In just five short days our country will celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. Wait… that’s not right! It’s actually July 2nd! The General Congress voted to declare independence from Great Britain actually on the 2nd. Two days later the declaration was officially signed on the 4th. I didn’t know that…I must have been absent that day in history class.

Another thing I had wrong is the main reason the thirteen colonies declared independence was for religious freedom. That might have been on their minds, but it didn’t even make the list in the Declaration. It was largely political in nature. In fact, though many of the founding fathers were religious, they didn’t necessarily practice organized religion. Among the founding fathers were Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and even a Lutheran! However, there is no documentation that they intended the United States to be a Christian nation… just a free one.

The introduction: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind require that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

The preamble: "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."

So, as we celebrate this great milestone each year, whether on the 2nd or the 4th, we can be grateful to our forefathers and foremothers who had the courage to stand up to tyranny. And for those of us who are Christians… the freedom to worship who and how we choose.

Happy Independence Day!

See you Sunday!