Does The Declaration
Of Independence Measure Up
To The Word Of God?

As Americans, our hearts thrill to the stirring prose of the Declaration of Independence and the emotional excitement it kindles.

All the 4th of July magic -- watermelon at the park, the retort of firecrackers, family reunions and breathtaking fireworks -- are conjured up by a recital of the Declaration of Independence.

We take the electrifying words and lilting phrases so much for granted that we rarely even think about them, let alone question their veracity. Something that beautiful has simply got to be true. The words of the document resonate at the core of our being, shutting out any other reality.

And yet it is imperative that we as American Christians “bring every (system of) thought captive to Christ” for the sake of His Kingdom. Even that system of thought enshrined in our beloved Declaration of Independence. We dare not shrink from the question:

“Is the Declaration of Independence a Christian document?”

We must come to grips with this question. Why? Because this document above all others -- with the possible exception of the Constitution -- lies at the heart of our national identity. It was the Declaration of Independence after all that tore us from the iron grip of a tyrannical king and cast us on the bountiful shore of liberty.

To answer the question honestly every significant phrase and paragraph of the Declaration must be analyzed in light of the Word of God. If the identity we have assumed in the Declaration of Independence should be mistaken, we must be prepared to forsake it and “be transformed by the renewing of our mind”.

There is a revision of the Declaration of Independence on a subsequent page that we believe is more faithful to the biblical principles in question. This we have entitled the Declaration of Dependence on God.

The authority of the Declaration of Independence is grounded in the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. The “law of nature” or “natural law” is a Roman concept, revived by the 18th Century Enlightenment. It presumes that the autonomous mind of man is capable of discerning ultimate truth in nature. No divine Revelation is necessary, thank you. God Himself is represented as obeisant to Nature in the Declaration of Independence.

Would it not have been more appropriate for America to have laid her case before God rather than “a candid world”? America had been drifting from her Puritan and biblical roots for over a century from the time that the Massachusetts Bay colony had cross-referenced her governing documents to specific Bible passages.

The Great Awakening of the early 1700s did little to correct this spirit of “Yankee Individualism” and may, in fact, have reinforced it. Men were called to an individual experience of repentance before God in a manner that ironically undermined respect for the institutional church.

From that point the church’s influence began to be replaced by civil government. Americans would have been on firmer ground had they begun with a renewal of their national covenant with God and a commitment to govern according to the Bible, rather than natural law.

In the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence the departure from biblical truth is laid bare. The truth to which Jefferson appeals is that which may be held in common by the minds of all reasonable men to whom these greetings may come.

Jefferson declared on the authority of the Law of Nature that “all men are created equal”. But apart from the law of God this is not “self-evident”. In fact, Darwin looked at nature less than a century later and declared the exact opposite in his Theory of Evolution.

Nothing is “self-evident” apart from the light shed by Revelation. Men are equal only in the sense that they have equal responsibility and protection under the law of God. According to Ephesians 2:1-3 men are born “dead in trespasses and sins” and are “by nature children of wrath” with no unalienable rights whatsoever.

In fact, the word “rights” does not appear in the Bible, only responsibilities. The Bible demands faith in the redeeming work of Christ, followed by individual and corporate obedience to His law. This alone will result in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence encapsulates Jefferson's worldview and reveals his reliance on John Locke. The Declaration of Independence is biblical only in the sense that it is an appeal of the "lower magistrate", but without question it exposes its Lockean and Enlightenment roots when it derives the "just power" for government from "the consent of the governed" rather than from God.

John Locke, known by some as the “Father of the Enlightenment”, had stated in The Second Treatise of Government (p. 56) that “…that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world.”

The Bible, on the other hand, posits the foundational authority for civil government in God alone at Romans 13:1 “…For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” When government grows oppressive the initial response should be to seek the face of God in repentance, acknowledging the tyrant as His rod of discipline. At the corporate level this could issue in a formal agreement, such as we find in the Declaration of Dependence on God. It is the Bible, not prudence, which dictates our patient response to the abuses of government. In the words of John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (p. 1516-17) , “…if we are cruelly tormented by a savage prince…let us first be mindful of our own misdeeds, which without doubt are chastised by such whips of the Lord [cf. Dan. 9:7].

By this, humility will restrain our impatience. Let us then also call this thought to mind, that it is not for us to remedy such evils; that only this remains, to implore the Lord’s help, in whose hand are the hearts of kings, and the changing of kingdoms [Prov. 21:1].”