.
I responded, “If John the Baptist had followed that advice, he would never have been beheaded—because he spoke out against King Herod for stealing his brother’s wife.”
He said, “The Apostle Paul lived under an oppressive Roman government but never spoke out against Caesar or advocated the overthrow of Rome.” I responded, “Yes, but Paul lived under a tyranny. In America you are the government, and you have a responsibility as a leader to be a good steward of what God has entrusted to you, lest you lose it.”
I’m sure he countered with something significant, but I was so impressed with my own answer that I admit I didn’t listen! Wayne Smith used to say, “It’s one thing to sing the national anthem; it’s another to join the army.” It’s one thing to exercise the freedom to preach; it’s another to preserve that freedom for the next generation.
I love America because I greatly respect its founding principles. And the way to honor those principles is not just to celebrate them on the Fourth of July, but to guard them the rest of the year—and to thank the God who made them possible in the first place.
— Bob
