In two years, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Our nation is the oldest, longest-surviving democracy that the world has ever known. And that fact alone is what we remember with thanksgiving every Fourth of July.
The United States of America is exceptional. It is the first nation-state that was established on the ideal that “all men are created equal.” This statement, in the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, is not a modern invention: it is an ancient legacy from the classical and Judeo-Christian tradition, written profoundly in words by the deist Thomas Jefferson.
Along with the pledge of the Constitution written 11 years later to “form a more perfect union,” the United States was the first state, in world history, to work toward a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as President Abraham Lincoln said “fourscore and seven years” later in the Gettysburg Address.
Reading the Declaration and the Constitution and studying the history of our nation is the best way to “remember our history” — better by far than putting up yard signs and statues.
The promise to provide equal civil rights is rooted in the Constitution, echoing ideas penned by John Locke a century before. Indeed, it took generations to emancipate the enslaved African-American people, to enfranchise all males (not just land-owning men of wealth), and then women, and even longer to extend equal protection under the law to everyone — whether or not they look the same as us or if we like them or agree with them.
But still, that promise of equality was inscribed in the nation’s DNA.
The ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution outline a government established by “social contract” (as described by Jean-Jacques Rousseau): an agreement between the state and the people who give authority by free consent to the state, so that the state in turn will provide the benefits of good government — protection against harm, provision of minimal needs, and a free space to worship, to grow, to travel and associate freely, and to freely share and advance ideas.
The Constitution established the nation as a “democratic republic.” “Democratic” meant that the nation would not be ruled by an autocrat, a hereditary aristocracy or a king who claimed a “divine right,” but by plebiscite and representation. Its citizens would not be permanently bound to a caste system, as it was in earlier civilizations. There would be no “state church,” like the Church of England.
Historically, a state church, aristocracy, and authoritarianism have always gone hand in hand: they combine and produce a hideous offspring called an “oligarchy.” Witness Moscow today.
America, as James Madison and other Founding Fathers rightly said, would be much better off without any of this stuff. America was not to be anti-religious, but America was not to be a place where the state involved the church in domination and coercion.
Democratic and secular America was not some modern invention that appeared out of nowhere. I argue that the democratic freedom that we celebrate on Independence Day is a legacy of an authentic Judeo-Christian tradition.
Jesus Christ Himself said in Matthew 25:40, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." There is no clearer statement of the equal, infinite worth of every human being: thus there can be no caste system, no one can be put down or objectivized. Also, as Galatians 3:28 points out, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." In authentic Christianity, there simply can be no racism or slavery or male subjugation of women, as St. Gregory of Nyssa preached in 367 AD.
Governments are only good insofar as they reflect this sort of ideal politics, which the Biblical prophets called “righteousness”: a righteousness that protects the powerless, that frees the enslaved, provides for the poor, and cares in close stewardship for the earth. Governments that reject this ideal are judged negatively by God, no matter how moral and upstanding (as in the so-called “culture wars”) they claim to be.
The United States of America is hardly perfect. It didn’t start out that way, and it will never be. There should never have been slavery, the forced displacement of Native Americans, or the internment of Japanese. But the very fact that the U.S. is a democratic republic comprised of Native Americans and immigrants from all over the world makes it a better nation, a government more amenable to true righteousness, than any other nation or kingdom before.
Democracy represents maturation in human politics. To embrace authoritarianism — no matter who is telling you that it is the “Christian” thing to do (which it’s not) — is regression and moral failure. It is a deliberate headlong plunge into barbarism. Most of all, it is ungrateful for the gift of the democratic ideal — a better, more mature polity than any authoritarian regime.
Yes, America is secular and pluralistic (as democracies really must be). Yes, there are many transgressions and problems. But still, we who live in the United States share a common and honored citizenship, and it is our civic duty to treat each other with dignity, civility, and courtesy — even and especially if that other American does not share our faith or our politics.
Besides, any religion that is of good will (as Christianity should be) should find in a secular democracy a free opportunity “to let your light shine,” to be “salt and light.” If a church needs help from the state, then it’s not so much of a church, yes?
Some Americans will be conservative or Republican. Others will be Democrat or liberal. Some will be right wing, others will be left wing. Some will be Christian or Jew, Muslim or Buddhist, others will be atheist or agnostic. We have to get away from the popular notion that another person’s liberty takes away from our own. We have to stop hating the other side. We must only respect. We must not demean or denounce. We cannot fall into the passionate rage of a lemming crowd. We must remember our full (not partial) history by always reading, always studying.
On this Fourth of July, let us Americans lay down, at least for a day, our party loyalties, our hats and pins, our lawn signs and posters — and pray for peace in our beautiful land. Let us simply be thankful, humbly, for the gift of this democratic, non-authoritarian, republic, this America that we call beautiful.
Because she really is.
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