Freedom: a privilege and a challenge
Faith in the Public Square
Lompoc Record
July 2, 2006
It's been 30 years since our nation celebrated its bicentennial and, as nation-states go, we're still quite young. Our national experiment remains unparalleled in the world; with the breadth of freedoms we enjoy the key to our uniqueness. Freedoms of speech, the press, and religion are all enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Freedoms cherished by the founders were considered inalienable rights and the gift of the Creator. Come Tuesday, the nation will gather for parades and fireworks, all in remembrance of an act of rebellion that changed the world.
Believing that the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable, we expect our government to protect these rights or we will make a change in that government. Freedoms that Thomas Jefferson and the signatories to the document sought were understood to be the product of divine providence, but particular governments did not possess divine ordination.
An examination of American history shows that it has taken time for the nation to truly understand the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, many of the men (remember, women couldn't vote or hold political office) who signed the declaration, including Jefferson, were slaveholders. When the Constitution was adopted a decade later, it counted African-American slaves as less than a human being. Until the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, slaves counted as only three-fifths of a person. It took a bloody and divisive civil war to end slavery in America, but even that war didn't change the entrenched attitudes that kept African-Americans “in their place” for another century. Native Americans were continually pushed off ancestral lands and placed on reservations, at least until that land was deemed more useful to the now dominant Anglo population, and during World War II Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were forced into concentration camps. Women would wait until the early 20th Century to receive the right to vote, and laws remained on the books until the 1960s in many parts of the country that were designed to keep African-Americans and other minorities from voting. We have a wonderful history, a history worth celebrating, but this history has its dark side and its shadows. Too often we celebrate the triumphs without taking heed of the failures. This fact keeps us from truly understanding what it means to be free.
In fact, we continue to wrestle with the meaning of freedom. Immigration reform, warrantless surveillance, questions of gay rights, handgun regulations, abortion rights, restrictions on the press, and even challenges to voting rights, stand before us as issues of concern. This means that the job of living out the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is not complete. We live at a time when we are being asked to balance the freedom of the individual against the security of the nation. The question is, how far can we go in making the nation secure before we have overridden hard-won American freedoms?
More than ever, religious voices can be found on all sides of the day's issues. Some are strident and divisive (on both the right and the left), while others seek to build bridges. We are blessed to live in a country that has enshrined the value of freedom and is committed to living out these ideals, but the task isn't complete. At times I'm not proud of America's (and American's) actions, but I'm proud to say that I'm an American and wouldn't want to be anything else.
There is, of course, one exception to that statement. Believing as I do that we humans are all children of God, my ultimate loyalty transcends the nation that I love. Therefore, whatever rights are mine by divine providence are not limited by national boundaries.
Dr. Bob Cornwall is Pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Lompoc, CA (www.lompocdisciples.org).
Lompoc Record
July 2, 2006
It's been 30 years since our nation celebrated its bicentennial and, as nation-states go, we're still quite young. Our national experiment remains unparalleled in the world; with the breadth of freedoms we enjoy the key to our uniqueness. Freedoms of speech, the press, and religion are all enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Freedoms cherished by the founders were considered inalienable rights and the gift of the Creator. Come Tuesday, the nation will gather for parades and fireworks, all in remembrance of an act of rebellion that changed the world.
Believing that the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable, we expect our government to protect these rights or we will make a change in that government. Freedoms that Thomas Jefferson and the signatories to the document sought were understood to be the product of divine providence, but particular governments did not possess divine ordination.
Governments exist at the consent of the people, so if the people conclude that a particular government has failed to protect the rights of the people, then the people can and should make a change. Since the founders believed that the colonial structures didn't allow for such a peaceful change of government, they chose revolution, something that didn't just change the government, it created a permanent breach in the relationship between governed and governor.
An examination of American history shows that it has taken time for the nation to truly understand the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, many of the men (remember, women couldn't vote or hold political office) who signed the declaration, including Jefferson, were slaveholders. When the Constitution was adopted a decade later, it counted African-American slaves as less than a human being. Until the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, slaves counted as only three-fifths of a person. It took a bloody and divisive civil war to end slavery in America, but even that war didn't change the entrenched attitudes that kept African-Americans “in their place” for another century. Native Americans were continually pushed off ancestral lands and placed on reservations, at least until that land was deemed more useful to the now dominant Anglo population, and during World War II Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were forced into concentration camps. Women would wait until the early 20th Century to receive the right to vote, and laws remained on the books until the 1960s in many parts of the country that were designed to keep African-Americans and other minorities from voting. We have a wonderful history, a history worth celebrating, but this history has its dark side and its shadows. Too often we celebrate the triumphs without taking heed of the failures. This fact keeps us from truly understanding what it means to be free.
In fact, we continue to wrestle with the meaning of freedom. Immigration reform, warrantless surveillance, questions of gay rights, handgun regulations, abortion rights, restrictions on the press, and even challenges to voting rights, stand before us as issues of concern. This means that the job of living out the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is not complete. We live at a time when we are being asked to balance the freedom of the individual against the security of the nation. The question is, how far can we go in making the nation secure before we have overridden hard-won American freedoms?
More than ever, religious voices can be found on all sides of the day's issues. Some are strident and divisive (on both the right and the left), while others seek to build bridges. We are blessed to live in a country that has enshrined the value of freedom and is committed to living out these ideals, but the task isn't complete. At times I'm not proud of America's (and American's) actions, but I'm proud to say that I'm an American and wouldn't want to be anything else.
There is, of course, one exception to that statement. Believing as I do that we humans are all children of God, my ultimate loyalty transcends the nation that I love. Therefore, whatever rights are mine by divine providence are not limited by national boundaries.
Dr. Bob Cornwall is Pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Lompoc, CA (www.lompocdisciples.org).
July 2, 2006
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