Christian Living

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Spiritual Foundations of Liberty Larry Lilly’s Journal July 2009
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land” Leviticus 25:10

This verse has enjoyed worldwide fame as the inscription on the Liberty Bell, and aptly serves as a reminder of the ties between the Founding Fathers of The United States, and the scriptures.

While not every one of the founders accepted the finer points of Christianity, they did in one way or another recognize our dependence on the hand of divine providence.

The glue that held the fragile union together through the long struggle for liberty was acknowledged in a near rapturous tone by John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and a delegate to the Continental Congress. Justice Jay stated concerning our great country:
“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs. America’s founding culture was Anglo-Saxon, not Eurocentric.” Federalist No.2

Glance at the National Seal and you see the words; E Pluribus Unum, meaning “Out of many, one.” This motto, which is really the grand ideal of the country so eloquently stated, is from the fertile minds of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.

May I ask you at this stage of my meager offering for this month; have you drawn any conclusions from Mr. Jay’s statement and the meaning of the verbiage inscribed on the National Seal? Carl Middleton, author of note put it this way: “The founders saw diversity as a problem.”

One of the problems facing our nation is the fact of many different groups having lost sight of or in too many cases never having had sight of the stated goal and guiding light that shined on the path of becoming One as stated so graphically by Chief Justice Jay.

For the first several generations, the people of the United States were more than proud that we Americans had discovered a way of life far superior to the one left behind in the fermenting sewer that Europe had become. Courage was the word for the day, whatever day was at hand.

In the beginning of our land, from its purple mountains, amber waves of grain, yes from sea to shining sea, the ethos, the inevitable idea, was the Anglo-Saxon idea; and all who came to the Alabaster City set on a hill were to meld into this land of liberty, adopting the stated ethos.

The concept of a hyphenated American was out of the question, a misnomer, much as the idea of English Christian, Greek Christian or African Christian. Americans were one, as Christians are one. As Christians were/are a new nation, a totally historically unique people and thus the analogy was to hold to the new thing, the physical nation. We are not this kind or that kind of American, we are Americans.

That the biblical truth that Christ has made every believer a priest (Revelation 5:10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth). separates the Christian American from the European, in that we believe in soul liberty, meaning that every believer is responsible to God and will answer to God for his actions, and gives each believer the right and responsibility to come boldly to the throne of grace. Believing this doctrine to be true, the early church uttered words that still resonate in the mind and heart of biblically knowledgeable people of Christ. When Peter and the other disciples uttered in Acts 5:29 “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” they set a truth in motion, primarily within true Christianity that to this day separates biblical Christianity from any form of statist church.

Peter dared to state that mans first responsibility is to God his creator.

In my lifetime I have read of the brutal Nazi murderers who posited as defense for their horrific deeds the same defense as Adolf Eichmann in his closing statement during his trial in Israel: “I was following orders.” Eichmann, as many of the high ranking officers harped on the following orders theme, and for what they supposed and were taught were good reason.

As Brent Winters points out in his book, “Excellence of the Common Law” the countries of Europe adhered to what is called the Code of Rome, one of the tenets being that a military person who is following orders is exonerated from punishment due to his following orders.

Prior to the beginning of the Nuremburg Trials, the judges decided to use English Common Law as the basis for the trials and this law dating back even prior to the meeting at Runnymede and the Magna Carta posits that while we are to obey those that have the rule over us, we are to do so only to the point of plain graphic conflict with higher laws laid out by the Lord. Thus Peter was on good ground with God in his and the disciples statement in Acts 5:29.

General Marshall’s statement on the matter was simply that claiming to be “following orders” while mitigating was not exonerating. Any sane person understands the horrible battle going on in a person’s mind and heart when he knows to disobey an order to shoot a civilian Jewish woman and her children in the back of the head and dump them in a mass grave means that he himself will be shot. Talk about inner turmoil. Historically one of the reasons for so many nations adopting the Code of Rome was to give the perpetrator of such crimes a false assurance that God would by-pass the deed because a superior had ordered the deed. It would be nice if it was true, but such is not the case. We each will give account to the Lord for our actions.

The statement made by the early disciples and Peter could well have cost them their life. Even the IRS makes a clear distinction between conviction and preference. Tragically many believers are not even aware of this distinction.

All this to say that when we attempt to meld the many religions within the boundaries of our fair land into some brand new idealism, we are bound to fail, to lose our zeal for the nation that is distinctively different in more ways than one, and in the process risk being absorbed by that yoke which we by the grace of God threw off in 1776. The attempt to divide the sacred and the secular in our history is like trying to separate over boiled oatmeal.

Remember this line: “We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights”… (Bolding mine).

As we Americans celebrate our heritage this month, please keep in mind that any religious or national group that demands the checking of your brain, your blind adherence to their particular demands, also demands via common sense and scripture that you run, don’t walk away. Our national forefathers for the most part did this.

Our spiritual forefathers as mentioned also followed the path of truth written in the Holy Bible. Larry Lilly.
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“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams

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