Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-20-26

“American Exceptionalism” is one of those concepts that is viewed by many citizens with a perception somewhere between ignorance and disdain. I am referring to American citizens themselves, which makes my assessment especially damning.

Otherwise it should be something for which we should thank God and our civic ancestors for; yet so recent a celebrity as Barak Obbama displayed abysmal ignorance of it. American Exceptionalism does not mean that if you wake up as an American citizen with a pulse, you are superior – relatively “exceptional,” that is – compared to other humans across the globe. It does mean that American citizens have an exceptional patrimony; that our rights are better defined, more broadly asserted, and holding greater promise for advancement than are available to many other people of the world.

“Inalienable,” the Founding Fathers called those rights. The “Framers” of our Declaration and Constitution defined the set of rights that they were willing to assert, protect, and die for. Letters, proclamations, petitions – basically lists of complaints – had been sent by Colonial leaders and legislators to the king and parliament and were received with varying degrees of sympathy. However, the Mother Country ignored colonists’ more substantial grievances and answered those with half-hearted assent or annoyed dismissals. Some British officials, for instance Edmund Burke, were eloquent in defense of colonists’ complaints, but little changed.

Leaders in the New World sensed there was something different about the American Experiment: Something New in the New World. We (yes, we can all say “we,” despite in my own case my family’s arrival here only around 1900 – which is an exceptional aspect of being an American) we inherited English Common Law and the Teutonic Germ Theory of democracy, but on American soil, more things took root: a democratic ethos; a sense of justice; Christian principles actually put into practice.

Exceptionalism. An exceptional people, aware of their exceptional inheritance and limitless possibilities. Exceptional opportunities to correct institutional mistakes, seize the moments, and forge a new future. Exceptional men – truly, a blessed group of responsible thinkers and actors – who did exceptional things. And these men knew the risks! Previously, they had sent suggestions to England, but with the Declaration of Independence, they committed treason. They pledged their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor,”

Pay attention to the order of those words. Their priorities!

Words matter. Exceptionalism, despite being misunderstood or misapplied. Sacred honor. And, to the point of my thoughts here, words so important to the Framers: Freedom and Liberty. It struck me, during 250’s inevitable but empty parades and fireworks, that those words have become empty and abstract; misapplied and misunderstood.

Without running to a dictionary, I ask you: what is the difference between Freedom and Liberty?

We, most of us, use the words interchangeably these days. To the extent that is so, it is more than a crime against grammar; it is a crime against self-respecting principles once regarded as nearly sacred. Basically – that is to say, precisely – freedom is the ability to do what one desires to do, or think or speak. Liberty is exercising those freedoms while respecting restrictions, rules, and consequences. To violate either “right” is to invite anarchy, license, and repression. They are the type of standards, especially respecting their distinctions, that Americans should embrace and not ignore.

What does this have to do with America’s “birthday”? The same thing that finds its relevance in God’s word – as with all matters of action and integrity. The Founders and Framers, for all of today’s prattle about their “Deism” and such, knew the Bible well; they relied upon it as a blueprint for inventing a nation; and they frequently beseeched God for wisdom and guidance.

Therefore we can ask the same question in 2026 as they asked in 1776: What is the difference between Freedom and Liberty? The Founders and Framers knew the difference, and would confuse the principles to their peril. And citizens were informed too.

Today we ask ourselves the same question and, I am afraid, do not answer correctly. In our day, Americans – and Christian especially – have confused the two principles. Even the churches have come to regard Freedom as meaning the ability to do as one pleases, rather than be free from mistakes, sin, guilt. And that is a license to be corrupt. Freedom to self-destruct. American Christianity is trending toward defining freedom as liberty, and defining liberty precisely as ignoring consequences of sin, resisting God’s commands, and disobeying Christ’s teachings.

We are free to disobey God, of course. I believe He has given us free will. But defying the rules and responsibilities that are implied by Liberty, and His manifold commands, has led every time and in every land and dispensation in history, to God’s inevitable Justice.

We are to welcome God’s just treatment of our actions. “Covered in the Blood of Jesus,” we trust His provision and promises. Once upon a time we Americans respected the liberty embedded in the phrase Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But contemporary American Christianity has opted for a very loose re-interpretation of the word. Not respecting the distinctions and traditional meanings of these once inviolate words threatens the loss of life, of liberty itself, and happiness. That is happening now in America’s 250th.

And we are losing our freedoms too, as we see all around us. It is an exceptional tragedy.

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Click: O Freedom