United By An Idea

A brilliant excerpt from the book entitled "If You Can Keep It" by Eric Metaxas:

In 1776 a nation was formed in a way that a nation never had been formed. It was something entirely new: the nation as idea. For the first time, a nation was created that was not merely a group of ethnically or tribally similar people. Nor was it a nation composed of disparate groups held together by a strong leader. 

Until the advent of the United States of America, these were the two groups into which nations must fall. There was no other option or category. . . The country born in 1776, however, fit neither of these categories, standing quite apart in the history of nations and peoples. But what was it exactly -- and where had it come from? It was a nation held together by an idea and by citizens who bought into that idea. 

They were of different backgrounds and different religions. Some of them lived in Main and others in Virginia and others in Georgia--and others in all the colonies in between. But they all were Americans because they voluntarily believed in that idea. That a nation could be held together by people believing in an idea was unprecedented, as I have said. It had never happened before and has really never happened again. It was nothing more and nothing less than this singular idea that held America and Americans together, and the idea in which they believed was, in a word, liberty.

The United States of America was founded on the idea of liberty. The idea of self-government. The idea that each individual would be able to govern their own lives. With the blessing of liberty comes great responsibility. Self government means that each individual is accountable for their own actions, for better or for worse. There is something divine about the idea of governing oneself. Something eternal.

In 2 Nephi 2:27 we read:

Men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.

The idea of self-government doesn't belong to the founders, but it does belong to God. It was by divine design and the guiding hand of providence that The United States of America would be based on this idea.

In 1776, America was founded upon divine principles. Founded upon ideas that bound a generation together. This leads us to the question that we must ask:

 "If this country was founded upon an idea, can it survive if those living here no longer agree with, or even remember that idea?"