Re-launching The Declaration of Independence onto the National Stage
A Script by Craig L. Claybrook, a.k.a. Thomas Jefferson
Ladies and Gentlemen, this message is entitled “Re-launching The Declaration of Independence onto the National Stage.” This title may seem a little strange until we look at a its historical background. Whenever and wherever it was originally introduced, it became a phenomenon and people were fascinated. Over the decades, it was a common practice for the Declaration to be read in the public arena and on Fourth of July. At some point in the Twentieth Century, things changed. Interest waned to the point that it was no longer read in public and was scarcely mentioned in public. For all practical purposes, it “vanished.”
Over the decades, it was a common practice for the Declaration to be read in the public arena and on Fourth of July. At some point in the Twentieth Century, things changed. Interest waned to the point that it was no longer read in public and was scarcely even mentioned in public. For all practical purposes, it “vanished.”
INTRODUCTION: So, the document needs to be “re-launched” for four reasons:
The First Reason addresses the Significance and Impact of the Document. According to church historians, “The Declaration of Independence is one of the two most significant documents in human history, second only to the Bible!” Its impact is that, not only did it end the tyranny of the King of England, but it demolished a grueling 2,000 years of tyranny in Western Civilization!
The other half of “one of the two most significant documents” happens to be The Constitution of the United States. It introduced the most formidable system of governance known to man, a “Constitutional Republic.” John Adams called it governing “by laws, and not of men,” and “not the whims of men.”
Its impact is that it has been operational for almost two-and-a-half centuries in America. In Europe, every country that watched the Revolutionary War from “afar” eventually became a Constitutional Republic. So, did all fifty of our state governments. Historians have paid tribute to these two documents by declaring them: “the pinnacle of human history since the time of Christ!”
CONCLUSION: In short, one document ended twenty centuries of tyranny. The other is a governing masterpiece.
(Appreciation and acknowledgment of historical details go to Never Before in History—America’s Inspired Birth, published by Discovery Institute, Seattle, Washington; Co-authors Gary Amos and Richard Gardiner; Academic Editors Thomas G. West and William A. Dembski. Also, Enough Is Enough, published by FrontLine, A Strang Company; Lake Mary, Florida; Rick Scarborough, author. Both books used by permission.)
The Second Reason addresses America’s Foundational Underpinnings of the Document. Secular historians tell us that “the pathway to the Declaration began when the British attacked Lexington, Massachusetts at dawn on April 19, 1775.” However, church historians tell us that the pathway began 700 years before that and it consisted of three pivotal events. Vastly intertwined with these events was the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1075, Pope Gregory VII instituted sweeping reforms across Western Europe in which he admonished the kings and rulers “to stay out of the church’s business.” This eventually became known as “separation of church and state” in its original form and it also marked the beginning of “freedom of religion.” Seven centuries later, the Founders would turn the Pope’s “freedom of religion” into a rallying cry throughout the colonies.
In 1215, Cardinal Stephen Langton introduced his 3500-word document, the Magna Carta. It dealt with “limiting the power of kings,” the overriding issue of the Middle Ages. It was later designated as England’s foremost legal document, still in effect to this very day. The Founders relied on this document as their primary source for rebutting the king’s edicts and atrocities.
In 1517, a certain priest and Bible scholar was aghast with abuses he observed in the Roman Church. His name was Martin Luther. This provoked him to tack his ninety-five theses onto the Wittenburg door. As a result, Pope Leo X responded by putting Luther on trial for heresy, under penalty of death by burning at the stake. At his trial, Luther argued that it was “wrong for anyone to act against his conscience in religious matters.” This became known as “liberty of conscience” and this phrase sparked what became known as the Protestant Reformation. What Luther started has lasted for more than 500 years!
Luther also stirred up a Political Reformation by establishing his “Resistance Theory.” This document advocated “disobeying corrupt magistrates and their unjust laws.” The Founders drew heavily from Luther and his two Reformations.
CONCLUSION: These three events serve as the “highlight” of America’s Foundational Underpinnings and its “pathway to the Declaration.”
TRANSITION: Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know if you noticed or not but the Declaration contains four references to God. These four references are found in the first two sentences and last two sentences, effectively forming bookends around the Declaration. This was the Founders’ way of “shouting from the rooftops” that God is “in” The Declaration of Independence and God is “in” the founding of this country.
The Declaration of Indpendence: In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. (In Original Format)
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
TRANSITION: Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know if you noticed but the Declaration contains four references to God. These four references are found in the first two sentences and the last two sentences, effectively forming bookends around the Declaration. This was the Founders’ way of “shouting from the rooftops” that God is “in” The Declaration of Independence and God is “in” the founding of this country.
