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Page 1 of 2 In American Leadership and the World we will learn that the gift of liberty has been given by God for a reason. The purpose of freedom is to live for others and to commit acts of altruism. America’s mission to the world is to promote freedom through actions: serving the world through the example of love. In this way, the good news that all are created equal and possess the value of the children of God will spread to the whole world; from every mountainside, freedom will ring.
 There are two basic perspectives regarding America’s role in the world: Some view America's responsibility as pertaining exclusively to its own needs and should not be extended to include the affairs of other nations. On the other hand, there are those who insist that isolationist policies are increasingly harder to maintain in a world that is rapidly shrinking.
America must engage the world, but in what manner? Even more important, what "America" do we wish to share with the world and what should be our motive?
In this presentation, we would like to identify three important areas where America can contribute the most to benefit the world:
- To share the spiritual principles of liberty.
- To share the fruits of America's blessings.
- To stand as a model of “One Family Under God.”
1. To share the spiritual principles of liberty
As we mentioned in our first presentation, America is giving the world mixed signals about the meaning of freedom. On the one hand, America continues to be a hope for the ideal of freedom, the longing of which resides in every heart. On the other hand, our exercise of freedom in America conveys the impression that freedom entails acceptance of a degree of moral corruption.
If America's mission to the world is to share "freedom and democracy," we must, first, be clear ourselves about what it is that we mean by the term "freedom." What type of freedom is it that America seeks to share with the world?
It would be interesting for Jay Leno in his "Jaywalking" segments, to pose that question to average Americans: define freedom. It would not surprise if a variety of vague answers ensued and that, basically, those answers would resonant with the idea that freedom merely means to do as I please.
 It should concern us, because as the adage says: "freedom isn't free." Nor can freedom be entirely paid for by others and then bequeathed to those who will then enjoy it's benefit. Each recipient of freedom must be actively involved in the maintenance of freedom. Freedom does not trickle down, it is not a gift from government or a king. The task of maintaining freedom requires more than merely standing at attention during the playing of the national anthem. It requires a deep understanding of the nature of freedom and the responsibilities required to sustain it.
A good place to start would be to examine the founder’s perspectives about freedom or liberty. The unique way Americans viewed their liberty made a deep impression on Alexis de Tocqueville. He observed that the American understanding of liberty was deeply intertwined with religion, distinct from how the French thought about liberty. In his view, this was one of the elements that made America unique. After his return from his 1835 journey to the United States, he commented:
“The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.”
De Tocqueville was referring to the uniquely American sentiment that saw freedom as a gift, a blessing from God. It is secured by law, by the function of government, but it is not attributed to government. It comes from God.
Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, described liberty in this way; as an endowment from God, an inalienable right to humanity. Our Constitution, whose Preamble also referred to liberty as a "blessing," enumerated carefully not only those endowed rights but also the essential limits upon government in order to safeguard our divinely bequeathed liberty:
“We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”
 Thomas Jefferson, understood clearly that liberty could only endure as to the degree that people remained convinced that liberty was the benevolent gift of a loving God:
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
Jefferson is implying, not only need we be grateful to God for this gift, but that maintaining freedom requires adherence to principles that, if violated, will incur the benefactor's wrath. Freedom is enjoyed at God's consent. We must adhere to the principles set forth by the Creator; if not, freedom will be lost.
James Madison recognized that membership in a free, civil society presupposes the recognition of and acquiescence to the laws of the Governor of the Universe. In other words, freedom isn’t “free,” freedom is conditional upon the exercise of the personal virtue prescribed by religious faith.
“Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.”
Even the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, reflecting on the failures of Greek democracy, argued that the state needed to promote virtue. To succeed it needed its citizens to exercise the more hierarchical virtues of self-control and duty. For this reason, too, John Adams cited the Constitution as only functional for a "religious and moral" people because virtue flowed from religion.
 This convergence of "liberty and religion", observed by de Tocqueville, existed because, largely, the founders were deriving their understanding of liberty from the same religious source, the Bible. In fact "liberty" is a King James Bible term:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. II Corinthians 3:17
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Galatians 5:13
The reason the Americans, observed by de Tocqueville, spoke of God and liberty as, virtually, one and the same is because "where the Spirit of the Lord is, THERE IS LIBERTY." Thus, where there is to be liberty, by definition, there must be, also, the presence of God. In fact, Abraham Lincoln had asserted that God had planted the love of liberty within us:
“What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms."
Thus, you cannot have one without the other. To attempt to do so, by definition, leads to tyranny. In that God placed this “love of liberty” in our hearts, we could conclude that the ultimate purpose of liberty, of freedom, is to be able to encounter God and to be able to encounter my neighbor with love. In other words, freedom is the necessary oil for the operation of "the two great commandments." and the two great commandments are the foundation of the Ten, and the Ten Commandments stand at the foundation of the nation.
 The founders were students of the Biblical record. They observed the manner in which God exercised His governing power. He did not rule as a totalitarian. Instead, God shares power and the role of governing with those He seeks to rule. Rather then ruling over creatures, God sought to engage Adam and Eve within a governing partnership. They would play an integral role by governing themselves. In Eden, the commandment not to "eat the fruit" is the instrument, the law by which they would be governed. Adam and Eve, not God, were to apply this law to their own behavior. Freedom, for them, would only manifests to the degree they could fulfill the task to govern themselves.
This was the first recorded instance of the exercise of the principle of human freedom and it was what would distinguish humanity from all other creatures. Whether the Genesis story is fact or myth, a free society requires a moral populace willing to take up the personal responsibility of self-regulation.
 The founder's embraced the idea of social contract, put forth by John Locke, that stressed government needed the consent of the people in order to govern legitimately. They added to that a Biblical perspective in recognizing that the people needed the consent of God to be a member of civil society, in effect maintaining a higher social contract, or covenant with God.
That perspective was drawn from the Biblical record of God's "contract" with the nation of Israel. For them, freedom was conditional to the extent the people could maintain God’s consent. Israel was to be blessed or not blessed contingent upon faith in the law or lack thereof.
This principle, citing liberty as contingent upon a code of self-regulation, is affirmed by Edmund Burke:
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.” Edmund Burke
Samuel Adams, likewise, links public virtue with the destiny of the nation. Like Israel, America will prevail as a nation if it maintains its virtue, that is, maintains it's faith in the "laws, commandments and decrees" of God.
"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader ... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.” Samuel Adams
 Today, Father Richard John Neuhaus gives us warning. A “high and inpregnable wall” is imposed between not just “church” and “state” but between spiritual principles and public virtue.
"Secularists have used laws that were supposed to separate Church and State to further their own atheistic ideas." Father Richard John Neuhaus.
Attempts to achieve freedom without God as its spiritual basis, eventually leads to political tyranny. President Harry Truman warns us about the loss of morality and the subsequent rise of the all pervasive State:
"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state."
Tyranny of the totalitarian State was always the result when “freedom” was attempted, but without a spiritual foundation. The theories of Marx and Engels, who declared religion to be the "opiate" of the people opened the path for the tyranny of Lenin, Stalin, the Soviet system, Kim Il Sung, Castro and Pol Pot; all within one generation.
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