The Declaration of Independence is the birth certificate of the United States of America. The principles it offers informed our history as a free people: “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.”

The liberty our forebears desired was an ordered liberty, ordered toward what is true, good and honorable. They boldly asserted that some truths are self-evident, and these include the existence of unalienable rights given by a Creator and revealed by the natural law written on all human hearts.

Even Thomas Jefferson, who was not a classical Christian and even had a fondness for the anti-Christian French Revolution, knew that liberty did not come from a civil government, but from God. He asked, in the probing question that cries out from the third panel of the memorial built in his honor: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?“

But What About Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Stirring words. But are they true anymore? How can a nation that has enshrined the killing of innocent children in the womb claim it recognizes the right to life? All the American founders would have agreed that it is wrong to kill an innocent neighbor. The child in the womb is our first neighbor.We can’t read Jefferson’s words, “God who gave us life gave us liberty” and affirm a jurisprudence which puts the police power behind the intentional taking of an unborn child’s life.

And if we don’t recognize the right to life for everyone, we can’t recognize the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The second part of Jefferson’s question cries out for an answer: Can a nation’s liberties be secure when it no longer believes that these liberties are the gift of God? They are gifts that can only be rightly exercised in obedience to the natural law. This natural law gives us the norms needed to govern ourselves.

The Supreme Court just acted against that natural moral law in Obergefell v Hodges. Marriage as the union of one man and one woman open to children and forming a family is inscribed by the Divine Architect into the order of creation. It is not something manufactured by the Christian Church. It precedes Christianity. Though affirmed, fulfilled, and elevated by Christian teaching, it is written on the human heart and discernible through the exercise of reason. Yet the court declared to be a marriage what can never be a marriage, using the phrase “equal protection” to cover an abuse of power.

Finally, there is that promise of the right to pursue happiness. How can we pursue real happiness when the rights to life and liberty have been rejected? With its decision on same-sex “marriage,” the Supreme Court has unleashed a social upheaval destructive of the common good and impeding true happiness and human flourishing. The American founders were moralists and would never separate the role of morality from the pursuit of happiness. One of the signers, John Adams, succinctly expressed the conviction. “[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.”

The Truths Haven’t Changed

We live in a time when orthodox, faithful Christians are the main supporters of the principles that Thomas Jefferson articulated in the Declaration of Independence. This is ironic given his own approach to the faith. In many ways, led by the Supreme Court, America is departed from its foundations. The question to be asked is, “What truths do we still hold?” There are competing visions of the human person, human dignity, human rights and human freedom tearing apart institutions formed in response to the Declaration.

What do we as Christians do? We have an example. Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrolton, cousin of Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore, was the only Catholic signer. At the time of his signing it was illegal for Catholics to hold public office or to vote in Maryland. The system wasn’t perfect. Yet he still pledged:“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Carroll knew the importance of the vision of liberty which that Declaration proclaimed in those three words: “We Hold These Truths.” He knew the importance of the nation as established in the Constitution. Those truths haven’t changed.

Like tens of millions of families throughout the United States of America, today my family will thank God for the privilege of living in this nation. We will pray, play and express our gratitude for a nation which still offers so much good and so such promise. The Declaration of Independence beckons to those who believe in its promise to work to restore the unique experiment in ordered liberty for future generations.

The truths and rights it affirmed cannot be taken away by civil government. Thomas Jefferson was correct: the God who gave us life gave us liberty. Our Independence requires our dependence on God if it is to flourish and endure. Along with the Declaration and the Constitution, we need a Declaration of Dependence reaffirming our reliance upon the God who is the true source of our Liberty.