Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-4-11

Happy birthday, America. Let us commemorate July 4, the date joined in our collective consciousness with the names boldly affixed to that glorious document, the Declaration; July 4, the phrase that is synonymous with “independence” by asking “WWJD”?

And by this we mean, just for today… What Would Jefferson Do?

Would he recognize the America that he helped birth? Do you think any of the Framers might think twice about having pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor? Would Founding Fathers endorse, or despise, the changes wrought in the Federal system over the years since they dared to dream, risked the safety of their homes and families, and sacrificed in countless ways for the sake of generations yet unborn?

Benjamin Franklin told an inquirer outside Independence Hall that he and his colleagues had fashioned “a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.” Have we kept it?

Is the traditional American Fourth of July frozen in time… frozen in amber? Is it a fossil?

Many portions of the American colonies were settled to spread the Gospel; were dedicated by prayer after prayer and flag after planted flag to the cause of Christ; and were modeled on Biblical principles top to bottom. Despite many religious differences, and, of course, many secular points of view, these outposts and colonies became the American Nation.

A “nation” is different than a “country.” Like the German word “volk,” it includes the inchoate concepts of shared precepts, common goals, and assumed rights… and responsibilities. People can move to China, and they will thereafter be Americans living in China. You can obtain a visa in, say, Nigeria, and will be known as an American with Nigerian papers. Choose to live in Finland, and you will be called a Finnish citizen from America, but not a Finn. However, anyone, from anywhere in the world, comes to the United States… and that person becomes an American.

Once that title meant more than now. Even those who defend the invasion by illegal immigrants often justify it by “people want a better life” – that is, material terms. If the British, back in 1776, had proposed onerous travel restrictions; monitored what was taught in schoolrooms, churches, and town meetings; arbitrarily imposed heavy taxes… the Colonists would have rebelled.

Oh, wait. Those things did happen, and there was rebellion. And, come to think of it, those things are happening today. And there is no rebellion.

One of the forgotten inspirations of Jefferson and his compatriots was Algernon Sidney, an Englishman of the 1600s. Neither John Locke (whose Treatises on Civil Government enjoyed greater repute through the years) nor Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, would have been written if not for the furor surrounding Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1679), which argued for the Divine Right of Kings. Locke and Sidney wrote persuasive and passionate defenses of individual, God-given liberty… for which they were persecuted. Locke fled to Holland, perhaps insuring his ultimate influence. Sidney was arrested and beheaded, perhaps insuring a claim on our attentions as a man willing to die for ideas.

Sidney wrote in Discourses Concerning Government (Sect. II, Par 13), “All human constitutions are subject to corruption and must perish unless they are timely renewed and reduced to their first principles.” What a concept. WWJD? Thomas Jefferson agreed: he copied this sentence prominently into his Commonplace Book.

Jefferson was the author of the cornerstone phrase, “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” In his day the radical aspect to this was not that he acknowledged a Creator God, but that rights were the basic birthright of Americans. Today, Jefferson’s descendents prattle about “rights” and “fairness” and entitlements but consider a mere mention of a Creator to be radical… or — just wait, you see it coming already — a criminal act. Happy birthday, America.

Here’s another quotation of Thomas Jefferson, inheritor of the ideals of Christian Patriots like Locke and Sidney, and prime author of the precious documents we commemorate (or should) this weekend:

“God forbid we should ever be 20 years without… rebellion…. What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that [Americans] preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural [fertilizer]” (Letter to William S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787. See Jefferson On Democracy, Saul Padover, ed., 1939, 20).

Therefore, please, note that it is not we who rain on the birthday party. The shades of Locke and Sidney; of Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington; of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt; and of — perhaps more important than any of these supernal names — the countless and nameless Christian Patriots and pioneers and mothers and fathers and soldiers and sailors who insured the safety and prosperity we enjoy for at least the moment. Would THEY attend America’s birthday party?

Or would they send their regrets?

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Here is a song, on this theme, by the greatest American folk poet of our generation, Merle Haggard. “Are the good times really over for good?”

Click: Are the Good Times Really Over for Good?