We hold these truths to be self-evident...

My sermon for Independence Day 2011:

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"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."

Today we remember Americans of two centuries ago, some whose names are familiar – Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton – and others whose names are nearly lost in the mists of time. One of those names nearly forgotten, The Rev. Jacob Duche´, was the rector of the most important church in America – Christ Church, Philadelphia, the symbolic focal point of British monarchy and the Church of England in America in the 1700s. 

Anyone who was important in America passed through the doors of Christ Church. Members of his congregation included Benjamin Franklin. 

On the afternoon of Thursday July 4, 1776, Duche´ watched as the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain.

Then Duche´ walked across the square to his church. He convened a special meeting of his Vestry, his board of directors. With his Vestry’s concurrence, Duche´ opened his parish’s large Book of Common Prayer, and he began crossing out all references to the King of England. 

He replaced those references with the “United States of America.” 

In a very real sense, the American Episcopal Church was born in that moment with Duche’s act of defiance against the mother country and the mother church. 

Duche paid a heavy price – he was jailed by the British and eventually exiled. 

Crucially for all of us, an idea was born in that moment, though only a handful of people could quite then see it: Religious freedom. 

Duche’s pen struck a blow against not just against a colonial power, but against the idea that government could dictate to its people the religion they are to follow. 

Think about how radical that idea was: every government of Europe had a state church. Spain and France were Catholic, the Germans and Danes Lutheran, and the English were Anglican. 

But in America, there would be no official state church. 

The idea was nearly still-born. It took a terrible war for independence to make the idea of religious freedom a reality. Other generations would come after and be faced with new challenges and assaults upon this ideal. 

And so it is meet and right and our bounden duty that on this day, the Fourth of July, we celebrate Independence Day and we remember this precious gift of religious freedom that the founders of this nation gave to us. 

The founders of our nation were not necessarily more saintly or more Godly than us. On many things they fell woefully short. They could not, or would not, end slavery, leaving it to another generation and a terrible civil war that nearly ruined this nation. They were expansionist to a fault, blind to the indigenous people of this land. And many a huckster would come wrapping themselves in the flag. 

But on this day in 1776 our forbearers got one thing right – one thing very right – and it changed the world beyond these shores for all time ever after:

"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."

Over time, those words inspired millions from black Africans living in apartheid in South Africa to those who freed themselves from the shackles of segregation here in the South. Those words could not be repealed. 

We appropriately remember today the author of those words, Thomas Jefferson, here in this church within a few yards of the great university he founded. 

On this day in 1776, Jefferson got it exactly right: he understood that if a particular religion was imposed by a government as the “official religion” then that government could not possibly treat its people fairly. 

On a deeper level, Jefferson understood that religion coerced by the power of government was a false religion. And official government religion could never be truly a religion of the heart. 

If the Creator created all men – and women – equal, than all should have an equal chance of experiencing God their own way. They could only do that if government stayed out of religion. 

The United States would not and could not be a “Christian nation” but a nation that would allow people the freedom to discover their God, each in their own way – or be free of any religion at all. 

That is why it is wrong to impose prayer in public schools or use the vast power of the state to harass and discriminate against Muslims. 

If some are not free to practice their religion their way, then none of us are free.
Our independence as a free people was hard won, paid in blood, toil and tears. Our independence was not just from a colonial power, but from religious demagoguery that haunts many lands still today. 

As we celebrate today the Declaration of Independence, we should also remember the other great document Mr. Jefferson penned about which he was equally proud: the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom: 

"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness..." 

We live in a time when the value of religious freedom is under assault by those who would use the power of government to impose their religion on others.

The Talibans of this world are not just in Iran or Afghanistan, but here in our own country among pundits and politicians who would impose their own idea of Christianity on the rest of us. 

When we stand up for those who feel the breath of discrimination based on their religion, we stand with the founders of this nation and their highest ideals. We do well to celebrate our freedom as nation this Independence Day and we do well to never take for granted this precious gift: our religious freedom.

"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."