i read a post here that brought to mind thoughts i have about the USA. for background, the bulk of the first seventeen years of my life were lived there. i am an american citizen and was raised in that environment. my home was a mixture of american and canadian culture with an american mother and canadian father. with that, i was blessed with parents who did not accept all as it would seem, but gave me the ability to critique and evaluate for myself when it came to countries and where i would call home.
the post i read talked about the founding principles of the USA - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. this is what i would like to talk about for a bit. actually i would like to spark a friendly debate. i have an issue i struggle with...
i struggle with these founding principles of the USA. rather, i struggle with reconciling them with my growing understanding of the gospel of jesus christ. to put it plainly, i think they stem from and encourage a worldview that is not compatible with what jesus calls us to in this world.
rights: as a christian i give up my rights, i am a slave of God sent to serve those around me. i have no "right" to demand my "rights" - however, i also recognize that the issues of justice and so on that the founding fathers were fighting for are things that all people should, ideally, experience. i just struggle with the idea that as a christian i would fight for my "rights"
life and liberty: again, as a christian i am guaranteed no such thing. i heard about a chinese pastor the other day who had been imprisoned several times for his faith, and as he was in prison, his parishoners were not praying for his release, but that he would have the strength to share jesus where he was at. also, in scripture i see no promises of liberty or even life - instead jesus asks me to give up my life to serve people around me.
pursuit of happiness: this is the main one that i struggle with - as a christian am i ever, anywhere in scripture, told that i have a right to pursue personal happiness? i have not seen it. i have seen that happiness comes from pursuing God. this idea that we have a right to pursue happiness seems to me to be centrally selfish. it may not be, but that is how it seems to me.
i do not mean to offend, please pardon me if i do. rather, this is coming from one who was raised in the USA and taught from early childhood that these founding principles were the glorious pinnacle of governmental principles based on christian ideals. now, however, i wonder if they really are, or if they just seem really nice...
i am not meaning to critique the USA or the intentions of the founding fathers, but rather to ask genuine questions from my own searching as i seek to discover what being a christian is really all about, and whether what i was taught as a child is really all it is often thought to be...
what are your thoughts? please, no angry venom here...i want honest discussion of the core issues i addressed. i welcome your opinions.
7.05.2005
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
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Ok, so you put into words what I wished I had put into words. Sometimes I just don't know how to line all my thoughts out in an intelligible fashion.
Just in the past weeks I have come to have a great interest in North America and the moral state we are in. I have this niggling inside that we as Christians have bought into these founding principles and slowly have lost a part of True Christian principles. I mean the worldly principles sound soooo good and even make sense, but something doesn't sit right in the "truth" department for me.
Hey Brandon,
I do not believe what you have said here contradicts what I wrote. It is a matter of semantics: I think I mis-spoke when I said that peace, order, and good government, and life, liberty were founding and pursuit of happiness were founding PRINCIPLES. Rather, they are IDEALS to be STRIVED for. They are not something we should EXPECT to be guaranteed for us in life. They are what we should promote. Principles imply that they are already in place, and that they rights. Ideals are not already established, they are something that we are trying to establish.
I think that what you wrote is good: Christians SHOULD expect to suffer. I think I believe (with some exceptions) that the individual Christian should not fight for his or her OWN justice in personal situations--nay the indivual Christian should suffer through it. But I do think that we as Christians should not stand idly by when we see someone else being walked all over; I believe we should fight when OTHERS' are violated. So, I don't think that the Christian Standard and our countries standards contradict when you look at it like this: Don't fight for your own rights, fight for others to have rights. And if we all have enough decency to stand up and say something on behalf of another who is mistreated, then we are doing something that Jesus would have done. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness should not be looked at through the selfish eyes of "MY" but rather, "YOUR" life, your liberty, and your pursuit of happiness.
On happiness, I think that being "in" Christ is the only true happiness, but I still do not think that one person should be able to get away with intentionally "squelching" another person's attempt at finding some sort of comfort. There are systems of law exactly for the promotion of these ideals....the law does not always protect us--but by obeying the law we are helping others learn what it is to be civil, and somewhat kind to others (which is Christian, too). Just my two cents for now....
p.s. that is why it is especially harmful when law-makers become selfishly corrupt--because then we no longer have laws that promote these ideals....but the everyday joe may not notice that until it were too late....
