Are we in danger of losing the liberty and freedom that made America great to begin with?
According to Eric Metaxas, without virtue and morality, there can be no America.
“If they saw that virtue was at the center of the success of this republic, if they saw virtue and faith as the key to self-government then how we can say that well we’ve moved past that, you cannot move past that. One plus one equals two, you can’t change it. They all understood that without virtue, you cannot have true self-government and true liberty. These are the basics.”
The founders wanted America to be a country that governed itself. However, in order to be self-governing we also must have self-control.
“Why for the first time in history did the founders think that a group of people could govern themselves? What made it possible for us to do that in 1776? Well, the founders said that what makes it possible, among other things, but at the core is virtue.”
In order for a self-governing group to be successful there must be personal virtue.
“If you’re a good person and you know I want to do what is right, you say I’m not going to not steal because the government has a gun on me. I’m not going to steal because it’s wrong and I want to glorify God with my life, I want to be a good person.”
Self-government does not exist when virtue is nonexistent.
“The founders understood that when you have a population of people basically on that page, they can govern themselves, if they have the right government to help them do that they are prepared to govern themselves, they are prepared to be free.”
When we live by Biblical faith and virtue, we have the ability to govern ourselves and remain free.
“It was clear as a bell to them that you cannot have American liberty without virtue and you cannot have any virtue without people of faith, virtue doesn’t arise, it has to have some kind of faith at least most of the time.”
In order to have genuine faith, there must be genuine freedom as well.
“You can’t have faith without freedom because real faith is not coerced, so if the government says that you’ve got to go to that church, or you can’t go to that church, when the government is coercing your beliefs they are not free, real, or true.”
