The Declaration of Independence is a document at the very core of our American system of government. Signed on July 4, 1776, the Declaration set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the Revolutionary War, the independence of the United States, and the establishment of an unbelievably effective system of government. There are several aspects of the Declaration of Independence that are decidedly Christian, and we will examine each of them briefly.
People Were Created by God
The Declaration of Independence includes this famous quotation:
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.
Unpacking this statement, it is clear that the Founding Fathers believed that humans have a Creator. They acknowledged that human life came from God. Further, the Declaration asserts that God Himself created humans and gave them certain rights. Since rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were given to mankind by God, they cannot be taken away by the State.
This statement from the Declaration of Independence is not a neutral statement. It is a statement that honors God the Creator and recognizes that human governments cannot and should not overthrow divine principles.
All Men Are Created Equal
The Declaration, of course, asserts that all people are created equal. Even though they did not fully live out this idea in regards to slavery at the time, the Christian idea about the equality of humans would eventually be adopted more and more in the American system of government, culminating in a time when slavery would be abolished.
When America first articulated this Christian ideal in the Declaration of Independence, there were still thousands of men and women on our soil who were not yet being treated as equals because they were slaves. Although it took more than two hundred years, a bloody Civil War, and an ongoing civil rights movement to achieve it, this doctrine of equality, which has always been enshrined as an ideal in the Declaration, slowly became a reality for everyone.
In 1890, historian Richard Frothingham wrote,
[A] low view of man was exerting its full influence when Rome was at the height of its power and glory. Christianity then appeared with its central doctrine, that man was created in the Divine image, and destined for immortality; pronouncing that, in the eye of God, all men are equal. This asserted for the individual an independent value. It occasioned the great inference, that man is superior to the State, which ought to be fashioned for his use. This was the advent of a new spirit and a new power in the world.
Ultimately, the eradication of slavery in the United States is rooted in the Christian ideal of the equality of mankind.
The Declaration’s Very Words Have Christian Sources
Not only the concepts but the very words of the Declaration of Independence are rooted in Christianity. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he did so with a great deal of input from those who had gone before him. He did a masterful job of setting forth our nation’s reasons for coming into being, but his thoughts were not original. As political science professor, Donald S. Lutz, observed, “[T]here was nothing new in the phrasing and ideas of the Declaration.”
Jefferson drew many of his ideas from John Locke and William Blackstone, both Biblical Christians. He also reflected the work of a group of twenty-seven Scotch-Irish church elders in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, who drafted their own Declaration in May 1775, under the direction of Elder Ephraim Brevard, a graduate of Princeton. A comparison of the Declaration of Independence with the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence reveals many similar phrases.
In declaring the endowment of these unalienable rights, Jefferson was also influenced by George Mason’s “Virginia Declaration of Rights” which said:
That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Much of the wording of the Declaration itself is rooted in the work of Christian ideas as expressed by Godly people of Jefferson’s generation.
Self-Evident Truths
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that certain truths were self-evident, he was referring to truth that is known intuitively as a direct revelation from God without the need for proof, discussion or debate. For example, there is no need to prove that man is created in the image of God. It is assumed. Black is not white, round is not square, and men are not angels. These are all facts of nature that, as human beings, we are able to reason and understand without further proof.
It cannot be refuted that Christianity had a great impact on the Declaration of Independence. At the Christian Law Association, it is our honor to defend the Constitution of the United States when enemies of the Gospel attempt to use the law to thwart Christian ministries. We ask for your prayer as we continuously labor on behalf of God’s people.