The scriptures referred to are Romans 6:12-23.
In a tense scene of the movie musical 1776, the representatives from the South will not sign the Declaration of Independence unless the clause denouncing slavery is removed. In the chilling song “Molasses to Rum to Slaves,” Edward Rutledge of South Carolina points out the hypocrisy of the northern states which build and sail the ships that bring slaves from Africa to America. Finally, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration, crosses out the antislavery clause so that the states will be united in separating themselves from Great Britain. Sherman Edwards, the former history teacher turned songwriter who conceived the musical, decided against including a line of dialogue where John Adams tells Benjamin Franklin that if they give in on the issue of slavery, there will be trouble in 100 years. He felt that the audience would think the line was made up. But in fact Adams did write that line in a letter to Franklin. He foresaw the Civil War and was just a few years off in predicting when it would happen.
Their problem was that the Declaration of Independence says that the whole reason for its existence was that, as it says, “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.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men...” In other words, we are separating from the United Kingdom of Great Britain because we don't believe that certain men are inherently superior to other men and therefore should rule over them without the consent of the people they are governing. So the United States was going to be a democracy. It was a radical idea: to found a nation, not on shared blood or ethnicity or culture like all other countries, but on a principle—rule by the people themselves who have equality before the law with respect to certain basic rights. And these rights were given by God.
But at the time when the founders of our nation wrote this, they really didn't mean that all human beings are created equal. Although those in the North might oppose slavery, that didn't mean they thought blacks were equal to whites. Nor did most of them think women were equal to men. They didn't even think all white men should have the vote, but only white men who owned property or paid taxes. Yet once the idea of equality was established as the basis for our democracy, those restrictions increasingly came into question.
Since the Constitution gave the states the power to set voting requirements, a few states gave free black men the right to vote. In New Jersey unmarried and widowed women who owned property could vote. Georgia removed the requirement that men had to own property. In 1790, a year after the Constitution came into effect, free white men born outside the US but who settled here were allowed to become citizens. In 1791, the new state of Vermont gave the vote to all men regardless of color or whether they owned property or not. The next year Kentucky did the same, though in short order that right was taken away from blacks.
Year by year, we see the restrictions on who could vote removed. In the 1828 presidential election, non-property-owning white men could legally vote in the vast majority of states. And in that same year, Maryland became the last state to drop its religious restrictions and let Jews vote.
There was pushback. In 1807 New Jersey took the right to vote away from free black men and women. In 1837 Pennsylvania took voting rights away from free black men. But in 1848 Mexicans living in US territories were declared citizens.
Things changed after the Civil War, of course. In 1868 all male persons born or naturalized in the US were guaranteed citizenship in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. And in the 15th Amendment in 1870 states were prevented from denying the right to vote on the basis of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
For women, getting the right to vote took longer. In 1869, Wyoming gave equal rights to women. In 1883, women in the Washington Territory got the right to vote, only to lose it in 1887, as did women in Utah. It wasn't until 1920 that the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. But not all women. Most black women were effectively blocked from exercising their right until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Native Americans were finally granted citizenship in 1924. In 1943 Chinese immigrants were finally allowed to gain citizenship and the right to vote. In 1952, all Asian Americans were given the vote.
Why did I just throw all these dates at you? To show that just because something is on paper and everyone agrees to it, it doesn't mean it automatically becomes a reality. And to show that ideas can grow. From the beginning there were Americans who took the declaration that “all men are created equal” seriously but not literally. They understood the word “men” to mean human beings in general and not just rich white males. In the same way, when Jesus told the disciples he would make them “fishers of men” he didn't mean that the gospel wasn't meant for women and children as well. (Matthew 4:19) When in the gospel of John we read about Christ that “In him was life, and the life was the light of men,” (John 1:4) or when Jesus said “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me,” (John 12:32) he was not excluding anyone. On the other hand, if equality was restricted only to white male property-owners, the Declaration should have been specific. I think the drafters of the Declaration didn't word it that way because deep-down they realized that did not sound noble nor was it a good reason to start a new country. Inequality was already the ruling principle everywhere else in the world.
But why am I talking about this in a sermon? Because, while people are debating today whether Christian principles underlie the founding of this country or not, this is one idea that I think did come from the Bible. People may object and say, no, this idea came from the Enlightenment, when people put reason above religion as the basis of all things. Yet it is the Enlightenment that gave us so-called “scientific racism,” the rationalization that the differences in humans made it okay to enslave non-white persons because they were so evidently inferior to whites. Taxonomists, naturalists and philosophers in the 1700s and 1800s treated different human races as if they were different species. The Enlightenment was anything but enlightened when it came to this subject.
