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signed by 56 of America’s Founding Fathers,
represented the former colonies’ first step in
forming the United States of America.
America – A Nation Built On Truth
To understand the nature and character of those
men and the Declaration they signed at great risk
to their lives, it’s important to realize they were
men of faith. In their letters to each other and
throughout their diaries, we find them drawing on
the sources of religion, principally the Bible. For
them, the very idea of liberty, and the prospect of a
nation to be built on that concept, begins with the
very origins of the known world, when God
created man.
The Book of Genesis, Chapter 1 verse 27 (KJV),
tells us that “God created man in his own image,
in the image of God created he him; male and
female created he them.”
This is central to the Founders’ idea of human
liberty. God created us all in His image. That’s
what makes us equal. And if we are all equal, we
are all free, for no man, no government has the
right to take what God has given us. Here is how
they articulated this in the second paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence:
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.
It’s not hard to see why this is one of the most
famous statements in world history — it’s
revolutionary. The Founders weren’t the first people
to read the Bible. Others had been inspired and
consoled by God’s word for thousands of years by
the time the thirteen colonies broke with King
George.
Others saw that the Bible teaches that all men are
created in God’s image, but no one before the
Founders had taken it as a truth that all men are
created equal. Indeed, they believed it was
self-evident: Never mind what Kings and
counselors say — it is given to no man to rule
others without their consent. And then the
Founders built a nation on that truth.
Guided By Our Legacy and Rights
Our great country is going through a difficult time
at present, but one that the Founders foresaw.
Being man-made things, governments are
susceptible to corruption and tempted to abuse the
powers granted to them by the governed. It is our
right and responsibility as Americans to challenge
and contest corrupt governance.
But to live in this moment is also a blessing. As
free-born men and women made in the image of
the Almighty, we are blessed to be alive at this
time, called to reaffirm and preserve the liberties
that our Founding Fathers fought and died for and
left to us to pass down to our children. And that’s
how all of us, our family and friends too, can
commit to that revolutionary spirit set forth by our
great precursors who left us this roadmap to
liberty, the Declaration of Independence.
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