I think that the purposes of the founding ideals had a dual purpose. There was in it a thought for the things of God, but also something for the people of the world. If you look at if from a christian worldview, the founding ideals are not based in christianity. but, looking at it from a worldly view, the ideals are words that give the world a greater peace of justice. Worldly people cannot live under a Christian worldview (i.e. the first humans could not stay in the garden with worldly thoughts) but at the same time, only Godly ideas can spark true peace. We are called as Christians to uphold and fight for these ideals for the world, but we are called by God to change the world one person at a time turning from death to life. If we live by the founding ideals, we are not living by God's standards, but if the world lives by the ideas, they will begin to see God's standards, especially if we do some speaking out as Christians. In some ways, the founding ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness protects the world from good-hearted but over-zealous Christians trying to change the worldly by making Christianity political. I believe the constitutional ideals are right for the world we live in right now. However, if we change that world to one that welcomes God into their hearts, we might have to do something with those ideals. And by change the world, I mean that Acts 1:8 calling, not what Christians are trying to do politically.
this girl--right on.
I agree with what the writers of the Declaration wrote.
They believed they were created by God and that BECAUSE HE (and not dictators, kings, etc) was truly sovereign, no human should be able to take another man's LIFE, LIBERTY, or negate another man's pursuit of HAPPINESS.
God is all about justice in both testaments and that's what the founding fathers of the US were seeking.
I agree with what you wrote partially, but I think it's quite possible (and historically likely) that the founding fathers wrote what they wrote and lived what you described at the same time.
After all, many of them lost their lives, never saw the freedom they fought for, and died miserable deaths. It wasn't personal rights/freedoms/happiness they were seeking, but future generations they were fighting for.
They were social activists. I don't see their actions as incredibly different from your recent blogs about getting involved with injustices in Africa. Why get involved with issues of life/death, freedom, justice if people aren't entitled to such things?
The document simply recognizes God as sovereign and just in contrast to the worldly powers that be.
In short, I'd completely agree with your post if they had written the declaration in defiance of God. But alas, they were writing it in defiance of a mere earthly king.
you all make excellent points. thank you.
i am beginning to see, jo, what you meant about indivdualistic not necessarily being selfish. however, i think that issue is part of my struggle with these ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - they seem to lead enexorably to a self-centered perspective on life. if i should fight for others life, liberty, and happiness, then others should fight for mine and i am entitled to it as much as the next person...so why shouldn't i fight for my own as well? when they are stated as rights i should defend for others, they become my rights as well, and this i struggle to reconcile with my christian faith.
i see them as good ideals, but i struggle to see them as rights - for myself or others - that deserve fighting to preserve. ...and that is how they are stated...the God given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. the ideals are good. the demanding of rights in the name of a God who does not (as far as i can tell) guarantee these rights i struggle to see as good.
Ok. I have thought about what is being said here, I still disagree. I don't agree that individualism leads "inexorably to selfishness" and I also disagree that the U.S. Declaration and Bill of Rights are anti-Christian in values. I wouldn't say they are positively CHRISTIAN either. Do they really have to be either? Do we have to determine that they are one or the other? I just don't think that there are only two sides to this issue. The ideals we have spoken of here are political goals. Some will match up with the Christian calling, some will not....but ultimately if we live for Christ first, we will not let our country's founding ideals be our first standard for governing our lives, because every thought and decision of action will be evaluated first in light of Christ, and second by the law.
On a related note:
"One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all" doesn't get me all riled up for the reasons that have been discussed in your post here. What gets me riled up is that there is not REALLY a very unified nation, we really cannot expect to be "under" God's protective hand because we are unholy,disobedient and vulgar, and often even our own systems of law and justice cannot provide justice for the innocent and punishment for the wicked. That is why we, as Christians must work hard help usher in God's Kingdom ideals here in our own incomplete and degenerating-seem-to-be-morally-regressing societies. And we do that by lifting up one another, and doing right--things that are only done when one is living in step with the Spirit.
P.S. thanks for providing a place to discuss and for making us think.
p.p.s. sorry, I'm back again. You said, "if I should fight for the rights of others, why shouldn't I then fight for the right of myself?" This got me thinking... it seems logical. But the christian can know this, and CHOOSE not to fight for the self.
And I just found something that made me think about our roles as Christians in this society: "'God invites [us] to participate with him in shaping the world.' In doing this we become co-creators or subcreators [of the world] as we make discoveries and inventions 'following clues left by God.' This includes not only creating new things but the art and craft of sustaining the world and providing for others, thereby embracing both God's providence as well as God's ongoing creation." ---L. Wilkinson, 'Art as Cration or Art as Work', in Donald M. Lewis' "With heart, Mind and Strength: the Best of Crux 1979-1989." Langley, BC. p. 298
anyway, not preaching here, but this stuff is stuck in my head now that you blogged about it.
If you want to put a pict in your profile, the way I figured out how to do it was to send the picture as a regular post through hello. Then go to your iblogger and copy and paste the URL of the picture from the format to the your profile page. Then you can erase your post. worked for me.
Happy Anniversary early 4 days!
Lv you.
thank you for your good thoughts jo. i appreciate your help as i think through these things...
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