How has faith shaped the founding of our nation, and how is God calling you to help shape what comes next? Eric Metaxas, in his book If You Can Keep It, talked about how American freedom and liberty are like a flame. Americans, since the founding of our nation, have kept that flame and passed it down through the generations. Now, it’s yours and mine to keep, and if it goes out, it goes out forever.[i]
The cultural and political observer, Os Guinness, coins a brilliant concept which he calls “the Golden Triangle of Freedom.”[ii] The dynamic he describes was understood by the founders who would rely on it in the government they were creating. What is it though? If put in its most basic form, it says that freedom requires virtue, and virtue requires faith, and faith requires freedom. The three go round and round and support each other. If any one of the three legs of the triangle is removed, the whole structure ceases to exist.
Why does freedom require virtue? The founders of our country gave us a system of self-government. The Constitution could do very little by itself. What it promised would require the efforts of all who called themselves Americans. We need to have virtue if we are going to have freedom, because we vote to get people into leadership in our country. If we get corrupt people in leadership, they will make decisions that get money and things for themselves (1Tim.6:10). That is not good for the country as a whole. As a result, people will not trust our leaders. They will feel their money is being misused and things are going against them. Some people won’t vote because they feel that way and the right people won’t get in leadership. If too many wicked people take over, then soon you won’t have freedom! People will feel they are being ruled and not a part of a system of self-government. That’s why freedom requires virtue. If you don’t have virtue, you won’t have freedom. It goes both ways. Just as Proverbs 29:2 says: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan” (NKJV). Why does virtue require faith? The founders of our nation understood that a great nation could be built only upon the continued blessing of God which comes from the righteousness which “exalts a nation” (Pr.14:34 NKJV). Without Christian character, any attempt to reform society will ultimately fail. For example, there was a big difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. In France, people were trying to get rid of God and religion. They changed the seven-day week to a ten-day week, so they could get rid of the sabbath. But in the American Revolution, the Great Awakening had just happened, and it started with a man named George Whitefield. He preached up and down the colonies in the open air, because thousands of people would come to hear him preach. He preached over 18,000 times to over 10 million people. Thousands of people were saved and countless more believers were revived in the Great Awakening. So, in the American Revolution they were fighting for religious and political freedom, which the Great Awakening really prepared them for.[iii]
Why does faith require freedom? Why did the Pilgrims flee England and then Holland? Since they were being persecuted for their faith, they went where they could worship God freely in America. Religious liberty is a central component of American freedom. When the nation was founded, the government didn’t choose a religion. The founders knew everyone must be free to decide what religion to choose. They wrote that the government could not “establish” a religion. This is one of the main reasons the United States came into being. That’s why the pilgrims fled England, because this “establishment” of religion was going on all the time in England.
How is God calling us to help shape what comes next in our nation? We need to trust in the Lord, and the Lord will direct our paths, because God has a plan for our lives (Pr.3:5-6). We need to live for God and honor and glorify Him in all that we do (2 Cor.5:15; 1 Cor.10:31). Because we need to glorify God, we need to watch who are friends are. Who we are around and hang out with influences us and how we think (Pr.13:20; 12:26; 1 Cor.15:33). We need to renew our minds in truth and not be conformed to the world (Rom.12:2). How do we renew our minds? One way is by reading the Bible. We as Christians need to read our Bibles and read through the whole Bible, and not just the parts we like. We also need to pray for our leaders, because God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Tim.2:1-4). There is a spiritual battle raging and we need to be alert (Eph.6:11-12). People ultimately need the Lord Jesus Christ. We as Christians need to share the gospel to a needy world until Christ, the center of all history, returns for His own.
As we celebrate how our nation was founded two hundred and fifty years ago, we can thank the Lord for our nation and for the freedom that we have. Aren’t you grateful for the courage of the Pilgrims and the founders who went forward in faith and trusted God to lead them in the founding of our nation? I pray the Lord will ignite a passion and a zeal in my generation, that we would desire to serve and honor the One who made us, the One who the founders trusted in, and the One who has kept our nation free all these years. Soli Deo Gloria!
*Submitted to the James Dobson Family Institute for their America 250 Essay Contest.
[i] Eric Metaxas, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2016), 12-15.
[ii] IBID, 54.
[iii] World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective, Third Edition. (Pensacola, FL: A Beka Book, 2010), 258.
