OPINION:
I extend my thanks and appreciation to Everett Piper for his outstanding and edifying recent commentary in the Washington Times (“A Facebook saga about Christian nationalism and the ‘appeal to authority,’” Web, Nov. 19). In it he offers evidence that beginning with our very founding, our leaders have typically believed that our freedoms depended on a mutual, self-evident understanding and belief that God is our creator and the source of all our individual rights and freedoms.
As believers in God, people have then strived for moral goodness, or what is commonly called virtue. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Witherspoon, put it this way: “Freedom is the luxury enjoyed by men of virtue.”
Fast forward to today. Although polls suggest most of us still believe in God, it seems we as a culture no longer share an understanding of God as creator and source of freedom and virtue. Now, rather than God being the guardian of our freedoms, our government has become the dispenser, and evolution has cast serious doubt on the existence of God. You certainly cannot teach in public schools that we were created by God. Virtue is no longer a trait of moral goodness; it is now whatever anyone choses to make it.
In view of the above, I recall a thought of Samuel Adams, another Declaration of Independence signer: “While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader … “
DANIEL P. MCKIM
Springfield, Virginia
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