Thursday; July 4
Happy Independence Day! It is common to refer to today as the Fourth of July, but that is more of way to identify the date than the purpose of the holiday. Independence Day speaks to what happened a couple of centuries ago when the colonists sought to overthrow the crown of England and live in civil and religious freedom. Independence Day has come to mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but one that is commonly referenced is freedom. The Americans sought to find ways they could experience liberty. Interestingly, this has been a common goal throughout history and just as interestingly, people have searched out various ways to achieve it. In the late 18th Century the revolutionaries defied the British and developed their own Constitution by which they could practice freedom. As I thought about this national holiday, I got to looking at religious freedom and found an interesting approach. The Apostle Paul wrote to the early Christians, “For you were called to freedom, brethren