Remembering What Freedom Means
This year marks the 250th year of the United States’ founding, a monumental achievement when we look back at the timeline of history. For most of human history the concepts of organized democracy, freedom, self-determination, citizenship, and freedom of and from religion, were at best pipe-dreams, at worst, not even a concept. The idea of a secular government that was founded on the idea of citizenship, equality before the law, reason, and secularism was still just that - an idea. This idea was flawed in its implementation and corrupted by its original crime of slavery, colonialism, self-dealing, and dehumanization - something the country still has not come to terms with - but the idea was still there.
Kings, republics, empires; all other entities said this idea was folly and couldn’t survive without divine right or a monarch to take control. They figured in their life times they would be able to sweep to the Americas and pick up the pieces of a failed colonial project and reintegrate them into this or that empire. They figured the concept of democracy was a flash in the pan, and the old world would continue on as it had.
Yet, here we are, able to celebrate the 250th year of the worlds first explicitly secular representative democracy.
And that - secularism- is what makes the United States special. Other places had citizenship. Other places had democracy. Other places had parliaments and citizen-leaders. None of them had a government that derived its power from the people and not from a god or a king or a special place in the cosmos.
This is what is truly worth celebrating - that a constitutional republic has lasted this long without explictly religious doctine guiding citizens’ lives. This is also what is truly worth protecting, too, as we have seen the United States’ 250th celebration marred by theocratic minded leaders and an abandonment of the Enlightenment. To the extent that the United States has failed to live up to the promise of equality under the law, equal citizenship, and reason based law and culture, it has been because it has allowed religion into the halls of power.
This is not to say that all religious ideas are inherently a problem, but it is to say that when we see the US tripping up on its marathon to greatness, we often find the cross, the bible, and a whole lot of religoius thinking. We find fear of the unknown, fear of the other, fear of the United States moving on from the theocratic chains of the 1700s and reverting back to a time and government that the US was founded specifically to avoid. The Founders truly feared this and would be aghast at the prevalence of religion in public life.
There were many things the Founders got wrong when it comes to governance, but this is the one area where can find true foresight and genius: keeping religion out of the government. They weren’t against the idea of faith or of a deity, they were against what those that used that faith as a way to govern others. They knew what a theocracy looked like first hand. They knew what happened when a would-be king ruled over the people. At every turn, when asked or pressed on this point they would proudly proclaim their faith - or lack there of - and then affirm that the “United States is not a Christian nation”. Not because they disliked Christianity, but because they knew that if the power were derived from the Bible, then the power was taken away from the people.
In short, they knew a government based on faith was one that could not respect everyones rights as equal citizens under the law.
As we reflect on 250 years of the United States, we should consider why we’ve been able to sustain ourselves for so long. Why we’ve been able to be that flawed, yet aspirational republic. Why we’ve been able to lay claim to the freedom and democracy: Because we’re a SECULAR republic.
That is what makes us unique, and what makes writing things like this possible. If we’re to celebrate a 500th anniversary, it’ll be because the United States remembers its roots and turns to reason and rationality, and abandons the faith of yesteryear that has been and continues to be so destructive in our culture. We are better when we embrace our humanity and turn away from the superstitions that divide us.
Here’s to another 250. Happy 4th everyone!
