St. Anne’s Episcopal, Conway
July 6, 2025
Video begins at 25:20.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good Morning –
My favorite Broadway musical, and I think everyone at St. Anne’s should have a favorite musical, is “1776.” I love the play because Amy and I both graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, and the main character in 1776, Thomas Jefferson, is also an alumnus of the College, which the play points out at the very end. The play is about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the petty politics that were necessary to have the Declaration unanimously approved by the Continental Congress. And on this July Fourth weekend, we would do well to remember its words, because over the last two months and the last two years, we have begun moving away from its fundamental and foundational principles.
Thomas Jefferson, of course, was the drafter of the Declaration of Independence. The purpose of the document was for the Continental Congress to establish a legal and moral justification for rebelling against God’s anointed, George III, and the legal authorities of the British Parliament and the British colonial governments. Therefore, Jefferson begins our Declaration with a bold statement about who we are as human beings and the purpose for which governments exist.
Jefferson writes:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
And on Jefferson goes, and eventually he will begin listing specific transgressions and violations of these principles committed by George III and the British authorities.
In this Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson writes not provincially or parochially, but universally. He does not speak solely on behalf of landed, white men of British common-law descent but on behalf of all human beings everywhere. Jefferson was well aware of his hypocrisy and once wrote that he feared a just God, because a just God would not allow Virginia to go unpunished for the sin of chattel slavery. Jefferson knew that although he fell short of his own principles, they nonetheless applied to everyone, everywhere.
Jefferson is not just writing a political document but one that speaks to a deeper spiritual truth, and it is this truth we should be proclaiming. In America and around the world today, we should not be fighting for “our side” (whatever side that may be) to win elections or political arguments. Instead, we should be fighting for the fundamental principles that define what it means to be human, and in fighting for these principles the “right side” will prevail, even if it’s not our side.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by THEIR Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
In this day and age and at this time, we would all do well to remember these words of Thomas Jefferson and to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.
Jefferson begins with the observation that basic human rights are “self-evident.” We can endlessly debate policy: What should the tax rate be? What is the proper role of the judiciary? What are the contours of foreign policy? Policy is open to debate. However, basic human rights are beyond debate and beyond question. The existence of human rights and their primacy are self-evident. They need not be proven, and they must form the foundation of any policy discussions.
Jefferson writes that all people have these foundational inalienable rights, starting with equality under the law. All means all. “All” means everyone, everywhere. All means all, regardless of social class, economic status, or whether you are privileged or an outsider. All means all, regardless of sex or sexual orientation. All means all, regardless of race, nationality, citizenship, or immigration status. Or to quote the Apostle Paul – there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but God is all in all. (Gal. 3:28, 1 Cor. 15:28)
It is self-evident, therefore, that no one is illegal and no one is deplorable. Every person is created equal because every single human being is created in the image and likeness of God. Every one of us is a bearer of the Imago Dei, or Divine Image. Every person has an innate human dignity that cannot be taken away, only oppressed. Peter, John, and Paul all affirm that Christ died for all men, and therefore, all men have the same dignity before God and before others. ( e.g., 2 Pet. 3:9, 1 John 2:2, Rom. 5:18)
Jefferson affirms that our Creator has granted each of us the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Once again, these rights originate from God and not from any human institution. What God has given to each person cannot be taken away by anyone.
Life and Liberty are the most basic rights, but it is in the pursuit of happiness where our humanity fully flourishes. Ten years ago, in the case of Obergfell v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy wrote that the orderly pursuit of happiness includes our divinely endowed liberties to those certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define each of our personal identities and beliefs.
By recognizing the pursuit of happiness as inalienable, Jefferson acknowledges that each person may pursue happiness on their own terms, and not on anyone else’s. Each of us possesses the right to become fully human as we each see fit.
Whenever the cause of human rights is at stake, Jefferson’s words resound. In his 1852 speech entitled, “What is a Slave on the Fourth of July,” Fredrick Douglass asks this simple question:
Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us also?
This same question was asked by the suffragettes at the turn of the last century, and in the words of the gay rights movement at the turn of this century. That question has been asked by German-Americans in 1916, Japanese-Americans in 1941, Muslim-Americans in 2001, Jewish-Americans last year, and undocumented immigrants seeking to make America their home today. Whenever anyone asks the question, “Are not these great principles extended to us also?” we should join in that chorus. Whether that denial of a person’s full realization of their inalienable rights arises from government overreach, from obstructionist standing in the school house door or the campus quad, or whether it is a virtual mob on social media that seeks to punish those who are insufficiently compliant with the mob’s demands, we should stand firm in the principals embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
In standing firm, however, we too often get sidetracked by trying to prove our policy opinions right and those of our opponents wrong. Whether the top marginal tax rate is 37% or 39.6% we can mistakenly make into a matter of existential justice and a violation of human rights. In these distractions, our society, and to some extent, each of us, begins to lose the ability to see the image of God in others. We start to lose our capacity to recognize and respect the inalienable rights that everyone in our society possesses.
To stand firm in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, we must avoid demonizing others to elevate ourselves. Rather, in humility, we must openly uphold the divine, universal principles that Thomas Jefferson expressed 249 years ago. We must demonstrate in our actions and words that all people — regardless of how they look, think, or vote — are created equal and bear the image and likeness of God. We must declare and demonstrate that every person, without exception, is endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we must declare that all individuals deserve respect for their personal choices, which are central to their unique dignity and autonomy, even when we ourselves would have choosen differently.
As Abraham Lincoln said in his debates with Stephen Douglas, the Declaration is:
meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.
We are heirs to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We are heirs to those who have fought to bring these inalienable rights to fruition for all. Today, we stand on the shoulders of giants – those whose names are written in our calendars and those whose names we will never know. And today is our time to uphold these principles. Today is our time to keep these principles at the forefront of the policy debates that we are now having. Today is our time to nourish and to water the tree of liberty for all.
Amen.
Other Sources:
John McWhorter, Wokeness Will Always Be with Us, NYT Newsletter, July 3, 2025
++Sean Rowe, The Episcopal Church as an Engine of Resistance, RNS, July 23, 2025
++Jose H. Gomez, Why We Need a New Conversation on Immigration, Angulus, June 27, 2025
Baptismal Covenant of The Episcopal Church