Is Jesus the God of the Declaration?
America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is the perfect time to settle the ongoing debate about the identity and significance of the God referenced in the document four times.
This is important because one side is demonstrably wrong, deceiving Americans generally, and especially infecting America’s youth throughout all levels of education by teaching the lie of a “generic god” — who is, in fact, the secularist’s “ungod.”
Settling this debate is of paramount importance for historical, legal, and cultural reasons (educating the next generation), but also for reasons of common decency (gratitude).
The side that’s wrong can be exposed simply by examining the historical record — emphasis on “simply.”
That will finally clarify the source of the rights we enjoy and rely on so we can, among other things, be properly grateful to our Divine Benefactor on Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday enshrined in federal law.
That we are “one nation under [that] God” is so clear, so fundamental, and believers in the atheistic/agnostic/deistic generic “ungod” are so destructively wrong that it would be fair to label that side as “anti-American” because they are undermining the essence of “Americanism,” which is predicated on “that God.”
Significantly, “that God” is the reason our nation has been, and continues to be, so bountifully blessed.
Identifying the God of the Declaration
It’s no accident that God is referenced four times in America’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence.
In light of the intransigent belief that our government can only be secular (godless), is it even possible that those references are to the Christian understanding of God, manifested in Jesus Christ?
Or is it more likely that the official object of our national gratitude is, and constitutionally must be, a nebulous trans-deity who can be any god, all gods, the deist’s “ungod,” or even the atheist’s “no god” based upon the subjective perception of each American?
This discussion will conclusively answer these questions:
Who is the God of the Declaration of Independence, and why is that identification essential to understanding and preserving our unique “American Theory of Government”?
Is the Declaration disconnected from the Constitution, specifically concerning its “God references”? Or are America’s founding documents symbiotically connected in that regard?
In other words:
- Does the “American Theory of Government,” especially its “Chain of Delegated Authority,” necessarily include the God of the Declaration?
- Is the God of the Declaration a “generic ungod,” or explicitly Jesus Christ?
- Is the Constitution a purely secular (godless) document, or is it woven from Christian “fabric” and symbiotically connected to the Declaration, specifically regarding the Declaration’s four “God references”?
- Why has America been so bountifully blessed and protected far above every other nation in history: Because of chance, God’s grace, or the fulfillment of a specific promise — and what is that promise?
Do we risk destroying the “wall of separation between church and state” and creating a theocracy if we acknowledge that our rights are unalienable because they come from the God referenced in the Declaration, especially if it’s Jesus Christ?
It’s not possible to understand the true history, nature, blessings, and generational effects of our form of government without the answers to those questions.
One side of this debate believes:
- The Founders’ religious views were “unconventional”;
- The Founders were “mostly deists,” especially Jefferson, believing in an “ungod” who doesn’t care about his creation and who, consequently, doesn’t answer prayers or judge as does the providential God, the “Supreme Judge of the world,” found in the Declaration’s last paragraph;
- American government can only be secular (godless);
- God is prohibited because there’s an impenetrable “wall” defined in the Constitution separating church/religion and state;
- The rights in the Constitution aren’t premised on the Declaration, so if they are “unalienable,” it’s because of a political consensus, democratically expressed through government.
In support, the advocates of secular (godless) government:
- Point to the fact that God isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, apart from an irrelevant cultural reference (“In the Year of our Lord”);
- Will scream “Theocracy!” at any mention that the Christian understanding of God is in any way part of the “American Theory of Government”;
- Are increasingly intolerant, which manifests in the false accusation that those on the “other side” are, you guessed it, racist, white Christian nationalists — even if they’re black, like Larry Elder, who is labeled “a black face on white supremacy.”
While not the most fanatical, this article illustrates the secularist’s take: that the Declaration and Constitution are minimally connected, declaring, believe it or not, that the God of the Declaration is “generic.”
From the “any god but Jesus” mindset:
“But the revered text [the Declaration] affirmed a generic theism — belief in a creator god — without mentioning Jesus or Christianity.”
On the other side of this debate are those who believe, as history unequivocally proves, that America was founded neither as a theocracy nor as a secular state, but as a God-blessed happy medium: a nation preserving religious liberty, while publicly acknowledging divine authority in the American Theory of Government’s “Chain of Delegated Authority,” that:
- Jesus/God “endows” mankind, who delegates only “just powers” to our servants in government, who are only given the authority to “establish justice,” necessarily protecting our God-endowed, unalienable rights.
- This is also America’s “Liberty Equation,” that our rights are an unalienable gift from the Christian understanding of God, manifesting in Jesus Christ — protected by our Constitution.
These folks assert that our nation was founded on Christian principles and values by, you guessed it, Christians who just happened to be “white” (European/Caucasian), believed in America (nationalists), the nation they created to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
These folks point to the fact that our mostly Christian Founders dedicated this nation to their understanding of God — yes, Christian — by acknowledging Him not once, but four times in America’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence.
What could be more thumb-in-your-eye obvious?
Those references are “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” of all that exists, “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude [righteousness] of our intentions,” and “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”
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The third is an undisguised prayer to Jesus Christ using His well-known title, which is derived from Jesus’ own words: “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22).
Note that deists didn’t pray because their “ungod” doesn’t care enough to either judge or act providentially. Would an honest deist sign a document referencing the Christian God four times?
The Declaration’s prayer, explicitly to Jesus Christ, conclusively shows who the four “God references” refer to.
Our Founders “acknowledge[d] [Jesus] before men,” thus obligating Jesus to fulfill His promise to “acknowledge [America] before [his] Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
And that’s the reason America has been so bountifully blessed far above all nations.
But in that same passage, Jesus promises a curse: to withhold those blessings if the “anybody-but-Jesus” crowd becomes dominant in America and officially denies Him: “…whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:33).
In other words, yes, there is a prayer to Jesus in the Declaration of Independence!
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