What we celebrate in 2026 actually began, not 250 years ago, but in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
As Jamestown and eventually the 13 colonies were established, the elite in Europe considered America to be insignificant. They drove our forefathers away from their shores by refusing to tolerate their particular Christian religious practices and by perpetuating a state of political and religious convulsions.
Some of my students recently read the great author, Friedrich von Gentz. He tells how the single favor given to each of the colonies was to be left to itself in a distant wasteland. However, by 1776 this distant wasteland had become a prosperous place with living standards rivaling those of Europe.
Gentz describes the phenomenon of this unexpected greatness coming…by the peculiar, creative energy of a rapidly growing mass of enterprising and indefatigably active men, favored by an extensive, fruitful, and happily situated territory; by simple forms of government…and by profound peace…
This roused the Europeans with sudden violence. Parliament wanted jurisdiction that it never had.
You see 1776 wasn’t the beginning. At that time a godly and well educated people studied and saw what God had given them. We all love the fun story about vandalizing tea, but mostly Americans worked thoughtfully through their own civil authorities, 13 colonial governments established lawfully over almost two centuries.
1776 was a defense of what they had built for 169 years, their communities, their churches, their way of life, their colonial governments. It was a limited war breaking their feudal bonds with a king who utterly refused to carry out his lawful and binding duty to defend them against Parliament.
1776 was an important year! Let’s celebrate it as the time our American governments properly defended the blessings that had been given to us.
