America’s Sad Declaration of Independence From God by JOSEPH MATTERA for Charisma News
Since the original Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson and made official in 1776, the USA has made an about-turn from the values of that document. Anyone examining the Declaration of Independence is immediately impacted by the new nation’s utter dependence upon God, His providence and its Judeo-Christian worldview.
The fact that the Founding Fathers’ decision to disassociate the nation from Britain and their political position was based upon “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” (The phrase, “the laws of nature and nature’s God” is referring to Scriptural references like Psalm 19 and Romans 1:19-23, which show how God uses nature to teach humanity of His ways) and underpinned by the phrase “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.”
Hence, the view of Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers was that all civil authority is derivative in nature, and as God’s representatives—they can either lose or gain the right to lead the people based on conformity to His laws. (In other words, civil leaders gain their legitimacy to lead based on how adequately they represent God’s laws in their principles and policies.) One of the last things mentioned in this amazing Declaration were these words, which prove Thomas Jefferson and the other signers were not deistic in their religion. (Many claim that Jefferson, and most of the Founding Fathers, were not Christian but believed in deism—a religion that believed God created the world, but after that had nothing to do with the affairs of men personally, like a person who creates a watch, winds it up and leaves it alone. They did not believe God answered prayer, intervened in human affairs, did miracles, or died on a cross and rose from the dead.)
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“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.”
Of course, any practicing deist would never appeal to God as the Supreme Judge of the world, since it violates their most basic tenet that God as Creator has nothing to do with the world He made! Furthermore, it is obvious that the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not competing documents, since the Declaration of Independence is the foundation for the values and birth of the nation and serves as the cornerstone of the US. Constitution; hence, there was no need for the Founding Fathers to mention God in this latter document because God and His laws are already assumed as its foundation. All of that was to say that the USA built its view of life, liberty and justice upon biblical values and declared unambiguously that the burgeoning nation was dependent upon God for its existence, sustenance and prosperity.
