Dear friends:

I offer a question for the 4th of July:

What is needed to create and sustain a Free Society*, in which the rights of citizens are protected and each person has the opportunity to reach his or her individual potential?

[The following is adapted with great admiration and appreciation from Os Guinness and a speech entitled:“The Cost of Forgetting the Framers' Foundational Conviction" ]

If you ask modern Americans, the polls show that the vast majority will say freedom will survive through the bulwark of the Constitution.  But that was not the full answer for the Founders – yes, they trusted the Constitution but never in the Constitution alone.  They believed in what Os Guinness calls the Triangle of Freedom.
The first leg of the triangle is that Freedom Requires Virtue.  John Adams said, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  Freedom is not just “freedom from” it was “freedom for” and what defined that freedom was virtue.  So the highest freedom was “Obedience to the Unenforceable”.  The people knew what virtue was and they lived freely and virtuously.

The second leg of the triangle is that “Virtue requires Faith”.  You might add, if you look at all the Founders, that this meant the Christian Faith, but not necessarily.  By contrast, you do not see virtue rising up out of the Darwinian Ethic.  What is the wellspring of the qualities of virtue such as self control, honesty, courage , compassion – it is from Scripture.

The third leg of the triangle was actually the most radical.  “Faith requires Freedom”.  This goes to the principle of the separation of powers.  The one part of the Constitution that is absolutely unique is the First Amendment.  Freedom is given to the voluntary nature of faith.  So it is those who believe what they believe according to the dictates of their conscience were given freedom.

There is much more to this theme, but I offer this brief taste in honor of the 4th of July.

Al Strong

*I did some defining of a "Free Society" and invite any responses, additions, or discussion.  The ideas below are only a beginning.

• The autonomy of the individual and family
• The protection and securing of civil and political liberties
• The rule of law and the consent of the governed
• Freedom of speech, assembly, and religion
• The right to pursue economic activity of one’s own choosing and the right to own and keep the fruits of one’s labor and distribute or save according to the dictates of one’s own conscience.

Thomas Jefferson: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty…