Hello, this is Tammy Reneé and welcome to another Mission Possible: Truth and Freedom podcast. I’m so glad you are taking time out of your day to join me. Today’s mission … we are undertaking Biblical Truth and the consequences it brings! The subject matter is from the introduction part of a tremendous book entitled, The American Covenant and is written by Marshall Foster. From that … I place into discussion these three words: Ideas determine consequences.
The initial ideas that America was founded on, starting as early as 1620 when pilgrims penned The Mayflower Compact, resulted in those ideas actually forming an incredible culture that permeated the government, the civil discourse, and the general thinking and behavioral patterns of the populace of what eventually became (the greatest country that has ever existed) the United States of America.
Evidence that this is true showed up not only in The Mayflower Compact but also in The Declaration of Independence.
The Mayflower Compact made its appeal to the “glory of God” and to the “advancement of the Christian faith.”
The Declaration of Independence launched into many important points but started with the premise of two basic truths. One: all men are created equal; and, two: that these men, and mankind, are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Though these two ideas in the Declaration of Independence are absolutely true, they were true and proclaimed long before 1776. Historian David Barton points out that such ideas were heard from the pulpits of the land as early as 100 years before the Declaration of Independence was penned. Reverend John Wise, for instance, was already preaching about all men created equal and the idea that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights as early as the 1680s. He got those ideas from the Bible. His Biblical preaching also announced taxation without representation as being tyranny and that God prefers a form of government where the leaders only do so at the consent of the governed. These ideas also ended up in the Declaration of Independence.
What are unalienable rights? Unalienable means unable to be taken away or given away by the possessor. This is why it’s vital that we understand that these and other rights are given to us by God and are unalterable and untouchable, even sacred. They are not given to us by the government. That would certainly make them much less sacred.
If the government gives them to us then they can take them away. And the more the government trespasses into our God-given rights the more they can expect to have our consent to govern removed from them. Or as the Declaration of Independence made clear concerning the tyranny of Great Britain at the time, “it is (our) Right, it is (our) Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for (our) future Security.”
It would not be unreasonable to revisit this important concept if the government, any government, manifested tyranny among us.
The U.S. Constitution clearly points out who the Sovereigns are, that is, the most supremely ranked entities of these United States: “We the people.”
All the above and many others were revolutionary ideas and yet they were ideas that anchored us securely during those early uncertain days. Such ideas have also taken us over 245 years into the future–an unprecedented world record … and here we are.
The principles of the Founding Fathers were gleaned from the other founding fathers—that would be the religious leaders of the land who drew on the truths of Scripture and preached them uncompromisingly from the pulpits of our land.
These and other Bible-based ideas are what got us started on the right foot and set in motion a culture that was permeated with Christian principle and thought. It was not like Great Britain’s state-based church idea that forced people into a religious corner of ecclesiastical expectations with no regard for personal religious rights. The Christian principles of the New World the colonists came to inhabit created a sophisticated society, including freedom of religion, where believer and unbeliever alike could live, and enjoy liberty and justice for all. When Christian principles are allowed to do what they do best, a cultural glue is activated that holds things together even among people who may not espouse orthodox Christian theology.
Award-winning historian Tom Holland says that all Americans whether they be Jews, Muslims, Catholics, or Protestants do not even have to believe that Jesus rose from the dead “to be stamped by the formidable—indeed the inescapable—influence of Christianity.” In other words, no conversions to Christianity, and no state-based religion are required to enjoy the goodness, the Life, the Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness that a Christian culture sprinkles onto everyone at the table this side of heaven. (Why people want to come to America)
The exemplary virtues of the Christian system can be studied and practiced to anyone’s advantage, and it proves itself a worthy means for successfully navigating the many aspects of life, family, and government. This also points to the fact that Christian tenants are not so fragile that it has to force those tenants upon the people of the land and demand their obedience. Without those tenants as a part of the culture we find instead just how fragile the culture can become, which gives believer and unbeliever alike reason to be grateful for such tenants.
Authentic Christian thinking is also not so cowardly that it is intimidated by the presence of non-Christian or even anti-Christian thought. Instead, Christianity’s truth is so powerful and penetrating that it can stand on its own. Because its truths are so inescapable this is why there is now among those who despise it a strategy not to debate it (for they would lose such a debate by virtue of the evidence that affirms its effectiveness). They, instead, cancel or remove it altogether, so they just don’t have to deal with it at all.
And these ideas don’t have to be distinctly Christian to be worthy of cancellation or censorship, they just have to be true. Truth itself proves to be the stumbling block where other political, social justice, and critical theory strategies would like to take precedent instead. Removing truth from the discussion gives repeated permission to subject a culture and its people to a flip-flop strategy, where the goalposts keep moving.
Then there is the very practical appeal of the Christian scriptures toward self-application and self-government. In essence, the Scriptures ask, “You want good government, a good life? Then govern yourself. And here’s some really great ideas in these sacred pages to get it done.”
The message is: Do yourself a favor and embrace the ideals that are distinctly Christian, whether you believe in its dogma and its resurrected Lord or not. (Though I do not recommend that.)
The point is that Christianity is one powerful engaging force from every possible perspective that, if allowed, blesses everything (and everyone) it touches.
Our modern America must turn back to these perspectives and ideas if the cultural glue, which holds us together, is to regain its potency. And, we must not forget that after all, we are a Christian Constitutional Republic.
I’m Tammy Reneé. And this is Mission Possible: Truth and Freedom
“Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!”
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Announcer: Freedom will prove the ultimate evidence that truth was allowed to have its way. This mission will self-destruct if ignored or forgotten. . . Godspeed.
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