Yes, within a week we will celebrate the Fourth of July, or Independence Day. It was a dramatic change in the way individuals looked at being the subjects to a higher power, namely a King.

The colonies were separated from Great Britain by a wide ocean. They had become used to deciding what should be done in their own country. In many senses they had already been governing themselves, and they liked it that way. So when England decided the colonies needed to pay more in the way of taxes to support their King, they rebelled.

The founding documents of America, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should not be read in isolation from each other. They both play a major part in our history. The Declaration if surely founded on the new idea that there is a Creator, a God who created the whole World and then inhabitants, and all of His creations are endowed with certain rights which are in themselves unalienable. For that reason such rights are sacred. They cannot be tampered with or treaded upon by anyone, even a King.

The Constitution is a little less outwardly religious. However, it ends with the words : “The year of our Lord 1787″. Both documents, the Declaration and the Constitution are necessary to the beginning of our nation.

Have you read these documents lately?