069 | Four Ideas for the Fourth of July

Hey fellow dads,

Happy Fourth of July! As your family celebrates America’s birthday, have you thought about the ideas that formed the foundation for our nation and the first Independence Day? Join us today as we talk about a book that reveals the largely unknown true history of America’s independence and discuss how to teach our children a Christian patriotism.

—Nathan

Scriptures

📖 Proverbs 22:4 By humility [and] the fear of the LORD [are] riches, and honour, and life.

📖 Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin [is] a reproach to any people.

📖 Psalm 33:12 Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD; [and] the people [whom] he hath chosen for his own inheritance.

📖 2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Book

📚 The Patriot’s Reference: Documents, Speeches, and Sermons that Compose the American Soul, Edited by Joel J. Miller and Kristen Parrish, published by Thomas Nelson.

Not mentioned in podcast, but also helpful:

📚 The Revolution Myth by Glen Chambers and Gene Fisher. Out of print, but available from some used book sources.

John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775

We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.—The latter is our choice.—We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.—Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

Our cause is just. Our Union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable.—We gratefully acknowledge as signal instances of the Divine favor towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operations, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.

Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored.—Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent States. We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked armies, without any imputation, or even suspicion of offence. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.

In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it— for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall' be removed, and not before,

With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe, we most devoutly implore his Divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war.

As quoted by Thaddeus Allen, in An Inquiry into the Views, Services, Principles and Influences of the Leading Men in the Origination of Our Union and the Formation and Administration of our Early Government, vol. 1 (Boston: Saxton & Kelt, 1847).

Four simple, practical ideas to teach our children about the 4th of July:

1. Tell them the stories of America’s past, with the words of the founders