Those who founded this country did the following:

(1) They organized a country based on the self-evident truth that people, as creatures of God, all “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” (Declaration of Independence). Such rights were to be virtuously engaged and constantly striven for “freely” without need of coercion. To be sure, not living up to those principles has caused our country tremendous turmoil, but the fundamental truth remains and still calls all freedom-seeking people to itself.  

(2) They not only realized the inherent dignity of all people, but also recognized the depth of the depravity of all humanity, themselves included. Who wins a revolution, writes a constitution, and claims a victory by limiting one’s own power? People who know that liberty for all is more important than personal power for some, that’s who. This truth makes America as a country unique to this day.

(3) Finally, they realized that the American experiment rises and falls on the idea with which the Constitution begins, “We the People.” This statement envisions free citizens in charge of our lives as capable, competent, self-disciplined, religiously-motivated people living freely for others just because it’s the right thing to do. In the biblical dichotomy of “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God what is God’s” (Matt. 22:21), America was the first and only country that limited government types. It even gave the ultimate “Caesar-ship” to individual citizens with a Bill of Rights to keep power-hunger politicians in their place.

All of this was pretty special then, and, in the midst of the turmoil of the last several months, it remains even more special today . . . if we can keep it. Reverend Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the United States Senate for a short time in the 1940s, said this about America’s freedom in action: “May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.”[1] Wise words.

So, while July Fourth is rightly called “Independence Day,” I want you to remember that exercising our freedoms is not libertinism, a “do as I please” attitude subject to no moral code or no civil concern above oneself as the final arbiter. On this Fourth of July, let’s prayerfully and thankfully celebrate those who sacrificed so much so that we can have the freedoms that we have today. And let’s realize that for such freedoms to endure, we must understand that our healthy “independence” is rooted and empowered by these three things: (1) our dependence on God in all things, (2) our interdependence with each other in community (e.g., family, church, neighborhood, city, and country), and (3) our humble, steely-eyed willingness to be independent and even “go it alone” for ourselves and for others when God’s fundamental, moral truths are one the line.

While the resurrection freedom of Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the only enduring, eternal freedom in the world, it is a precious thing to have the temporal freedoms of America as well. Such temporal, constitutional freedoms free us to be faithful to God on His terms and to others without coercion or fear. That freedom was worth fighting for then, it is worth celebrating now, and it is worth exercising in the future. A blessed 244^th Independence Day then to you all and may there be many more to come!

The Rev. Dr. Gregory Seltz is executive director of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty.

Be Informed

A new survey “finds widespread support for letting Church, not State, control internal religious direction.” Learn more here.  

Be Equipped

Discover more about a dangerous agenda for America’s institutions with Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto. Click here to listen to a recent interview.

Be Inspired

“O Merciful Father in heaven, from You comes all rule and authority over the nations of the world for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. Graciously regard Your servants, those who make, administer and judge the laws of this nation, and look in mercy upon all the rulers of the earth. Grant that all who receive the sword as Your servants may bear it according to Your command. Enlighten and defend them, and grant them wisdom and understanding, that under their peaceable governance Your people may be guarded and directed in righteousness, quietness and unity. Protect and prolong their lives that we with them may show forth the praise of Your name; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/33254.Peter_Marshall

That Cold War tete-a-tete is surely to be repeated, at another level and for a new era, when official Washington begins slowly and incrementally to awaken to the reality of the Covid-19 chapter of American history.  The only thing that will have changed in our nation’s capital is everything, which is to say, the way in which the city has historically done business and navigated itself has been inalterably shifted and reimagined.

            In its 231-year history – through Civil War, two world wars, the Great Depression, major recessions, Watergate, Vietnam, the three wars of the last 30 years, etc. – there has never been a time when the United States Congress has not met in person and voted in person. To do otherwise, even up to two weeks ago, would have thought unthinkable.

But as a direct result of America’s current domestic war –- the attack of an invisible, lethal pathogen – remote voting will be installed in the House whereby Members of Congress will be given the option of remaining in their home districts and merely appointing a proxy on the House floor to vote in their behalf. This is genuinely a radical change.

            The United States Senate, perhaps the most tradition-bound institution in America with only one exception, refuses to move toward proxy voting; but it is inevitable, if there is, God-forbid, a second round of Covid spikes, that even that legislative upper house may need to find a contemporary manner in which to do its daily business.  The current muddle of discontinued subcommittee and committee hearings has become, for some members, intolerable.

            Most people who watch, track, and work with Congress most closely have been told that, in the post-Quarantine era, the House and Senate will revert to in-person voting, in-person hearings, and in-person modes of doing daily and weekly business.  Having worked on or near Capitol Hill for three decades, I feel confident that will not be the case.  Some changes are so dramatic, you can never go back again, at least completely. 

            Some of the current “temporarily-remote” ways of doing business in the House and Senate will likely be concretized into permanence and will thus fundamentally change how the House does much of its work.  With likely airline snafus and other related transportation hurdles on the cusp, there will be every incentive to reform the old decorum and to favor less centrality on the Hill and in the city.

            Thousands of people who work on the Hill, in the federal bureaucracy and in the institutions most associated with the work of the legislative an executive branches have now had a two-month sense of how working remotely can be made to work, and there will be inclinations toward keeping more people away from the capitol core of the city.

            Similarly, there has not been a time in White House history where there were so many daily hurdles to even getting inside the complex, much less near-to or inside the West Wing where the president, vice president, and their most senior staffs work.  To what was an already highly-restricted working space before Covid will be added layers of keeping more people away.  The risk is simply too high for infection; in fact, even with the most stringent barriers in Washington, senior White House aides still were infected and necessarily quarantined.

            Perhaps the biggest immediate change of Washington, D.C., in the post-quarantine era will be its impact on the United States Supreme Court.  Two members of that august body are in their 80s; four of the members, including the Chief Justice, are in their 60s or above; and for the first time in the court’s contemporary history, the justices heard 10 major cases, met in conference, and had discussions by teleconference, allowing the public for the first time to listen to cases as they were actually being argued. Lawyers making the cases were doing so from their living rooms via telephonic connection.

            There has been a longtime push to allow the public to listen to real-time audio from the court cases as they are being argued; others have pushed for TV coverage, much like C-SPAN.  The justices say such coverage would impede the way the cases are both argued and decided.  It seems unlikely at this juncture that real-time TV and radio are in the offing, but it is does not seem unlikely that, with the viral threat ongoing, new procedures and protocols will be adopted to modify how the Court adjusts to the new normal, and that may include a modified version of real-time audio.

            The Irish-Anglo statesman Edmund Burke famously observed that the best definition of a healthy conservatism is that which allows worthy institutions to be reformed in order to be preserved.  It seems to me Burke’s definition accords with right reason in the public square of a post-Quarantine, twenty-first century Washington, D.C.

            The Constitution has a fixed meaning and purpose; its original vision remains more vital today than ever; the way contemporary Washington adapts and reforms will be the largest historical question going-forward, and will be fascinating to watch and help impact.

Timothy S. Goeglein is the vice president for External and Government Relations for Focus on the Family.

Be Informed

“How Minnesota Catholics and Lutherans Teamed Up to Open Their Churches:” the title of the article says it all! Read it here.

Be Equipped

Every child deserves a mom and dad, but for those absent fathers, one man is stepping up to help. Check out “Dad, How Do I?” for more.  

Be Encouraged

In a nation that grants its citizens liberty and freedom, in a nation that seeks to limit the powerful and set the religious, disciplined, self-governing citizen free, we, as believers, pray that we might rise to that challenge as your people, to proclaim your ultimate work of redemption for all. Amen.