Declaration of Dependence

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Men of our young republic made this declaration some two hundred and thirty three years ago while living under the thumb of the English tyrannical monarchy. Men not much older than my thirty-four years with the strength and courage to recognize a stifling influence in everyday life and culture and to announce with humble authority their disapproval and intended separation from those powers that would seek to rule over them by pernicious force. Things have certainly changed much since then. I have been paying particular attention with the coming of our Independence Day this year and have seen that we are now country miles away from the intentions of our founding fathers.

Thomas Paine submitted to the public his 'Common Sense' as an apologetic to stir their thoughts of freedom and move them from their natural inclination toward indecision and sloth. He wrote, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil… Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise... Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others…Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security.” Our government was never meant to be so complex and far-reaching that its citizens could not understand its laws or determine its boundaries. Yet today we have an ever more complex tax system, a parade of new laws, regulations and governing bodies, and government intervention into private enterprise in all facets of life, and an attempted entry into nationwide health care.

I see much similarity between this departure from the true understanding of the original intent of our government and how we govern our own lives. Almost two thousand years ago the apostle Paul wrote of man, “What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” All humankind is described in the Bible as lost, blind, dead in their sins and therefore in need of a Savior. We are now, however, being told that we are inherently good. The problem is that some have made the extension that since we are basically good, then we are also perfectible and have tried to convince us all that we can better ourselves. C.S. Lewis said in his 'Abolition of Man' “This is one of the many instances where to carry a principle to what seems its logical conclusion produces absurdity…It is the magicians bargain: give up our soul, get power in return…It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his own judgments of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will…The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite…”. Similarly, but in much more pointed language, Malcolm Muggeridge challenged us to realize our current oppression when he stated, "Similarly, it has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in the process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and becomes extinct."

What Lewis and Muggeridge are trying to get us to see is that by assuming that we are good by nature, and operating within our own limits in an attempt to perfect ourselves, we are only succeeding in destroying ourselves. We have put our confidence in our own ability to solve our own problems, our thoughts and attitudes turned to our own comfort, welfare and provision; our single train of thought centered on having things our own way in an attempt to free ourselves from any and all boundaries. I’ve often thought of this struggle like a man in a slip knot, the more he struggles to free himself the tighter he is bound. We need to stop the struggle to free ourselves and look to the One who has provided the way to real liberty.

As we take time this July in remembrance of our previous Declaration of Independence from English tyranny, let us embrace a Declaration of Dependence on the Lord Jesus and thereby step out from under the oppression of our own selfish and prideful desire to have things our own way, and instead step into the light of the knowledge of the truth. We are created in the image of God but with a nature of sin and disobedience; the only way to freedom from this bondage of sin and death is through belief in Jesus Christ. The Lord Himself said in John's Gospel 14:6-7 “Jesus answered ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’, and in 8:35-36, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."