Independence In 1776, on the 4th of July, the founding fathers of the United States signed the Declaration of Independence. No longer would they tolerate British rule. The land they had taken for themselves and their families would belong to them alone, not to a foreign power. Today, with hot dogs and fireworks, we celebrate that declaration of freedom. It’s ironic. There these men were, up in arms about taxation, about not having a say in laws that affected them, about \trade restrictions that hobbled them, yet they never considered the indigenous people who’d maintained this land for 10,000 years, nor did they think of the slaves that many of…
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Celebrating Independence
The American Mythos Here in the United States, we value independence. The mythology that we are self-sufficient, free-thinking, rugged individualists has been used to sell trucks, guns, beer, and insurrection. We fought a war against England to guarantee our right to govern ourselves, and no one’s going to take that right from us. “Live free or die,” as they say in New Hampshire. [This 1809 quote from General John Stark became the New Hampshire state motto in 1945.] It’s that kind of sentiment that we celebrate on the Fourth of July. This is not all bad. Values are important, and we in this country do have shared values. We stand…
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Independence Day: A More Perfect Union
The Founding of Our Nation No matter the scripture, we humans argue about its interpretation. Did God give Jews the right to occupy Israel, as Zionists claim? Does the jihad mentioned in the Quran justify holy wars, or does it refer to an inner, spiritual struggle? How should we, today, understand Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that reads “Slaves obey your masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ”? Reading scripture is supposed to inform our spiritual and religious beliefs, but often our beliefs influence our interpretation of scripture. This is also true when we try to make sense of our nation’s founding documents: the…