America at 250: Our Founding Values, Their Scriptural Roots, and the Challenge of Living Fully into “All Are Created Equal”

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:8b

Why at Brick Church are we looking at the 250th anniversary of our country? 

Birthdays and anniversaries are times to reflect on what our life has been and what we hope it will be going forward. This year marks the 250th birthday of our country and its founding. And rather than focusing on a comprehensive history we will especially focus on the founding values.

It’s fascinating to look at these values because they are rooted in, and tied deeply back to, scriptural principles - such as “all are created equal,” “the rule of law,” and “we the people have rights bestowed by God.” Our founders, whether they were Christian or deists, all drew inspiration from Scripture’s witness to God, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Brick Church’s history is effected by the history of our country and in knowing our past we can better understand our present and more consciously shape who God wants us to become tomorrow; to shape a future in which we are more faithful to the call of Christ to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. 

Let’s take “the rule of law.” Of course, we know that the great gift of the law was given to the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments organized them as a people and showed them how to treat one another fairly and how not to repeat the enslaving tendencies of the Pharaoh who mistreated them.

Now let’s look at “all are created equal.” These wonderful words were radical when Thomas Jefferson wrote them, but they spring from, of course, from the first chapter of Genesis: “In the image of God, He created them; male and female, He created them.” We are all made in God’s image; therefore, we are all equal.

Another thread of our founding, “we the people,” also began in ancient Hebrew times, when Moses grew weary of carrying all leadership and responsibility on himself. At God’s command, he gathered groups of elders and empowered them to share leadership. Then, in the New Testament, Paul tells us that “each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In other words, everyone has a voice. The United States of America was amongst the first countries to embed these ideas into its founding principles. 

Though we are not founded upon one religion - our founders were clear about that - we were founded to be a country with religious principles woven throughout our life together. Many of our founders believed that a country like the United States could not function without the moral influence of religion because it is neither autocratic nor dictatorial. They understood that for these principles to work, morality was required - and that morality grew out of a deep understanding of religion.  Even so, through the First Amendment they explicitly forbade the establishment of a particular religion while ensuring its free exercise. 

Of course, we also know that our country has fallen short, from the very beginning, of fully living into the founding values. In this series, over the next several months beginning in February, we will start with a dynamic guest preacher, Rev. Dr. Darrell Armstrong, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, NJ.

Rev. Armstrong is a fellow of alum of Princeton Seminary and he  will help us understand moments in our history - such as what happened with Liberia - and ask hard questions about what our country was thinking at the time. He gained this perspective from first hand experiences and thorough research.  He will also help us recognize that although “all are created equal” remains an aspirational goal, we have failed to live it out fully, and that acknowledging those failures is part of faithful witness.

And so, throughout this series, we will explore these founding principles - both to give thanks for who we have been as a nation and to challenge ourselves to more fully live into them in a way that reflects the will of God.

As I reflected on these principles, I realized that if we were to sit down and write them today, we would likely arrive at a very similar list: “the rule of law,” “the equality of persons,” and “the people are sovereign,” not a king or a pope. In this way, our founding springs from the New Testament. The rights we hold do not ultimately come from a document in the Constitution; they are bestowed by God. From this conviction flows the notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. And yet, we know that not everyone in our nation is able to fully pursue these aspirations. Therefore, we must acknowledge that rules and laws alone are not enough. Jesus tells us, “If you are free in me, then you are free indeed.”

We will also reflect on the nature of the Reformed Faith, which understands that faith is not a binding, duty-oriented effort to earn God’s favor. Rather, salvation is a gift from Christ - one that sets us free from constant anxiety about our worth or standing. It is, quite simply, a gift.

What does Christ expect of us in response? To go and change the world so that the kingdom on earth looks more like the kingdom of heaven. This is what we pray for every week in the Lord’s Prayer. In some ways, our nation incorporated aspects of this prayer into its founding values.

Throughout the series, we will engage the insights of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others. We will also learn about the abolitionist David Walker, an African American writer of the 1800s, who warned of God’s coming judgment because of slavery and the denial of liberty - reminding us that if even one is not free, then none are free.

Finally, at Easter, we will shift our focus to the pursuit of happiness as defined by a biblical perspective: abundant life. True fullness of life is found in the gift of Christ’s love and life for us, and in God’s desire that we live abundantly. As a congregation, we will challenge ourselves to consider how we can live out our nation’s values through a Christian lens, so that all may know abundant life.

Prayer of Confession: 

Lord, 250 years ago you forged a country that affirmed all are created equal. Yet we have failed and continue to fail to treat everyone as beloved children of God. We have hoarded the abundance of your creation and fought more for our own rights than for the rights of others. Awaken us to your justice, the Spirit’s truth, and the compassion of Christ. Amen.