Growing up, the 4th of July was always a fun time.  We celebrated our National Day of Independence with fireworks, parades, barbecues, and family picnics.  As American humorist Erma Bombeck once said, “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”  

With apologies to Ms. Bombeck, one can understand, how, over time, barbecues, fireworks, and overeating came to overshadow the significance of this national holiday.

However, in today’s heated social and political milieu, one could ask — is our National Day of Independence still something to celebrate? A recent Wall Street Journal survey suggests that patriotism is on the wane.  In 1998, 70 percent of Americans considered patriotism “very important.”  Today, that number has dwindled down to 38 percent.

Critics of the American experiment point to its flaws and shortcomings.  Debates and protests point to our national sins as proof that America’s founding principles rest on a cracked foundation. Contested visions of sex, gender, and race are but a few current examples of the “America is BAD” ideologies.

To be fair, one doesn’t have to look too deeply to uncover episodes in U.S. history that should shame us all.  While our Constitution speaks of the rights to life, liberty, and property, we have, at different times, stolen property from Native Americans, robbed the liberty of those enslaved, and killed the lives of the unborn.

Depending on one’s political perspective, we can all find examples that fail to measure up to America’s founding ideals.

And yet, can anyone point to a country that has been a better guiding light?  Is it not our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the pursuit of limited self-government, and the rule of law that has allowed us to weather and ultimately address these national sins? Those who seek to destroy America have yet to offer up a better alternative.  Former President Ronald Reagan once said, “Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.”

Let us also never forget the cost of the freedom we enjoy, the men and women of our military who, with their blood, sweat, and courage fought, and continue to this day to fight for our nation’s freedom. We are the land of the free because we are also the home of the brave.

But before we wrap ourselves in the Stars and Stripes, sing God Bless America, and light up the sky with fireworks, let us remember what freedom is and is not.  For many Americans, freedom is the right to do whatever we want. However, such individualism, without moral constraints, leads to anarchy and, ultimately, tyranny.  Our 2nd President, John Adams, said, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  Chuck Colson expressed a similar sentiment when he said, “People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government… without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well.” 

Without virtue, a nation can never know true freedom.

One of my favorite quotes is, “He who is enslaved to the compass has the freedom of the seas!” Without a moral compass, we are doomed by a self-induced slavery to our passions and whims. True freedom is not individual autonomy, but properly understood, it is doing the right thing for the right reason as a matter of moral habit (also known as “virtue”).  While we celebrate July 4th as a day of independence from governmental tyranny, it is also a time to celebrate freedom from the tyranny of self, no longer slaves to our self-serving desires, but having the freedom to pursue the full potential that God has intended for us.

So, as we celebrate our 248th Day of Independence, let us humbly give thanks for the self-evident truths and God-given unalienable rights so eloquently expressed in our Declaration of Independence.  Let us be ever mindful of how we have fallen short of those ideals in the past and commit ourselves to being vigilant in the defense of these absolute truths going forward.

Knowing that the survival of the American experiment in ordered liberty depends on such a commitment, you hopefully will understand my plea for all Americans…

May the Fourth Be With You!

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

America the Beautiful, Lyrics by Katharine Lee Bates