Memorial Day & The Church
MEMORIAL DAY & THE CHURCH
I came across a magazine article this morning with a curated list of activities for families to do on Memorial Day Weekend. It included things like camping, parades, visiting small towns, decorating, lawn games, berry picking, backyard barbecues, patriotic cupcakes, etc.
I had two thoughts as I perused these celebratory suggestions.
As Americans, we enjoy a level of freedom in this country that is wildly unique in the history of humanity, and it demands to be celebrated! We know that our freedom wasn’t free. Hundreds of thousands of men and women paid the ultimate price to purchase it. One of the ways we honor their sacrifice is by celebrating to the best of our ability every Memorial Day.
So, go pitch your tent, grill your burgers, pick your berries, and hit your croquet ball! This smile of freedom honors their sacrifice.
Even as a child, it always felt strange to see this “one nation under God” attempting to honor its fallen heroes by neglecting one of the fundamental freedoms for which they died. Don’t get me wrong, I love backyard barbeques, but that isn’t why our fields flow with blood.
Stranger still is when the church follows suit. When Christians trade the church gathering for camping, cookouts, cupcakes, and cornhole, we herald the message that our freedom to worship is not of supreme importance to us.
What motivated the early Pilgrims to leave everything behind in search of the “New World”? Worship. They were seeking religious freedom that would allow them to worship God according to the truths of His Word.
Yes, it’s more complicated than that (history always is).
And yes, they unquestionably made many mistakes along the way.
The point here is simply to highlight their fundamental motivation: they were pursuing a land where the Word of God (as opposed to the word of the king) had authority over the church. They believed that following God’s Word was more important than life itself.
We see this DNA of religious freedom everywhere in our founding documents...
The DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE begins by claiming the “unalienable rights” that come from our Creator God.
Likewise, the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION was uniquely crafted for a nation that prioritizes religious freedom. John Adams went so far as to say that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
This language permeates even the Constitutions of the individual states. For example, listen to the Constitution of Vermont:
On a more personal level, Minnesota’s Constitution (the state in which I live) says that the government shall never infringe on “the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience” (Article 1, Section 16).
Of all the freedoms that we enjoy in this country (and there are many!), I am especially thankful for the freedom to gather with my church family this weekend. To worship King Jesus with my Christian brothers and sisters without fear of government infringement or interference. Truly, I can think of no greater way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen heroes and to celebrate the freedom they purchased with their blood.
I had two thoughts as I perused these celebratory suggestions.
1. My first thought was that my family will probably be able to cross everything off this list before the weekend is over!
As Americans, we enjoy a level of freedom in this country that is wildly unique in the history of humanity, and it demands to be celebrated! We know that our freedom wasn’t free. Hundreds of thousands of men and women paid the ultimate price to purchase it. One of the ways we honor their sacrifice is by celebrating to the best of our ability every Memorial Day.
So, go pitch your tent, grill your burgers, pick your berries, and hit your croquet ball! This smile of freedom honors their sacrifice.
2. My second thought was that this article is woefully incomplete. In his detailed list of celebratory suggestions, the author said nothing about gathering with the local church for worship.
Even as a child, it always felt strange to see this “one nation under God” attempting to honor its fallen heroes by neglecting one of the fundamental freedoms for which they died. Don’t get me wrong, I love backyard barbeques, but that isn’t why our fields flow with blood.
Stranger still is when the church follows suit. When Christians trade the church gathering for camping, cookouts, cupcakes, and cornhole, we herald the message that our freedom to worship is not of supreme importance to us.
What motivated the early Pilgrims to leave everything behind in search of the “New World”? Worship. They were seeking religious freedom that would allow them to worship God according to the truths of His Word.
Yes, it’s more complicated than that (history always is).
And yes, they unquestionably made many mistakes along the way.
The point here is simply to highlight their fundamental motivation: they were pursuing a land where the Word of God (as opposed to the word of the king) had authority over the church. They believed that following God’s Word was more important than life itself.
We see this DNA of religious freedom everywhere in our founding documents...
The DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE begins by claiming the “unalienable rights” that come from our Creator God.
Likewise, the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION was uniquely crafted for a nation that prioritizes religious freedom. John Adams went so far as to say that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
This language permeates even the Constitutions of the individual states. For example, listen to the Constitution of Vermont:
“All persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God” (Chapter 1, Article 3).
On a more personal level, Minnesota’s Constitution (the state in which I live) says that the government shall never infringe on “the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience” (Article 1, Section 16).
Of all the freedoms that we enjoy in this country (and there are many!), I am especially thankful for the freedom to gather with my church family this weekend. To worship King Jesus with my Christian brothers and sisters without fear of government infringement or interference. Truly, I can think of no greater way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen heroes and to celebrate the freedom they purchased with their blood.
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