Ramblin' Dan

Dan Roloff is the editor of TheHighCalling.org, and his blog, Ramblin’ Dan, has a little bit of everything. At times, a theologian, philosopher, comedian, publisher, sports enthusiast, and businessman, Dan offers a transparent look at the high calling of one man’s work.

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As our nation’s 233rd birthday is upon us, I wanted to ramble about one of its founding principles—liberty. Mostly this word gets reduced to a synonym—"freedom." Or it may be reduced even further to mean "being free" (i.e., without restraint).

Liberty is something more than just being free. In the political context in which it used in the Declaration of Independence, freedom means being released from arbitrary governance by another political entity, England. The separatists or Puritans left England to establish a colony where they were free from the restraint of the Church of England. Their liberty came from the elimination of religious constraint.

While exercising their religious liberty, they did not establish freedom of religion. We can just look to Roger Williams for that evidence. Williams preached religious tolerance and the right for people to pursue God in their own way, and he was exiled from the colony. Eventually, he founded a new colony based on these principles of religious liberty at Providence, Rhode Island. This colony is the birthplace of the Baptist congregation in America.

Through this principle of religious liberty grew a founding tenet of the United States of America, the separation of church and state. It grew out of an understanding of liberty that allows the individual to throw off the shackles of an oppressor to pursue God in their own way.

Religious toleration is at the heart of our country’s founding, and it is very much alive today. Despite its abuses, this tolerance makes possible a forum for dissenting voices. Fifty years ago, the voice of the atheist was crushed in the United States. Today, that voice is allowed to be heard and is openly debated in many Christian media outlets. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have a voice in our country because the overwhelmingly Christian populace allows it. That's religious liberty.

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