Ah, the Fourth of July! A wonderful holiday right in the middle of summer that celebrates both the birth of the United States and the uniqueness of our nation. The birth of the United States is indeed an amazing event. A group of men, sent from the various colonies, carefully deliberated on what their action might be in the face of a growing tyranny by their mother country, England, but also on principles upon which they might found a much better nation. They wanted separation from English rule, all right, but they wanted much more-they wanted a nation that might ban tyranny itself.

To fulfill their ambitions for a nation of free men, these colonial representatives produced the Declaration of Independence (the document signed on July 4, 1776), a document based on inter-colonial correspondence that had been going on for several years, correspondence that included a long series of booklets called "The Federalist Papers." When the Declaration was finally written by Thomas Jefferson, it was the result of a strong consensus among the delegates to several principles that were in direct contradiction to theories of government by monarchy or any other form of dictatorship. To enforce their convictions on these principles, the assembly declared its principles to be beyond question or debate. It said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The principles announced are justly famous:

1) "All men are created equal," no person is by nature higher or lower than another since they are all created by the same God (thus titles of "nobility," such as "prince" or "princess," are forbidden to American citizens).

2) All men have the same rights given to them by their Creator God. These rights are "inalienable," that is, they may not be abridged or taken away by any one or anything because they come from God. When someone removes those rights, they not only are sinning against God, they are subject to the righteous rebellion of those whose rights are being stolen (this justified the American revolt against England).

3) These rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Even though England was a land of some freedom, the colonists had seen enough oppression by unequal taxation, laws passed to punish previous acts, debtors' prisons, etc., to be fed up and to realize that all such were simply wrong. (Interestingly, while the original Constitution of the U.S. forbade unequal taxation, the 16th Amendment passed during the First World War established a governmental right to unequal taxes in the disguise of the ever popular lie about "taxing the rich.")

4) The fourth principle of the Declaration of Independence is that "governments are established to secure these (God-given) rights to the people." The job of government is not to rule over or take care of the people, but to make certain that neither it, nor anyone else, would interfere with the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the people.

These are unique ideas, truly to be celebrated. But, where did such ideas come from? Today it is seldom acknowledged, but when we read the Federalist Papers and other writings, it is clear that the Founders of the United States got most of their ideas out of the Bible. Our nation received its liberty and prosperity not out of a money bag called the "Federal Government," but out of a book, the Holy Bible. Modern historians often talk vaguely about Greece as the "cradle of democracy." The founders of the United States, however, specifically rejected Democracy-where everyone votes on everything-as leading to mob rule. They gave us a Constitutional Republic, a nation ruled by laws, of which the Constitution is the supreme law, laying down what is right and wrong before anyone votes. Subsidiary laws are made by representative legislatures but must conform to the Constitution. The foundations for such government are found in ancient Israel, 500 years before Greek democracy, when Israel elected Saul and later David as their kings, whose constitution is found in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Martin Luther, a theologian, already wrote, "The Freedom of the Christian Man," in 1520.

The Declaration of Independence declares that our unique rights as human beings come from God. We must not forget to thank God when celebrating America.

Rev. Robert Grossmann
Providence RCUS, Vermillion, SD
From a newspaper column, July 13, 2009