Let me show a simple diagram of why our country is the most extraordinary, and exceptional with more individual freedom than any country that has ever been created.[1] Now write GOD at the top of a piece of paper and halfway down write “king” in lowercase, and then draw a bunch of arrows down and write “the people” at the bottom. We are looking at a depiction of the philosophy called the divine right of kings. This comes from an old European medieval concept. This doctrine says kings derive their right to rule directly from God and are not accountable to their subjects. Most of the great nations we study today subscribe to some form of this doctrine. Many believe there is a higher power but the earthly king, (dictators) or the heads of government or an oligarchy (communism) is sovereign. The king is the one who can tell his subjects what property they can hold, what rights they have and what they are going to do for a living (Marxism, Communism, Socialism). The king called various names today, can even tell force their subjects to marry (Islam) and how many kids you can have (China). The king or head of state is the boss and then looking at the paper go to the bottom and we see the people are the king’s subjects and have no rights.
Now in 1776 the Founding Fathers, didn’t buy the divine right of the kings. We know the Signers were students of the Holy Scripture because between 30 to 35 of the 56 signers had a seminary background. They were all students of our Judeo-Christian heritage and understood the truth of scripture.
C.K. Chesterton, who was the famous British philosopher and statesman said, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just.”
The second paragraph of the Declaration says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” In the first draft Jefferson had written “we hold these truths to be sacred and inviolate.” Benjamin Franklin said that is too wordy so let’s just go with self-evident. Then it is obvious America holds these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. This didn’t say born equal, the Declaration said “created equal.” This was very intentional. These self-evident truths are “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, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Now why is this so revolutionary? This was bold, even radical, and the foundational wording of the Declaration was the reason that sparked the American Revolution into action. America eliminated and denounced the divine right of the kings. King George was livid because he knew America’s Declaration removed him, ‘the king’, and replaced him with ‘the people.’ The people now would control their own destiny because their rights came from God, and not through an apostate king. Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.”
The Declaration as America’s foundation, forced future representatives of the people to create a great nation filled with individual liberty. No country before in the history of the world had ever done this. The Signers defied the idea of earthly divine kings, and this includes any modern look-alike that takes on the status of sovereign over the people, i.e. Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Fascism, or Muslimism.
The Founders of America erased the king, and all the human space between God and a government defined by Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address as “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” This is why our preamble to the U.S. Constitution starts with, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union.” Now the America government is charged with protecting and securing the rights of the people because God is sovereign, and the people are the king. The Declaration does not recognize any authority that tries to take the people’s rights because their rights are endowed by their creator, God.
Now let’s see how our Founders rewrote the diagram of America. Write “GOD” at the top of a piece of paper and halfway down write “We the People” and then draw a bunch of arrows down and write the “U.S. Government” at the bottom. This is a simple explanation of what makes our country different and greater than all the ones before and after.
David Howard, Foxhole Ministry
[1] The idea for this piece came from the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson