Not so long ago, a ‘journalist’ was shocked and dismayed to hear someone claiming American rights come from God, not government. As if it was some kind of a new idea.
You might think in the year celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration being penned, we might have a little more familiarity with the foundational documents on which America was later built. You don’t even have to read very far into the document itself to find the words ‘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.’
Created Equal…
By their Creator…
Unalienable rights….
It isn’t as if they were trying to be cryptic about it.
It was the understanding that they were not beggars approaching a sovereign asking for crumbs and liberties that were his to give, but that they approached the king as men made in the Image of Almighty God, possessed of the same dignities of any English Lord, by reason of Whose Image they are made, and living as free men, not serfs, with the expectation they should be dealt with as free men.
As Eric Metaxas described it, while promoting his newly-released book on the American Revolution…
Americans once believed their highest duty was to God and to one another.
Eric Metaxas says that conviction helped them stand up to the most powerful empire in the world.
“Because of this religious background, they had these convictions about to whom they answer.”
“It’s not… pic.twitter.com/qRtegVMj7X
— Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) June 1, 2026
Eric Metaxas says that conviction helped them stand up to the most powerful empire in the world.
“Because of this religious background, they had these convictions about to whom they answer.”
“It’s not the state, it’s not the government, it’s to God, and to each other.”
“They were not going to roll over just because the most powerful empire in the world had the power.”
“They thought, ‘No, we have God on our side.’”
“That was part of the DNA of most of these colonies.”
And then came the First Great Awakening.
