Faith and Freedom

 Next week we will celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence with its famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.” The Civil War with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was inspired by these words.

 In his book, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, (one of Bill Gates’ favorite books) Yuval Noah Harari argues that the Declaration of Independence would look starkly different if it were re-written to reflect secular science. According to Harari, if we stripped the foundations of the Christian faith from its wording, and replaced them with evolutionary science, it would read like this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among them are life and the pursuit of pleasure.”

 Without God, we cannot be “created.”  Neither can we be “endowed by our Creator,” since there is no Creator to endow us with self-worth. We are left with an accidental existence unrelated to value.  Human beings could have no more inherent worth than the spider or the ape.

 And regarding liberty, “There is no such thing in biology,” Herari contends, “liberty is something that people invented and exists only in their imagination. From a biological viewpoint, it is meaningless to say that humans in democratic societies are free.”  Since science has not been able to define happiness, we will have to settle with the “pursuit of pleasure.” 

 Unless we recapture the “faith of our fathers,” our future may look like the forbidding landscape of science fiction movies with human beings consigned to violence and anarchy.  Without faith, we could return to a “survival of the strongest.”  

 Where would we be without the statements of Jesus? “The very hairs of your head are numbered. Love one another as I have loved you.  In that you have done it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.”

 Hitler followed secular science to its logical conclusion and implemented a policy of eugenics that eliminated the weak and infirm as “life unworthy of life.” Over 400,000 were sterilized against their will. Millions were exterminated.  Marriage was strictly controlled to foster eugenic purity.

 Others, like Mother Theresa, Corrie Ten Boom, William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln followed a faith that compelled them to care for the poorest of the poor, to set the captive free, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

 Jesus identified  Himself as the Messiah saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” (Luke 4:18-19).

 Only faith can give us the framework for human dignity and worth. Only faith can safeguard our freedoms.