However, the Bible starts out by saying that God created human beings, both male and female, in his image. (Genesis 1:27) Inequality is the result of the fall of human beings into sin. (Genesis 3:16-17) But in Christ all things are to be restored. (Acts 3:19-21) Which is why Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
I cannot think of any other basis you can use to assert that all human beings should be treated as equals. Not only did the Enlightenment thinkers not come to that conclusion, you cannot justify it with science. Lots of non-human species have dominance hierarchies that establish who has priority when it comes to food, mates and resting spots. Chickens have a literal pecking order, as do wolves. In mandrills, there is one single undisputed individual monkey who rules the group as a despot. In elephants and hyenas, females have leadership and dominance. You may remember the chilling episode of the documentary series Meerkat Manor, in which the matriarch, the only one allowed to breed, discovered a daughter of hers had mated with a male from another group and so she killed all the babies, her grandchildren. Our closest biological relatives, the chimpanzees, have a highly-structured dominance hierarchy. So on what scientific basis could you argue that all human beings have a right to be treated as equals?
Ah, you may say, but doesn't the Bible justify slavery? As we saw in last week's sermon, the Bible may acknowledge slavery exists but it does not endorse it. There are a number of verses that do things like tell slaves to take advantage of opportunities to gain their freedom (1 Corinthians 7:21) and that warn masters to treat their slaves fairly because we all have a master in heaven who does not show favoritism. (Ephesians 6:9) Plus there is a whole book in which Paul is trying to get a church leader to free a runaway slave. (Philemon) And you can hardly ignore the central story of the Hebrew Bible, namely, God freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Indeed, so pervasive is the theme of freedom in the Bible that slave-owners would only allow their slaves to hear a specially edited version of it. They removed more than 90% of the Old Testament and more than 50% of the New Testament. That's a strange thing to do if the book were truly pro-slavery, but it makes total sense if you don't want people to think of God as a liberator.
Speaking of special versions of the Bible, one of the reasons for the creation of the King James Bible was to counter the Geneva Bible which had footnotes that often referred to monarchs as tyrants. Ben Franklin was inspired by the frontispiece of the Geneva Bible to create a proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States. His seal said, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
And when the people of Israel ask Samuel for a king, which was a rejection of God as their king, God permits this but tells Samuel to spell out what giving one human being such power will lead to. (1 Samuel 8:10-18) He says a king will take your best fields and vineyards; he will enrich his friends; he will demand a portion of what you produce. In Deuteronomy, God anticipates Israel having a king and says that the king may not accumulate horses for himself, which represent military power, nor marry many wives, nor accumulate a lot of silver and gold. He must make himself a copy of God's law and read it continuously and obey it. “Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left...” (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) So even the king is not above the law nor is he superior to his fellow citizens.
I agree with historians that the founders of our nation did not explicitly make this nation Christian. They saw the corruption that happened when the church was an arm of the government and simply blessed whatever those in power did and said. James Madison put the separation of church and state in the very first Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” In other words, the government is not to force religion on anyone or prevent people from practicing their religions. Freedom of conscience is vital to a democracy.
But I do think the founders just assumed that basic Christian morality would help keep the Constitution operating. As we have seen, a lot of the Constitution is based on certain unenforceable norms being observed. Like the Bible, the Constitution lays out how people should act but it can't make people actually obey it. In our passage from Romans Paul is showing how the mere existence of God's law can't stop sin. “For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” And we see Christians who say they honor the Bible while violating its principles, the way we see Americans who say they honor the Constitution while ignoring what it says.
What did the founders mean when they said all men are created equal? They couldn't have meant we are all equal in our talents and abilities. We aren't. What they meant is that we should all be equal in the eyes of the law, based on certain inherent rights. And they said those rights are given by our Creator. Which assumes that we are all of equal value in God's eyes, despite any differences. However, they didn't follow those “self-evident” truths to their logical conclusion. But subsequent generations did. They expanded on the narrow definition of equality the founding fathers had. They saw that, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The minute someone says, “The rules don't apply to you,” that exception can be used to exclude anyone. And tyrants will always expand that exception.
The truths that our faith is built on are that God created everyone in his image and that Jesus died for everyone, whether they know it or not. So everyone you meet is either a brother or sister in Christ, or a potential brother or sister in Christ. Which is why we are to love everyone, without exception, and to treat everyone fairly. Because as Peter said, God does not show favoritism with people. (Acts 10:34) And neither should we.
