A few days ago, I was in a secular small-group setting in which the leader made a gun-rights argument. He mentioned our “unalienable rights,” and kind of combined the Second Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. He said our unalienable rights, including our right to own guns, are “endowed by our Creator.”
I let him go a bit more. I’d heard all of this before. But I eventually felt compelled to speak.
“I understand what you’re saying, but there’s a lot of questionable theology in that,” I said. “In my view, those rights were endowed by political leaders who wrote them into our founding documents, and they became law. I can’t make a theological argument for gun rights coming from God. I won’t even argue that the Bible says God gave us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“But it’s in the Declaration of Independence,” he said.
“Then,” I responded, “it’s a matter of whether or not I agree with Thomas Jefferson’s theological interpretation. He wrote those words, not God. Besides, the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing. Not like the Constitution.”
He responded (and I’m recreating a discussion), “If those rights came from the government, then the government can take them away. But if they came from God, they can’t be taken away.”
That is central to Second Amendment arguments. But it misuses God. Go ahead, build your argument for the Second Amendment. But don’t pull God into it.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution are incredible documents. But at their most basic, they were written by committees of politicians with an agenda. The Declaration should more accurately have said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the concept of Natural Law with certain unalienable Rights….”
I’ll always be uncomfortable with a committee of politicians making pronouncements about my faith.
