{"id":72659,"date":"2024-03-12T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=72659"},"modified":"2024-03-08T15:56:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T20:56:04","slug":"shock-at-the-belief-that-rights-come-from-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/03\/shock-at-the-belief-that-rights-come-from-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Shock at the Belief that Rights Come from God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

Yesterday we blogged about France making abortion a constitutional right.\u00a0 Speaking of rights, an American journalist helps us to understand what has happened in France\u2013not by analysis but by revealing her ignorance.<\/p>\n

Politico<\/em> reporter Heidi Przybyla appeared on MSNBC to discuss Christian nationalism, that bogeyman that the Left is using to alarm its donors.\u00a0 She said this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that unites them as Christian nationalists \u2014 not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different \u2014 is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don\u2019t come from any earthly authority. They don\u2019t come from Congress, they don\u2019t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Isn\u2019t that shocking?\u00a0 Can you imagine that these \u201cextremists,\u201d as she calls them, would believe such a thing?<\/div>\n

Well, as social media and various Christian organizations were quick to inform her, that is what our Declaration of Independence<\/a>, says in so many words:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that\u00a0all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are\u00a0Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This document with this preamble was not just composed by Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, it was adopted unanimously by the Continental Congress and signed by 56 of our nation\u2019s founders, who held to a wide range of theologies and beliefs.<\/p>\n

Przybyla distinguishes between Christian nationalists who believe this and other Christians, positively citing the \u201cnatural law\u201d emphasized by Catholics, saying that it has helped promote the cause of social justice.\u00a0 She says,<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now you have an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage, and it\u2019s going much further than that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So this is another howler, the notion that natural law doesn\u2019t address abortion and gay marriage!\u00a0 And that God-given rights and natural rights are two different things.\u00a0 The Declaration of Independence itself<\/a> brings them together when later it invokes \u201cthe Laws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God.\u201d<\/p>\n

But note the movement from the notion of rights as given by God to the notion of rights as given by government.\u00a0 God-given rights transcend human governments, not only establishing limits and direction for them but giving a framework by which they can be criticized if those governments violate those rights.\u00a0 Those transcendent rights are \u201cunalienable,\u201d to again use the Declaration\u2019s words, meaning they can\u2019t be taken away.\u00a0 If rights are only bestowed by the government, they are alienable and can indeed be taken away.\u00a0 They can be anything the government chooses to favor, but they aren\u2019t \u201cover\u201d the government, which can hardly be held to account for violating them.<\/p>\n

There can be no right to an abortion by any God-given right.\u00a0 In the Declaration\u2019s terms, it violates the right to \u201cLife,\u201d as well as the unborn child\u2019s right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0 Nor can there be a natural right to abortion, since life is fundamental to human existence.\u00a0 But France, thinking like Heidi Przybyla, can declare it a right, defying both God and nature.<\/p>\n

The reporter\u2019s confusion and the French presumption illustrate something else as well.\u00a0 The Declaration says that the truths of God-given rights are \u201cself-evident.\u201d\u00a0 Well, they are not self-evident any more.\u00a0 In fact, an increasing number of people don\u2019t believe in these truths at all.\u00a0 The question is, can our free Republic, built on this foundation, survive without it?\u00a0 Or will it all crumble, to be replaced by a new form of absolutist, unlimited, all-controlling monarchy?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Illustration:\u00a0 The Declaration of Independence <\/a>by J4P4N via Open Clipart, Public Domain.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A journalist was shocked to find that “Christian nationalists” believe that rights come from God and not from government. Never mind that the notion of God-given rights constitute the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence. The difference between those and rights bestowed by the government (as in France declaring that abortion is a constitutional right).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":72662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,15,19,26,27,33,35,36],"tags":[648,14453,14456,1055,1542,8832],"class_list":["post-72659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-culture","category-ethics","category-government","category-law","category-life-issues","category-nature","category-philosophy-2","category-politics","tag-declaration-of-independence","tag-god-given-rights","tag-government-bestowed-rights","tag-human-rights","tag-natural-law","tag-natural-rights"],"yoast_head":"\nShock at the Belief that Rights Come from God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A journalist was shocked to find that "Christian nationalists" believe that rights come from God and not from government. 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