The Declaration of Independence

DAVE MILLER, Ph.D.

AMERICA'S CULTURE WARFOUNDING FATHERSGOVERNMENT AND GODGOVERNMENT AND GOD

The Declaration of Independence is the premiere document that launched America as a new nation. Here is a quintessentially political document—a public expression of national concerns intended to articulate justification for declaring a separation from England in order to form a new nation. If the Founders intended to keep God out of national life, here was the perfect opportunity to manifest that intention. However, in this relatively brief document, they used the following phrases:

• “Nature’s God” = an 18th-century way to refer to the God Who created nature
• “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator” = the same Creator as the One noted in Genesis 1-2 as opposed to some alleged evolutionary ancestor
• “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world” = the God who rules and judges nations (Daniel 4:17)
• “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” = 18th-century language for the God of the Bible

Astounding! The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, in risking their very lives, put their signatures to a political (not religious) document that acknowledged and appealed to the God of the Bible four times! Here is the true nature and focus of the formation of the great Republic whose independence and very existence depend upon the God Who enabled her origin and blessed her beyond all other nations in human history.

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