St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Gilroy CA
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The Rector's Corner
“We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident”
Now that’s a pretty heady–and powerful-- thing to say, especially these days! Imagine anyone saying anything that bold and sweeping today. Heck, their resolve for such a belief would barely last until the hew and cry of the outraged media forced them into silence. To say anything is a “truth,” much less “self evident” is to invite all sorts of indignant recrimination from those who don’t agree with you. It’s bound to offend someone.
Yet it was the firm belief of that small group of disciples that Jesus had risen and it was their personal experience that the Holy Spirit had come in power. They declared in the face of a society that resisted it. They faced and suffered martyrdom and persecution yet they changed the history of an empire and of the world. They believed beyond a doubt that God loves us and wants us to happy and free from all that holds us back from a powerful and daily relationship with the God who made us.
This was the firm belief also of the founders of this country, and they held that this universal, self-evident truth would be the guiding light of our life as a nation and it still is the underlying truth of the Constitution. It had been this same truth that prompted them to confront the King of England, demanding his acknowledgment and obedience to this truth. They risked their lives and fortunes in this bold challenge. Yet all of their obvious personal differences aside, they held, with one voice.... that There is a God Who has established a number of things that are beyond the reach of mankind, or its rulers, usurp or to change.
From these bold individuals we inherited a country and a way of life that demands mutual respect for our many personal differences, but upholds and protects a common good based, above all things, on God’s love and rule of life. They recognized the need for a foundation that could be built upon that would be firm, solid, and un-shifting. A foundation that would be there regardless of how the events and occasions of life themselves shifted. This is a heritage worth defending and a truth worth declaring..
What is interesting about the time in which we now live, is that as much as the world around us seems to cry out for a relativistic-pluralistic religious --and even moral-- base, the whole world looks to us, the people of the United States of America, for leadership. All because we are the guardians of a foundation handed us by men and women who dared declare that there is a God Who is truth, and Whose Truth is self-evident. A whole world longs for all the things we take for granted in the civil sphere, but also in the religious. Even when our own memories as a nation fail us, or when we lose our way, the world longs to worship the God of creation, Justice, and Freedom, and to know His blessings.
We have a valuable thing, here in America. It is worth hanging on to. It is worth defending. And the God who authored what we have is worthy of worship!
