Bryan Fischer
July 4 is a religious holiday
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
July 4 is just as religious a holiday as December 25. It is a religious holiday because it too celebrates something that we have received from God. On December 25, we celebrate the truth that God gave us his Son to be Lord, Savior, and Redeemer. On July 4, we celebrate the truth that God gave us certain unalienable rights, to life, liberty, and property.
"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 – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." (Emphasis mine.)
You will note that the Founders, unlike many modern Americans, believed that there are certain things that are true. This means, by definition, that other things are false. There was none of this nonsense that you have your truth, and I have my truth, and both claims are equally valid even though they may flatly contradict each other.
The truths the Founders enshrined in the Declaration are "self-evident." That is, they are so obviously, plainly, and irrefutably true that they do not even require proof. Among these self-evident truths is that there is a God who is our Creator and who is the source of every single one of our fundamental civil and humans rights. This echoes Paul's statement in Romans 1 that "what can be known about God is plain to them...clearly perceived...in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:19-20).
We must never forget that our rights to life, liberty, and property come to us from God and not from government. These rights are "unalienable," which means that no government, no man, and no human agency has the moral authority to take them from us. It is government's responsibility to "secure" these rights, not to grant them. When government instead starts taking from us rights which it is supposed to protect, it forfeits its moral right to govern.
Our government has very nearly reached that point of forfeiture. The First Amendment has been shredded again by an activist judge. A Christian business – Christian Mingle – has been fined a staggering $468,000 for operating its business according to the deeply held religious principle that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. This kind of punishment under color of law is exactly why lesbian writer Tammy Bruce employs the term "Gay Gestapo" to describe the radical homosexual lobby who use the courts as their jackbooted enforcers. It's also why she calls something like this a form of "slavery" – Christians are being forced to do work against their will and against their conscience. It looks like what we need, if we truly want freedom and liberty, is a declaration of independence from the judiciary.
A recent survey by Gallup captured our cultural drift from the moorings that anchored the Founders. The least patriotic groups in America, it turns out, are liberals and millennials. Liberals are unpatriotic because, well, they're liberals, and liberalism is fundamentally antithetical to the values on which this nation was built. Liberals by and large reject concepts of universal truth, moral accountability as enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and even the existence of God. Millennials are unpatriotic because they have been brainwashed since kindergarten by our public education system to believe America is the source of all evil in the world. Perhaps we need a declaration of independence not only from the judiciary but also from liberalism and public education.
Bonus Bytes
© Bryan Fischer
July 6, 2016
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
July 4 is just as religious a holiday as December 25. It is a religious holiday because it too celebrates something that we have received from God. On December 25, we celebrate the truth that God gave us his Son to be Lord, Savior, and Redeemer. On July 4, we celebrate the truth that God gave us certain unalienable rights, to life, liberty, and property.
"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 – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." (Emphasis mine.)
You will note that the Founders, unlike many modern Americans, believed that there are certain things that are true. This means, by definition, that other things are false. There was none of this nonsense that you have your truth, and I have my truth, and both claims are equally valid even though they may flatly contradict each other.
The truths the Founders enshrined in the Declaration are "self-evident." That is, they are so obviously, plainly, and irrefutably true that they do not even require proof. Among these self-evident truths is that there is a God who is our Creator and who is the source of every single one of our fundamental civil and humans rights. This echoes Paul's statement in Romans 1 that "what can be known about God is plain to them...clearly perceived...in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:19-20).
We must never forget that our rights to life, liberty, and property come to us from God and not from government. These rights are "unalienable," which means that no government, no man, and no human agency has the moral authority to take them from us. It is government's responsibility to "secure" these rights, not to grant them. When government instead starts taking from us rights which it is supposed to protect, it forfeits its moral right to govern.
Our government has very nearly reached that point of forfeiture. The First Amendment has been shredded again by an activist judge. A Christian business – Christian Mingle – has been fined a staggering $468,000 for operating its business according to the deeply held religious principle that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. This kind of punishment under color of law is exactly why lesbian writer Tammy Bruce employs the term "Gay Gestapo" to describe the radical homosexual lobby who use the courts as their jackbooted enforcers. It's also why she calls something like this a form of "slavery" – Christians are being forced to do work against their will and against their conscience. It looks like what we need, if we truly want freedom and liberty, is a declaration of independence from the judiciary.
A recent survey by Gallup captured our cultural drift from the moorings that anchored the Founders. The least patriotic groups in America, it turns out, are liberals and millennials. Liberals are unpatriotic because, well, they're liberals, and liberalism is fundamentally antithetical to the values on which this nation was built. Liberals by and large reject concepts of universal truth, moral accountability as enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and even the existence of God. Millennials are unpatriotic because they have been brainwashed since kindergarten by our public education system to believe America is the source of all evil in the world. Perhaps we need a declaration of independence not only from the judiciary but also from liberalism and public education.
Bonus Bytes
- A Princeton, Yale and Columbia trained psychiatrist confirms what the Bible teaches, that demon possession exists. And he wrote about it on the pages of the Washington Post. Do not doubt this book.
- Here's another difference between Christianity and Islam: Christians don't cut your head off if you can't quote Scripture.
- Abortion kills 185% more blacks than the other 13 leading causes of death combined. We believe black babies' lives matter.
- Three people in Oregon were gunned down in cold blood because President Obama will not enforce our immigration laws. The illegal alien responsible for these murders had been deported six times.
- Don't let them lie to you. Eating meat is just fine. God said so in Genesis 9:3 and again in 1 Corinthians 10:25.
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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