Sermon for Independence Day (2010)

by the Rev. Samuel L. Edwards 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Each of us is – and all of us are – driven by two basic human spiritual needs: The need for freedom and the need for order. This is a reflection of the fact that we have been made in the image of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and called into his likeness. In him is absolute freedom and perfect order, and the definition of our happiness – the object of the life that we pursue in liberty – is to be wholly free and perfectly ordered to the highest degree possible for created beings.

On this day when we give special thanks for the freedoms we enjoy in these United States, it would be a good idea for us to think about just what we think freedom is and whether what we think measures up to what God has told us about its nature and purpose.

When we use the word “freedom,” we can mean one of two things: We can mean, “the liberty to do whatever my passions tell me,” or “the liberty to do what makes me more genuinely human.” We can mean “freedom to do” – which technically is called “initial freedom” – or we can mean “freedom to be” – which is called “terminal freedom.” One kind has to do with what we want; the other with what we need. The first kind has to do with satisfying our appetite – at least temporarily; the second has to do with doing our duty. The first has to do with what we desire; the second with what we require. The two meanings of “freedom” are not necessarily in conflict, but it is possible to misuse our freedom to do whatever we can to the extent that we lose both it and our ability to become what we are called to be.

The late Father Homer Rogers of Saint Francis’ Church in Dallas said,

"I have the duty to perfect and fulfill myself, and therefore I have the right to strive for and seek my true happiness. Because I have that duty, I have that right. It is a stark naked political fact that I only have those rights which correspond to my duties. I have no inalienable right which is not the right to fulfill a duty. In practice the only liberties which men will actually fight and die for are those rights which enable them to do their duty. If I tell an atheist that he isn’t going to be allowed to worship on Sunday, he wouldn’t care. If I am convinced that it is my duty to worship God on Sunday and you tell me I can’t, I’ll fight you. These have to do with terminal freedoms." [The Romance of Orthodoxy, Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1991. Page 37.]

This distinction seems clearly to have been understood by the founders of this republic, and it is vitally important for us to remember that they declared our political independence of Britain because their experience over the years demonstrated that there was no reasonable alternative course of action that would enable them to keep their freedom to do their duty. Independence is not a good in itself but is good only insofar as the end to which it is directed is good.

Because most of the Founders were Christians – and those few who weren’t still acted out of assumptions that sprang from the Christian tradition – they recognized that the fundamental rights of man are gifts that governments cannot confer. Governments can only recognize and secure these rights. It is worth noting that a look at the plain text of such documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights makes it clear that the rights to which they refer existed before they were named, and would exist if no one ever named them.

In the collect for this day we acknowledge God to be the source and origin of our liberties in this land, and we ask him for “grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace.” Christians recognize that there is an essential connection between freedom and moral virtue: You cannot keep one without the other.

The conventional wisdom says that it is impossible to legislate morality, but this is true only in the sense that it is impossible by statute to change people’s hearts and minds. Otherwise, it ignores the fact that there is no legislation that is not at least implicitly derived from some sort of morality and thence from some kind of answer to the question, “what is really real?” In the end, no one has the right to do wrong, and when a government begins to legislate against “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” when it abandons its commission to “truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of … true religion and virtue,” when by positive enactment it sets wrong on the throne or by permissive neglect stands aside while wickedness assumes the seat of power, it has ceased to have binding authority and may – and in some cases must – in good conscience be resisted and replaced.

In a free and open society, the sustained absence of moral virtue leads to the loss both of freedom and openness, for if there is one thing that people cannot stand, it is absence of order. If there is anarchy, they will sacrifice their freedom in exchange for stability. When any society is governed by a faction which, through ignorance or malice, seeks to overthrow its founding principles and to create crises which it then can pretend to solve by an increase of government’s coercive power, the peril is great indeed that such a society will “morph” into one that is despotic and closed.

In such a despotic and closed society, moral virtue is stunted: One of the most noxious effects of tyranny is the corrosive effect it has on social relationships. A tyranny eventually makes of everyone a criminal, unless he is happens to be one of the criminals who hold power. In such a twisted social order, those with power oppress and plunder those who have no power, and those who are without power are persistently engaged in deceiving their overlords, or currying their favor by ratting on their fellows, or both.

The realization of this basic fact of civil life is what led to John Adams’ famous assertion that, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” It is what led George Washington to point out in his Farewell Address that, “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government.” It is what led Robert E. Lee to say, “I cannot consent to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself.”

Now, at this point we need to stop and remember that there is no morality that is not dependent upon some sort of religion. It is possible for a society to exist – and to do so for a long time – in which there is a consistent public ethic to which most people adhere and which has effective government, but which is at bottom godless and therefore inhumane. This is exactly what happens when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is excluded from the social and political consciousness, not only of the state, but of the ordinary citizen.

If someone has told you that you can put your faith to one side while making decisions about your government, then you have been lied to, big time. A lot of people – including a great many professing Christians – have bought that lie. What most of them do not appreciate is that by doing so they have replaced the God whom they profess with another God. You see, we are so made that we cannot not worship: If we will not worship the God who made, saved, and sanctifies us, we will worship another who will destroy us, enslave us, and make us vile. In our time and our society, the names of the substitute gods are many – convenience, happiness, choice, entertainment, self-actualization, for example – but they are all related and they all in the end lead us to personal and social ruin. Each of them focuses us on ourselves as individuals at the expense of other individuals, and the paradoxical truth is that no social system can be humane where man himself – especially man as an individual isolated from other individuals – is the prime focus of attention.

Having said all that, it is also important to remember that the primary object of Christianity is not to promote public morality, good citizenship, or good government. The primary object of Christianity is to bring people to an encounter with God in Jesus Christ that will transform them into his likeness and enable them to become real people – people as authentically human as is Jesus himself. If this is understood, then Christians will be able to endure bad public morality, poor citizenship and tyrannical government. If we persist in this understanding, and allow Christ to live in us, then our godly acts will form godly habits that form godly characters that may become the means whereby God transforms the society in which we live into one that is at the same time both more godly and more genuinely humane. Whether or not this happens, if we remain faithful to the one who calls us and who dwells in us, we will assuredly enter into the full privileges of citizenship in that heavenly country for which our citizenship in this earthly republic is a probation and a preparation.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

(Saint Peter's Anglican Church, Waynesville, July 4, 2010)