Before I begin, I want to add one
caveat. Anything quoted here is not to
affirm that these men always lived consistently—or taught consistently. They were imperfect human beings. Their words are what they are, but they come
from men who knew history and understood that an eternal moral law exists.
I will start first with some quotes
from Thomas Jefferson (all the capital letter emphases in these quotes will be mine):
“The Christian religion, when divested
of the rags in which they [false teachers] have invested it, and brought to the
original purity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most
friendly to LIBERTY, SCIENCE, and THE FREEST
Jefferson, and all of America’s founders, understood that freedom, true freedom, comes from God, who is also the Author of all true science, philosophy, morality, indeed, of everything that is “truth.” Freedom is not a license to do anything we want; obviously, we cannot give murderers, thieves, rapists, et al, the freedom to commit their atrocious crimes, because this would violate other people’s freedoms. And thus freedom has restraints, called “law” (more on this in a later post), and those restraints are inherent within the very nature of freedom.
Since freedom comes from God, it is based on what is right and wrong, the knowledge of which also comes from the Eternal Deity (much of it is “self-evident,” but not all). God has given us the freedom to do what is “right,” but not the freedom to do what is “wrong” (“Thou shalt not kill…steal…commit adultery…covet”, etc.). And those who would argue, “well, as long as I’m not hurting anybody else, I can do what I want,” argue falsely, because when I do evil (violate any of God’s laws), even if only to myself, I hurt myself, I slowly destroy my conscience, I lower my moral inhibitions, I make myself a viler, more depraved individual, and a person like that will, eventually, violate the freedoms of others. Such people will ultimately need government to step in and defend their “freedoms” (e.g., pay for their abortions, provide money for their children born out of wedlock, subsidize research to cure diseases caused by immoral sexual activity) and by doing so, infringe upon the liberties of those who try to live virtuously (I am forced, by government, to pay taxes to support these immoral deeds. And when someone is forced to do something, that’s not freedom). God has given us no freedom to do any evil, but only the freedom to do good; that’s crucial to understanding the thinking of the men who founded America. If all men would do only good, and never evil, we wouldn’t need government; if all men were angels, James Madison wrote, government would be unnecessary. But because men do violate the laws of God and harm others, government becomes essential in order to restrain those who will not be restrained without force or the threat thereof. People who harm others, or themselves, are violating true freedom. When we freely choose to do the right thing, then we will have the most possible freedom of all, because we will need less government confining us, and we will be using freedom in the way God intended it to be used—for the betterment of mankind, not for personal pleasure or glory, the latter which almost always leads to violations of individual or collective liberty.
As Jefferson wisely understood, pure Christianity—that which was taught by Jesus—is the purest, and I would add final, expression of the mind of God. Since freedom, science (true science, not Darwinian mythology), and the creative mind come from God, then, as Jefferson noted, Christianity provides the greatest access to all of these things. Again, it is critical to understand that, to America’s founders, we are NOT free to do evil—of any kind. Obviously, the immoral masses in America today, especially on the left, want as much “freedom” as possible, mainly for sexually licentious behavior, but also to promote a vile welfare state that keeps them in power. For such people, who have gained control of Hollywood, the media, much of the government, it is easy to understand why Christianity is their greatest enemy. But in truth, Christianity is the greatest supporter of individual liberty—the liberty to do the right thing, to benefit society, to not harm ourselves and others, to build and create a worthy civilization, not to destroy it—a destruction that is so evident in America today, because we have turned our backs on the foundation principles of the country.
The more Christianity we have, the less government we need. The less Christianity, the more government. Which way has America gone in the last generation? It isn’t Christianity that needs more government. It isn’t Christianity that is infringing upon people’s freedom to do good. It isn’t Christianity that is destroying the United States of America in 2013.