The Laws and Nature and of Nature’s God
The Third Reason addresses the “Genius” of the Document. The first reference is entitled, “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” When I was asked to write the Declaration, I faced a severe issue that needed attention. The King of England had ordered the writing of laws that portrayed the Founders and colonists as outlaws and criminals. As a result, I needed a way to “legitimize” American independence to four audiences. These include the king and his minions, our fellow colonists, the watching world, and all future generations. I needed a law that not only preceded the king’s laws but superseded the king’s laws.
In writing the first sentence, my thoughts turned to Sir Edward Coke, a Catholic theologian and scholar. (His name was pronounced Cook but spelled C o k e). In college at age fifteen, I had been introduced to Coke’s “law of nature” through his writings, dating back to 1611. He described this law as being “infused into the heart of the creature at the time of his creation.”
Even before Moses introduced the Ten Commandments, the Jews were said to have had this law “written with the finger of God in the heart of man.” The Apostle Paul also wrote about this law in Romans Chapter Two: “While the gentiles who do not have the law do naturally the things of the law….” And interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church added this “law of nature” to their Canon Law in the 1300s.
CONCLUSION: So, what happened? The “Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” profoundly “legitimized” American independence.
All Men are Created Equal and Endowed by their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights
The second reference reads, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Here we see the two pillars of governance: laws and rights. “All men are created equal” addresses the laws of nature, while “unalienable rights” refer to inborn rights. Under English Common Law, “unalienable rights” are possessions that “could not be denied, taken away, or transferred to others.”
So, what does the phrase “all men are created equal” mean? It means three things: 1) it means that we are all created in the image of God, 2) it means that we were all created in a state of perfect innocence, and 3) it means that, having never sinned, we will never be closer to God in this life … than when we were in our mother’s womb!
However, we were also created equal in other ways. Because of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in the garden, everyone born after that was born with a “sin nature.” If any of you have ever sinned, then you have a “sin nature.” And, according to Luther, this automatically implies that we were all born with a need for a Redeemer to forgive our sins. Luther called this his “Creator/Redeemer Distinction.”
The Supreme Judge of the World
In the third reference to God, the Founders appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” This had to do with God’s “omniscience” or “all-knowing ways.” We wanted our audiences, both present and future, to know that our motives were pure.
The Protection of Divine Providence
In the fourth reference, the Founders implored “the protection of Divine Providence.” This refers to the “Sovereignty of God,” a theological term for the “supreme authority of God.” “Sovereignty” is an attribute while Divine Providence” is a title. We Founders appealed to Divine Providence because our lives were in grave danger.
CONCLUSION: So, there you have it: the “genius” of the document centers on these four references. Historians tell us: “Without these four references, the Declaration would have been an empty shell of a document.” We’re getting pretty close to the end.
The Fourth Reason addresses the “Downfall” of the Document. The “downfall” of the Declaration closely parallels the advancement of atheism in our country and, oddly enough, it all started in a court of law. This advancement began when the U.S. Supreme Court of 1947 reversed Pope Gregory VII’s 1075 A.D. meaning of “separation of church and state.” Almost a thousand years later, it went from “keeping the state out of the church’s business” to “keeping the church out of the state’s business.”
This took place at the bidding of an atheist organization via their amicus brief in a court case called Everson v. Board of Education. It did so, supposedly, in order to “secularize” America but it should have been labeled “de-Christianize” America. After the Court ruled in favor of Everson, this case remained idle until 1962 when the Court used “judicial precedent” to take prayer out of public schools. Then, in 1963, it ruled to take Bible reading out of public schools. Over several decades, more than a dozen court cases had been decided by “keeping the church out of the state’s business.” All of these cases were “rooted” in atheism.
Prayer and Bible reading in education dated back to 1620 and the Pilgrims. Back then, people were not considered to be educated unless they knew basic tenants of the Bible.
Some of you may be wondering, “What’s wrong with atheism?” In this instance, it denigrates 700 years of America’s Foundational Underpinnings, 160 years of legal precedent, and 7.5 years of “blood, sweat, and tears” of those who gave us our freedom.
Their “rights” also contradict church historians and their attributes bestowed on The Declaration and The Constitution as “the two most significant documents in human history, second only to the Bible.” Not only that, but as “the pinnacle of Western Civilization since the time of Christ.”
EPILOGUE: In closing, the efforts of atheists to rid the Declaration and it’s Four References to God from the national stage have been a stunning success! By way of contrast, the efforts of Christians to keep the Declaration on the national stage have been missing in action for decades! It may be safe to say that a vast swath of the Christian population has never heard of these Four References to God! And the Declaration is a ready-made evangelism tool!
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time to re-launch the Declaration onto the national stage. How? By reading it in the public arena and on Fourth of July.